Episcopal Church Installs Presiding Bishop
Diocesan Press Service. June 11, 1974 [74170]
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Right Reverend John Maury Allin was formally installed on June 11 as the 23rd Presiding Bishop of the 3.2 million member Episcopal Church during a celebration attended by 3,000 persons in Washington Cathedral.
Bishop Allin, 53, a native of Helena, Ark., served as a bishop in the Diocese of Mississippi since 1961, first as coadjutor and since 1966 as diocesan. He was elected Presiding Bishop last October in Louisville, Ky., for a 12-year term by the House of Bishops and confirmed after lengthy debate by the House of Deputies in closed session.
About 700 persons -- clergy and laity -- took part in the procession, which included the primates or representatives of the major Christian communions -- Anglican, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant.
Among the distinguished church leaders present were Leo-Josef Cardinal Suenens of Malines-Brussels, Belgium, and Bishop Gerald Alexander Ellison, Lord Bishop of London, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury.
A 500-member delegation from Mississippi, including both ecclesiastical and political leaders, led the procession into the cathedral. The Mississippi group included Bishop Allin's recently installed successor, Bishop Duncan M. Gray, Jr.; Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph B. Brunini of Natchez-Jackson; the Rev. Edward Wilson, president of the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference; Gov. William Waller; Sen. John C. Stennis; Congressmen G. V. Montgomery and Thad Cochran; and Mayor Russell Davis of Jackson.
Bishop Allin was welcomed to the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul -- the official name of the Washington Cathedral -- by Dean Francis B. Sayre, Jr., and he was installed into his office by Bishop William F. Creighton of Washington. The cathedral has been the official seat of the Presiding Bishop since 1941.
Participating in the examination and oath were Bishop Allin's immediate predecessor, Bishop John E. Hines, and Dr. John B. Coburn, rector of St. James' Church, New York City, and president of the House of Deputies of General Convention.
Instruments and symbols of the Presiding Bishop's ministry and authority were presented to Bishop Allin as "the celebration of a new ministry." The Common Bible was presented to him by representatives of the church catholic: The Rev. Robert G. Stephanopoulos, ecumenical officer, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America; the Rev. Paul Crow, Jr., general secretary of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), an effort to unite nine major U.S. churches; and the Rev. John F. Hotchkin, executive director, Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Other symbols presented to Bishop Allin included the Book of Common Prayer, vestments, a vial of balsam, water, bread and wine.
The congregation burst into applause and shouts as the new presiding bishop received the primatial staff, symbol of his office, from recently retired Presiding Bishop Hines, with the words, "Be among us as a servant and soldier of the Cross of Christ."
The Scripture lessons were read by Roman Catholic Archbishop William W. Baum of Washington, and Mrs. Clarie Collins Harvey, a black United Methodist from Mississippi, and national president of Church Women United.
The installation celebration began the evening before, June 10, with the Holy Eucharist, concelebrated by Bishop Allin, Bishop Creighton, and Suffragan Bishop John T. Walker of Washington.
The sermon at the eucharist was preached by Dr. Coburn, on the theme of Christ the Good Shepherd. The Presiding Bishop, he said, is the leader who "serves the people." Such a leader, he said, "sees his office and therefore himself as dedicated -- that is, given to his people. He exists for them, to serve them."
"No true leader," Dr. Coburn said, "can ask his people to go where he will not lead. " On the other hand, he pointed out, "the people cannot ask their leader to go where they will not follow. "
What we ask the new Presiding Bishop, he concluded, "is what we ask of our- solves -- that we may together go where the Good Shepherd of the sheep calls us -- to serve the world by taking the moral lead in meeting human needs, so that all men may know there is one flock, one shepherd who guides us all to the springs of living water, to himself. "
In his inaugural sermon, Bishop Allin issued a "call to the church from this hour, at this place," to "examine our relationships " -- in the light of Christ's love, prayerfully, faithfully, lovingly, repentantly, internally, ecumenically, externally.
Bishop Allin said of his sermon that "perhaps it is my only speech. " He said that he understands religion in terms of "relationship," and it is "within the relationships in this life " that he finds God. "Religion is relationship," he said, "and in my relationships I find religion. "
"Sin, " he said, " is that which interrupts, destroys relationship. "
He is convinced, he said, that God "will lead us into righteous relationships where- in we can find justice and love and peace. "
Bishop Allin called on the church to "accept the ministry that Christ offers to us," which means "that as we would be reconciled in Him, we may be reconciled to the other; that we may find reconciliation by seeking to reconcile and to be reconciled, to forgive and he forgiven, to love as we are loved. "
Bishop Allin concluded rather than opened his sermon with a Biblical text. He chose the familiar words in St. Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 18: " All things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. "