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Trinity Elects First Black Churchwarden

Episcopal News Service. May 19, 1976 [76174]

NEW YORK, N. Y. -- Trinity Parish has selected as one of its new Churchwardens Dr. Charles R. Lawrence, a nationally known lay leader of the Episcopal Church, and the first black to hold the top lay position in the historic, 279-year-old parish.

The other Churchwarden is an international attorney, Steward R. Bross, Jr., who has been a member of Trinity Church since 1958 and actively involved in its mission and ministry.

Dr. Lawrence has been a deputy to all General Conventions of the Episcopal Church since 1967 and will serve again in September in Minnesota. In 1973, he was chairman of the House of Deputies Special Committee on Ordination of Women to the Priesthood and Episcopate.

Dr. Lawrence has been a member of the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations since 1968. He is co-chairman, with Bishop Paul Moore, Jr., of the Executive Council's Special Advisory Committee on Church in Society.

His lay leadership in the Diocese of New York was recognized in 1963 when he was awarded the Bishop's Cross for Distinguished Lay Service. He has been on the Diocesan Council and has twice been Senior Warden of his home parish, St. Paul's, Spring Valley.

Mr. Bross is a partner of the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore representing clients who have international interests in the United States and abroad.

He has served on a number of advisory committees to the Department of Commerce.

On Trinity's Vestry, Mr. Bross has been chairman of the Legal Committee, Clerk of the Vestry, and has taken an active role in helping Trinity's Chapels exercise selfdetermination in voting for independence.