J. Robert Wright

John Robert Wright (October 20, 1936 – January 12, 2022) was an American Episcopal priest and St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery professor at General Theological Seminary and a church historian.{{Cite web|title=General Seminary obituary|url=https://www.gts.edu/latest-news/in-memoriam-the-rev-canon-dr-j-robert-wright-1936-2022}} Wright was Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He was a specialist in patristic studies and an authority on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and on Russian Orthodox and other icons. He was the longest-tenured faculty member at the General Theological Seminary.

Wright was known for his engagement in ecumenical dialogues between the US Episcopal Church and other churches, particularly the Roman Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, and Russian Orthodox, as well as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Old Catholics, and the Philippine Independent Church. He was the principal Episcopal author of the Called to Common Mission accord with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.{{Cite web|title=Called to Common Mission|url=https://wordandworld.luthersem.edu/content/pdfs/19-2_Isaiah/19-2_Face_to_Face.pdf}}

Early life and education

Wright was born on October 20, 1936. He did his undergraduate work at the University of the South in Sewanee and also studied at Oxford University and the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto.

Career

Wright wrote a history of St. Thomas Church in New York City as well as a history of the church and the English crown in the 14th century, based on his research into the records of Archbishop Walter Reynolds.{{Cite book|title=Google books|year = 1980|isbn = 9780888440488|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5QfJpLxT1SkC| last1=Wright | first1=John Robert }} In 2008, he published a commentary on the Ecclesiastical History by the Venerable Bede.{{Cite book|title=A Companion to Bede|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p5uOeAoHauEC|date = August 15, 2008|publisher = Wm. B. Eerdmans|isbn = 9780802863096}}

Wright was the president of the former US Anglican Society and the chaplain, in perpetuity, of the Guild of Scholars of The Episcopal Church. He was the immediate past Historiographer of the Episcopal Church in the US and a member of the advisory board of Project Canterbury. In 2007, he was awarded the Archbishop of Canterbury's Cross of St Augustine for his scholarly contribution to ecumenical dialogue. In 2010, a group of his students presented a prayer book owned by William Reed Huntington to the General Theological Seminary in Wright's honor.

In 2010, as the result of a letter he published in the New York Times, Wright made a lecture tour in Kosovo as the guest of the American University there.{{Cite news|title=The New York Times|date=August 4, 2010|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/opinion/lweb04kosovo.html|access-date=January 14, 2022}} As of July 2012, he was completing a study of the (Anglican) Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion with the assistance of his student Daniel Fowler, and his major essay on The Book of Common Prayer was published in the 2013 Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Anglican Communion.

Death

Wright was hospitalized with pneumonia derived from COVID-19 in late 2021, but was released. He died in his New York City home on January 12, 2022, at the age of 85.{{cite news |title=In Memoriam: The Rev. Canon Dr. J. Robert Wright, '63 (1936–2022) |url=https://www.gts.edu/latest-news/in-memoriam-the-rev-canon-dr-j-robert-wright-1936-2022 |access-date=January 13, 2022 |publisher=The General Theological Seminary |date=January 13, 2022}}

Honors

A festschrift in his honor, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism: Studies in Christian Ecclesiality and Ecumenism in honor of J. Robert Wright, edited by Marsha L. Dutton and Patrick Terrell Gray, copyedited by Richard Mammana, was published in 2006 by Eerdmans on the occasion of Wright's 70th birthday.{{Cite book|title=One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism|url=https://ecumenism.net/booklist?b=135}}

References

External links

[http://anglicanhistory.org/essays/wright/index.html J. Robert Wright] Project Canterbury
[https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2022/01/20/rip-j-robert-wright-church-historian-ecumenist-dies-at-85/ J. Robert Wright, church historian, ecumenist, dies at 85]

Category:1936 births

Category:2022 deaths

Category:21st-century American historians

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:American Episcopal priests

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:General Theological Seminary faculty

Category:Recipients of the Cross of St Augustine

Category:Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in New York (state)