This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

TUCKER, HENRY ST. GEORGE 307work among the civilian refugees. By 1923 one of his principal objectives hadbeen achieved when independent, Japanese-led dioceses were established inOsaka and Tokyo. Wanting to provide an opportunity for a Japanese bishop inKyoto, Tucker resigned his bishopric at that time. He left his diocese confidentof its ability to support a Japanese bishop and proud of the large body of Japanesepriests he had trained to carry on the work there. Returning to the United States,he became a professor of pastoral theology at Virginia Seminary, where he hopedto share with students his enthusiasm for missionary work.Tucker’s teaching career was interrupted in 1926 when he was elected bishopcoadjutor of Virginia. The following year, he succeeded William Cabell Brownas diocesan and was also elected to the denomination’s National Council, whichlooked to him for advice on missions in Asia. In 1937 he was chosen to succeedJames DeWolf Perry as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.. The House ofBishops made this decision partly because of Tucker’s range of experience butlargely because of his appealing personal qualities. Although he was an evangelical,he nonetheless displayed an ability to transcend party differences and workeffectively with all groups within his denomination. Tucker was especially interestedin promoting missionary work and ecumenism, and a major achievementof his presiding episcopate was the development of the church’s Reconstructionand Advance Fund. When the pressure of his duties prompted him to resign asbishop of Virginia in 1944, he became the first full-time presiding bishop in thehistory of the Episcopal Church.In 1942 Tucker was elected president of the Federal Council of Churches.While holding that office, he spoke out forcefully against Hitler’s murderousassault on European Jews and called for efforts to aid Jewish refugees. He andhis administrative team also dealt with such domestic issues as race relations, theeffects of the Depression and war on the churches, and the challenges posed bya rapidly changing postwar society. He cared deeply for the less fortunate membersof society and was a champion of social justice, encouraging people to showloyalty not just to their family or nation but also to the universal community.Appropriately, one of Tucker’s last public acts was testifying in 1952 before acommittee of the Virginia legislature in favor of a bill to abolish racially segregatedseating in public transportation.He retired as presiding bishop at the end of 1946, and he died in Richmond,Virginia, in August 1959.BibliographyA. Papers at the archives of the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria; Providenceand the Atonement (Richmond, Va., 1934); The History of the Episcopal Churchin Japan (New York, 1938); Exploring the Silent Shore of Memory (Richmond,1951).B. ANB 21, 895–96; DAB supp. 6, 648–49; DCA, 1189; EDC, 529; ERS, 786; NCAB 43,598–99; Religious Leaders of America, ed. J. Gordon Melton (Detroit, 1991), 970–71; WWWA 3, 864; NYT, 9 August 1959; Newsweek, 12 August 1946, 88; CharlesW. Sheerin, “Profile of a Presiding Bishop,” HMPEC 15 (1946): 81–89; Virginius