From the Dean: Requiescat in Pace, Jeffery Rowthorn

Bishop Jeffrey Rowthorn DD ‘87, a former faculty member, bishop serving in Connecticut, and friend of the School, has died.

Bishop Jeffrey was holder of Berkeley’s Goddard Chair in Anglican Studies as a member of the YDS and ISM faculty for fourteen years, having been one of the continuing faculty of the former School of Sacred Music at Union Theological Seminary who came to Yale to establish the ISM in 1973.

Born in Wales, he studied at Oxford and Cambridge as well as Union Theological Seminary. He served in the Diocese of Southwark in London before returning to Union to teach in 1968, before the move to Yale.

He was elected suffragan bishop of Connecticut in 1987 – in which year Berkeley conferred on him a doctorate of divinity - and then bishop of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe from 1994. After retirement in 2001 he continued, along with his wife Anne (d. 2023), to write and teach in many different settings with particular contributions in hymnody and eco-theology.

Bishop Jeffrey is remembered often at Berkeley, not least when we sing the School hymn “Come Holy Spirit, By Whose Grace” whose text he wrote; he also wrote, at the request of BDS students, the well-known “Lord, You Give the Great Commission.” 

We pray in the words of the School hymn that he, with Anne, are now “where love and mercy stand revealed, and all life’s griefs and pains are healed.” Our prayers go to his children Virginia, Perry, and Chris at this time.

 

Sincerely,

Andrew.

We will update this notice with service information as it can be shared.