Harold Louis Wright Explained

Type:Bishop
Honorific-Prefix:The Right Reverend
Harold Louis Wright Jr.
Honorific-Suffix:S.T.D.
Church:Episcopal Church
Diocese:New York
Elected:1973
Term:1974–1978
Successor:Walter Dennis
Ordination:1957
Ordained By:Jonathan G. Sherman
Consecration:February 2, 1974
Birth Date:1929
Birth Place:Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Death Date:June 11, 1978 (aged 48)
Death Place:New York City, New York, United States
Buried:Holy Cross Monastery (West Park, New York)
Religion:Anglican
Spouse:Edith Yancey
Children:4

Harold Louis Wright Jr. (1929 – June 11, 1978) was an American prelate who served as the Suffragan Bishop of New York from 1974 until 1978.

Biography

Wright was born in 1929 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was educated at the Boston public schools and later at the New England Conservatory of Music. He also studied at Boston University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. He enrolled for theological studies at the General Theological Seminary from where he earned his Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1952.[1]

Wright was ordained deacon and priest in 1957 by Bishop Jonathan G. Sherman, Suffragan of Long Island. He then became vicar and then rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Queens, New York City. Between 1970 and 1974 he served as assistant to the Bishop of New York for Ministries.[2]

In 1973, Wright was elected Suffragan Bishop of New York and was consecrated on February 2, 1974, in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine by Bishop Paul Moore Jr. of New York, and assisted by John Burgess of Massachusetts, Horace W. B. Donegan the former Bishop of New York, Quintin E. Primo Jr. the Suffragan of Chicago, John T. Walker the Suffragan of Washington, and Richard Beamon Martin the Suffragan of Long Island.[3] Bishop Wright died a few years later, on June 11, 1978, in Queens Hospital Center after a heart attack.[4]

Notes and References

  1. Burgess, J. M. (1982). Black Gospel/white Church, p. 105. Seabury Press. .
  2. 9 July 1978 . Bishop Wright of New York Dies. . 177. 5.
  3. Johnson, R. "Episcopal Diocese Gets First Black Bishop", The New York Times, New York, 3 February 1974. Retrieved on 1 May 2020.
  4. Johnson, R. "Bishop Harold L. Wright, 46, Dies; Episcopal Suffragan in New York", The New York Times, New York, 12 June 1978. Retrieved on 1 May 2020.