In Celebration and Thanksgiving for the Life of Walter Dennis
August 23, 1932 – March 30, 2003

The Rt. Rev. Walter Decoster Dennis, retired Suffragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, died Sunday, March 30 in Hampton Virginia after a long illness. He was 70 years old.

Priest and lawyer, well-known and well-loved, Dennis served as Suffragan Bishop for 19 years, from 1979 to 1998. He was the second African American bishop to serve the 200+-year-old Episcopal Diocese of New York.

He will be remembered for his pastoral nature and warm manner. He will also be remembered as a trailblazer, mostly in race relations and legal issues. Bishop Dennis was deeply committed to civil rights, with a lifelong commitment to justice and peace, evidenced by a range of activities from giving aid to the freedom riders to founding organizations whose goals were the pursuit of equality.

"Walter Dennis was a bishop whose deep faith marked him as a man of great common sense with a burning passion for justice and he will be greatly missed," commented the Rt. Rev. Mark Sisk, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

Bishop Dennis was born in Washington DC on August 23, 1932, the son of Walter Decoster and Helen Louise Dennis. He held degrees from Virginia State, New York University, and General Theological Seminary. Dennis was ordained a deacon in 1956 and in 1958 was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Horace Donegan.

A Life Dedicated To Freedom

As an ordained Deacon in 1956, he started his ministry at a time marked by the end of legal segregation in this country. The landmark Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education was announced in 1956. On a personal level, he was the first African American to be hired as a clergy on the full time staff of the Cathedral Church of St. John The Divine in Manhattan in 1956, after he had just graduated from General Theological Seminary and was named full time Curate. Between 1956 and 1960 he worked with the national church in developing conferences on race relations.

As a young priest, Bishop Dennis served as vicar of St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church in Hampton, Virginia from 1960-1965. During that time he was also an adjunct professor of Constitutional Law and American History at Hampton University. In an expression of his commitment, while serving at St. Cyprian's, Dennis opened the doors of the church as a stop for buses headed south on the freedom rides of the turbulent 1960s.

Dennis returned to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on September 1, 1965, as a Canon Residentiary.

While at the cathedral, he presented forums on topical issues, including Extremism and Politics, and Homosexuality. At one conference, he participated in bringing together white southern rectors to meet with Thurgood Marshall, who at that time was known as the attorney for Brown in the Supreme Court case. Marshall would go on to be named the first black member of the United States Supreme Court, and he and Bishop Dennis remained friends. Bishop Dennis gave the eulogy at Marshall's funeral when it was held at the Cathedral.

Dennis was a founding member of the Union of Black Episcopalians, a national organization still strong today and comprised of African American clergy and laity.

A Priest and a Lawyer

A lawyer as well as a priest, while at St. Cyprian's in Hampton, he served as an adjunct professor of Constitution Law and American History at Hampton University.

Bishop Dennis was one of the Episcopal lawyers and clergy who formed the Guild of St. Ives, taking their name from a 14th century Breton saint known in his own time as "advocate of the poor."

The purpose of the Guild of St. Ives is to give legal assistance with a "pastoral dimension" to Episcopalians in canon or civil law. The Episcopal New Yorker reported in April 1966, "The formation of the Guild has been spearheaded by the Rev. Canon Walter D. Dennis. Canon Dennis said he envisioned the organization as a place to which church people without recourse to other help could turn 'for an advisory opinion' in legal matters relation to areas of Church concerns."

The Guild of St. Ives is still an active organization, with its annual event slated for May 12 at St. Paul's Chapel.

As a Bishop

On October 6, 1979, Dennis was elected Bishop Suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and became the second African American bishop in the history of the Diocese. In addition to his pastoral responsibilities in the Diocese, he become active with the national and international church, again focusing on issues concerning individual rights and relations.

He was chairman of the National Church's prestigious Standing Commission on Constitution and Canons in 1982 and continued his work with that board until 1994. In 1985, Bishop Dennis was elected chair of the Board of Episcopal Black Ministries Commission (which became the Office of Black Ministries at the National Church Center).

He served on the national board of Planned Parenthood, the Board for the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, the Board for the Society of Juvenile Justice, and the board of the National Association for the Study for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

In 1995, Bishop Dennis was elected as vice-president of Province II (the Episcopal Dioceses of New York, New Jersey, Newark, Western New York, Central New York, Albany, Rochester, Haiti, the Virgin Islands, and the Convocation of American Churches in Europe). In 1997, Bishop Dennis was appointed to another prestigious board, the national Episcopal Church's Standing Commission on Structure.

He retired in 1998 and moved to his home in Hampton, VA.

Bishop Dennis authored many important pamphlets in the Episcopal Church including Puerto Rican Neighbors, Mexican-American Neighbors, Oriental Neighbors, and various articles in Sewanee Theological Review. He received his Doctor of Divinity from GTS in 1980 and was also a sub-prelate order of Saint John in Jerusalem.