RIP: Herbert A. Donovan Jr., former bishop of Arkansas, dies at 94
[Episcopal News Service]The Rt. Rev. Herbert Alcorn Donovan, Jr., who as bishop of Arkansas from 1980 to 1993, and later served other dioceses and parishes, died Nov. 2 in Colorado. He was 94.
A graduate of the University of Virginia and Virginia Theological Seminary, he was ordained deacon and priest in 1957. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1955 as a chaplain and served in that capacity as a reserve officer until 1991. He also served on the Pastoral Care Team of the House of Bishops, ministering to armed forces chaplains during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in the 1990s.
Donovan was serving as rector of St. Luke’s in Montclair, New Jersey, when he was elected bishop of Arkansas in 1980.
He retired from that ministry in 1993 to become vicar of Trinity Church in New York City and assisting bishop of the Diocese of New York. Starting in 1998, he then served as provisional bishop of Chicago, assisting bishop of New Jersey, interim Anglican observer at the United Nations, and rector of Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts.
Donovan was then appointed executive director of the Compass Rose Society, where he worked to raise funds for Anglican mission initiatives worldwide.
He served as president of the American Friends of Cuttington University in Liberia, and he served as deputy to the presiding bishop for Anglican Communion Relations, concluding his active career in 2010.
Donovan was also active in church governance, including attending every General Convention from 1967 until 2012, either as a clergy deputy or a member of the House of Bishops, which he served as secretary for 12 years. He was twice elected to the church’s Executive Council, serving from 1979 to 1980 and again from 1985 to 1991.
He was awarded honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees by Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in 2003 and by Bard College in 2019.
Donovan is survived by his wife, well-known author and professor Mary Sudman Donovan, whom he married in 1959; and three children: Mary Ellen, Herbert Alcorn III and Jane Elizabeth.
Funeral arrangements are pending and will be announced later.
