Biography: The Most Rev. Howard H. Clark
https://archives.anglican.ca/link/official5079
- Date
- 1970 September 24
- Source
- Anglican News Service
- Type
- Press Release
- Text of motion
- Had it not been for a mother's dream and a pressing desire to enter the Anglican Ministry, the Most Rev. Howard Hewlett Clark would never have become the ninth Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. His mother had firmly made up her mind that he would become a priest before he was old enough to talk.
- She didn't have to persuade him - he claims he always had the ministry in mind. However, when he failed his first year at Trinity College in Toronto and hadn't enough money to try it again, it looked as though he would become an actuary for the Canada Life Insurance Company. But the desire for the priesthood found him back in college five years later.
- Since taking office in 1959, Archbishop Clark has travelled widely throughout Canada, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines. He has been one of the leaders in the rapidly developing ecumenical movement and has lent his influence and support to canonical and civil measures intended to improve human relations in twentieth century society.
- Highlighting his years as Primate have been the marked advances made in plans for union of the Anglican and United Churches, the revision of the Book of Common Prayer, and the liberalization of the Church's marriage canon, which, while emphasizing the sanctity of the marriage bond, permits remarriage of divorced persons in certain circumstances. Under his leadership in 1963, the third Anglican Congress was held in Toronto and engendered a new concept of mission for world Anglicanism.
- In 1959 he was appointed to the Episcopal canonry of Pisgah in the Cathedral Church of St. George the Martyr, Jerusalem, and during his years of office he has received degrees from some 17 Universities all over North America.
- Howard Hewlett Clark was born on April 23, 1903, at Fort Macleod, Alberta, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. His mother was an Englishwoman and his father a member of the Northwest Mounted Police. He was educated in Toronto, Thorold and St. Catharines, Ontario. He received in B.A. degree from the University of Toronto in 1932 and served as part-time assistant at St. John's Norway Anglican Church in Toronto while completing his studies. He was ordained by Bishop John Charles Roper, then Bishop of Ottawa, the same year, and served as Curate, Rector and Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa for 22 years. In 1935 he married Anna Wilson, an Ottawa girl whose great-great-grandfather, Nicholas Sparks, was founder of the City and donor of the land on which the Cathedral was built. They have three daughters, Mary (Mrs. S.S. Van Straubenzee), Elizabeth (Mrs. K.R. Morley) and Esther (Mrs. William A. Harshaw), and a son, Howard.
- He was elected Bishop of Edmonton in 1954, and a few months later was confined to bed for almost a year with spinal arthritis. When he returned to work months later, after "reading, thinking and staring at the ceiling," he was still in constant pain that didn't end until 1950, when the damage was complete. As a result, he walks with a slight stoop because of rigidity of his spine.
- In 1961, he was elected Archbishop of Rupert's Land and Metropolitan of the same Province and moved to Winnipeg.
- Two years ago he moved to Toronto, to the National Headquarters of the Church and in December of this year, resigns as Archbishop of Rupert's Land to conform to General Synod actions relieving all future Primates of all Diocesan and Provincial duties.
- He sees Anglicanism with its claims to Catholicity in a reformed tradition playing a big part in the world-wide movement toward Christian unity, but he feels that certain divisions within the Anglican Church have to be worked out first.
- "The first question was have to ask is, 'Can we allow theological pluralism?' There are so many different people and so many different beliefs, even within one Church. Some are strong on creed and ancient doctrine. Others are Christians-of-the-centre who believe the basic truths about Jesus Christ and shun all references to the virgin birth or the empty tomb. Then there are the radicals, who seem to strain out all content from traditional doctrine. We have to come together on all of these."
- The young-looking Archbishop is a gentle and witty man, a great story-teller and a scholar. He believes that boldly imaginative missionary strategy by the Anglican communion as a whole, and flexibility of organization is necessary if it is to make its fullest impact in a world made small by science.
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- Subjects
- Clark, Howard H. (Howard Hewlett), 1903-1983
- Anglican Church of Canada - Bishops - Biography
- Anglican Church of Canada. Primate
- Christian union - Anglican Church of Canada
- Theology - Anglican Church of Canada