The Rt. Rev. C. Cabell (Cabby) Tennis, a former lawyer who served as Bishop of Delaware from 1986 to 1997, died February 7 at 93.
“Cabby and Hyde are fondly remembered by the people of Delaware; Cabby was a kind and caring bishop, and the diocese remains grateful for his leadership,” said current Bishop of Delaware Kevin Brown.
“Those who served alongside him recall not only his steady episcopal presence, but also his pastoral heart, his kindness, and his genuine love for the people entrusted to his care,” he added.
Tennis was a native of Hampton, Virginia. After earning two degrees at the College of William and Mary, he was admitted to the bar in 1956, and worked as a litigator and tax attorney as a member of the Judge Advocate General Corps. He felt a call to ministry as he “came to appreciate the deeper realities that go on in people’s lives,” and studied at Virginia Theological Seminary.
He began his ministry in Virginia and then served as rector of Trinity Church in Buffalo, New York, from 1969 to 1972. There he was active in the struggle for civil rights and helped launch a senior housing community and support programs for the mentally ill.
Tennis next served as dean and rector of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle for eight years. As dean, he launched counseling services at the cathedral and spoke out about the dangers of nuclear war. He made high-profile visits to apartheid-era South Africa and the Soviet Union, and served as a consultant to Anglican dioceses in Sierra Leone and Zambia.
He was elected as the ninth Bishop of Delaware on June 14, 1986, and was consecrated in Wilmington in November. Under his leadership, the Diocese of Delaware added a missioner for social ministry to the staff, the Rev. Jim Lewis, who helped to launch and advance several projects that reflected what Brown called “the Church’s call to stand with those whose voices were too often unheard and whose labor and dignity were overlooked.”
The most high-profile of these was the Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance, an organization of plant workers, farmers, and environmentalists that pushed back against the poultry industry that dominates rural life in the Delmarva Peninsula. The alliance’s efforts, which included strikes and testimony before Congress, garnered national attention and was covered in 1999 by Sixty Minutes’ Mike Wallace.
In the wider church, Tennis served as a member of the Committee on Sexual Exploitation and the Joint Commission on Program, Budget, and Finance. An advocate for LGBT people, he was a judge on the 1996 court that dismissed heresy charges against Bishop Walter Righter for ordaining Barry Stopfel, a partnered gay man, to the priesthood.
Tennis retired in 1997, and returned to Seattle, where he worked as a mediator with the Dispute Resolution Center of King County and as an assisting bishop in the Diocese of Olympia. He was also active in Bishops Against Gun Violence and joined other bishops in an amicus curiae brief in support of Hawaii’s legal challenge to the Trump administration’s travel ban in 2018.
Tennis’ wife, Hyde Southall Jones, preceded him in death. He is survived by four children and seven grandchildren.
Funeral services for Bishop Tennis will be held at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle on February 28.
The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. An Episcopal priest, he has reported widely on global Anglicanism, and writes about church history, liturgy, and pastoral ministry.
