The Very Rev. Dr. William H. Petersen’s work led to a private audience with Pope John Paul II, but his family obituary mentions two less visible achievements: rewriting a hymn verse and helping prepare for full communion between the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Petersen, who was dean of Bexley Divinity School in Rochester (1983-96), died June 5 at 84. He was born in Davenport, Iowa, and earned his first degree from Grinnell College. He was also an alumnus of Church Divinity School of the Pacific and earned his Ph.D. at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
He was active in parish ministry in California, Iowa, New York, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
He served in seminary education throughout his vocation. He served for a decade as professor of Church history at Nashotah House before joining Bexley Hall. During his years at Bexley, he was also provost of Colgate Rochester Divinity School (1985-87), provost at Bexley Hall Seminary with responsibility for the campus in Columbus, Ohio (1999-2009), and interim director of the Anglican Studies Program at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (2011-12).
As an ecumenist, he was a participant in the Lutheran-Episcopal Dialogues II and III (1978-91), which led to Inter-Eucharistic fellowship between the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and later to full communion. His booklet with Robert Goeser, Traditions Transplanted: The Story of Anglican and Lutheran Churches in America (Forward Movement, 1981), summarized the history of these two traditions “as they were transplanted from state church environments in England and Europe to the religious pluralism and frontier conditions of North America.”
In 2024 he wrote “Re-Writing Wesley: An Advent Intervention,” in Proceedings—Journal of the North American Academy of Liturgy (October 4, 2024). Petersen modified the second verse of “Lo, He comes, with Clouds Descending” (No. 57, The Hymnal 1982) to address concerns some had about possibly anti-Semitic phrasing (the words “those who set at nought and sold him”).
In an audience with John Paul II in 1989, Petersen was invested with an award for extraordinary service to the ecumenical movement.
Douglas LeBlanc is the Associate Editor for Book Reviews and writes about Christianity and culture. He and his wife, Monica, attend St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Henrico, Virginia.
