RIP: New Hampshire Bishop Douglas Edwin TheunerPosted Nov 11, 2013 |
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[Episcopal News Service] Bishop Douglas Edwin Theuner, the eighth bishop of New Hampshire, died peacefully in his sleep while in hospice on Nov. 8, according to a post on the diocese’s website. Theuner was 74.
Theuner was born on Nov. 15, 1938, in Bronx, New York, to Grace Elizabeth McKean and Alfred Edwin Kipp Theuner. Theuner is survived by his wife of 54 years, Jane Lois Szuhany Theuner, and two children, Elizabeth Susan DiTommaso and her husband Frank of Hampton, New Hampshire, and Nicholas Frederick Kipp Theuner and his wife Charlotte Driver of Morehead City, North Carolina; and by five grandchildren and one great-granddaughter, according to the Concord Monitor.
Theuner earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio, and a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Bexley Hall, the Divinity School of Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio; and a Master of Arts degree in history from the University of Connecticut. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by Cuttington University in Liberia in 2000. The Episcopal Church founded Cuttington University in 1889.
Theuner was ordained a deacon and priest in 1962 in Ohio, and served congregations in Ohio and Connecticut before being elected bishop coadjutor of New Hampshire in 1986. He served as bishop of New Hampshire until his retirement in 2003, according to the diocese.
His episcopacy was distinguished by his strong stands and advocacy for social justice, serving on boards and committees on AIDS, human sexuality, family planning and Planned Parenthood.
He was the president of Province I from 1994 to 2002, and was a member of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice, of which he also served for five years as president. He was a member of the board of directors of Lutheran Consolidated Community Services of Concord, and of the advisory committee for the Emergency Cold Weather Shelter of the First Congregational Church of Concord, according to the Concord Monitor.
The burial office was held Nov. 11 at 10 a.m. at St. Paul’s Church in Concord and a requiem Eucharist was to be held at the Church of the Epiphany in Newport at 3 p.m.
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