Tim Vivian receives Historical Society of the Episcopal Church Burr Prize

Posted Aug 24, 2015

[Historical Society of the Episcopal Church press release] The Historical Society of the Episcopal Church is pleased to announce its recipient of the 2015 Nelson R. Burr Prize, the Rev. Dr. Tim Vivian. Dr. Vivian teaches in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies of California State University, Bakersfield. He is honored for his article “Wake the Devil from His Dream: Thomas Dudley, Quincy Ewing, Religion, and the “Race Problem’ in the Jim Crow South” published in the December 2014 issue of Anglican and Episcopal History. The selection committee noted the article makes excellent use of primary and secondary sources to create two portraits in a landscape of racial division that we, sadly, still recognize today.

The Burr prize honors the renowned scholar Nelson R. Burr, whose two-volume A Critical Bibliography of Religion in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961) and other works constitute landmarks in the field of religious historiography. Each year a committee of the Society selects the author of the most outstanding article in the Society’s journal, Anglican and Episcopal History, as recipient. The award also honors that which best exemplifies excellence and innovative scholarship in the field of Anglican and Episcopal history.

Vivian received a B.A in English and M.A. in Comparative Literature from U.C. Santa Barbara, an M.A. in American Literature at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. (Classics, History, Religious Studies) at U.C. Santa Barbara. Vivian is a dedicated scholar in the field of early Christianity, with emphasis on Coptic Studies and Early Christian Monasticism. He has taught at CSUB in a variety of capacities since 1990.

He serves as priest-in-charge at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Bakersfield and received his M.Div. from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. He has also been a Henry R. Luce Post-Doctoral Fellow at Yale Divinity School.

Vivian has published thirteen books, over fifty articles, and over a hundred book reviews in a wide variety of scholarly publications. His scholarship is also based on substantial archeological field work. He has participated in two excavations in Egypt, serving as a director and faculty member at the excavation of the monastery of John Kolobos. He served as project historian for the team restoring and studying the 13th century wall paintings at the monastery of Saint Anthony in Egypt.

For over a century HSEC has been an association dedicated to preserving and disseminating information about the history of the Episcopal Church. Founded in Philadelphia in 1910 as the Church Historical Society, its members include scholars, writers, teachers, ministers (lay and ordained) and many others who have an interest in the objectives and activities of the Historical Society.


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