Charles Sumner Burch

Charles Sumner Burch (June 30, 1855 – December 20, 1920) was an American clergyman who served as the 9th Bishop of New York from 1919 to 1920.

Early life and family

Born to in Pinckney, Michigan, Burch was the son of Lawrence D. Burch, a writer, and Emily Dunning.

In 1876 he married Margaret Hadley, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

Career

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Burch at University of Michigan, 1875

Publishing

Burch graduated from the University of Michigan in 1875 and entered the publishing business in Chicago with his brothers. From 1897 to 1905 he was an editor for the Grand Rapids' Evening Press.

Episcopal Church

Burch trained at the Western Theological Seminary and was ordained as a deacon in 1895 by William Edward McLaren and as a priest in 1905 by David H. Greer. He also studied at the University of Oxford and in Germany.

He was rector of St Andrew's Church, Staten Island, in New York City from 1905 to 1911 before being consecrated as a suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York in 1911, only six years after his ordination. In 1919 he succeeded Greer as Bishop of the New York, but died at the end of 1920. During his short tenure, he attended the 1920 Lambeth Conference, returning to New York with the view that closer cooperation was needed between all churches and that women should have a larger role in the church, including preaching from pulpits.