Stewart Named To Pension Fund Post
Episcopal News Service. September 4, 1986 [86191]
NEW YORK (DPS, Sept. 4) -- The Rt. Rev. Alexander D. Stewart has been named Senior Vice President (Pastoral Care) of the Church Pension Fund, Robert A. Robinson, President, announced. Stewart has been Executive for Administration of the Episcopal Church.
Stewart will join the Fund effective Jan. 1, 1987. The Church Pension Fund is responsible for administering the clergy pension system, including life, accident and health benefits, of the Episcopal Church. Its assets totals $1.2 billion.
In this newly created Fund position, Stewart, a native of Boston and former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, will minister to disabled and retired clergy and their families. He will also be responsible for government relations regarding matters affecting the clergy. Upon the retirement of Bishop G. Francis Burrill in mid-1987, Stewart will also assume the direction of the Fund's pre-retirement planning conference held in dioceses throughout the country 12 to 15 times a year.
"The Fund is very fortunate Stewart has agreed to take this on" Robinson said. "He is a distinguished churchman of high intelligence and broad achievement, but, most important, he is a caring person whose pastoral concern for the clergy and laity had been evident throughout his career."
Stewart attended Harvard College on a full scholarship and was graduated in 1948. He received a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1951, the same year he was ordained a priest. He earned an M.B.A. at Harvard in 1961, while serving part time as a parish priest. He also has an honorary D.D. degree from General Theological Seminary.
In the course of his early career in the priesthood, Stewart carried on an urban ministry with interracial groups at St. Margaret's Church in the Bronx. He also served at Christ Church in Greenwich, Conn. After 17 years as rector of St. Mark's Church, East Providence, R.I., he was consecrated diocesan bishop of Western Mass. in 1970. He has been Executive for Administration at the Episcopal Church Center since 1984. He has been a Trustee of the Fund for the past ten years. The author of The Shock of Revelation and a collection of sermons, Stewart has written numerous magazine articles.