Historical Society of the Episcopal Church

Historical Society
of the Episcopal Church

The Manross Lecture 2026 has been presented and is currently in video production.

“Now is the time for a Black Bishop”: The surprising agreement between African Americans and English High Churchmen in the 1850s.

The Rev. Benjamin King, Ph.D., is Academic Dean and Duncalf-Villavoso Professor of Church History at the Seminary of the Southwest. A distinguished scholar whose work brings fresh insight to Anglican history and theology. His research focuses on the Oxford Movement, the development of the Anglican Communion, and the Episcopal Church’s historic entanglement with slavery. He offers core courses in Church History alongside specialized electives in Anglican theology and history.

Dr. King is the award-winning author of Newman and the Alexandrian Fathers, recipient of a Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and The Oxford Movement and the People of God: Enslavement, Education, and Empire, a groundbreaking study of theology in its social and imperial contexts. He has published widely, lecturing internationally on Anglican themes. His expertise is recognized through contributions to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church and service on the editorial board of Anglican and Episcopal History.

An Episcopal priest since 2000, Dr. King has served both in parish and campus ministry, bringing pastoral experience to his scholarly work. A past board member of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church and recipient of its 2022 Nelson R. Burr Prize, he holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (BA, MA), Harvard Divinity School (ThM), and Durham University (PhD).

Manross Lecture

The Manross Lecture, named for Historian and the Society's chief benefactor William Wilson Manross (1905-1987), was inaugurated in 2006 and is presented on alternating years.

Manross was librarian of the Church Historical Society from 1948 until 1956. He was professor of church history and librarian at the Philadelphia Divinity School from 1958 until his retirement in 1973. His two major books are A History of the American Episcopal Church (1935), and The Episcopal Church in the United States, 1800-1840: A Study in Church Life (1938). Read more about him from an article in Anglican and Episcopal History below.

William Wilson Manross, Benefactor of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church

Past Manross Lecturers

2023 The Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook, PhD, EdD, Editor of the Historical Society’s peer-reviewed journal Anglican and Episcopal History, she is an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Los Angeles. She is Professor of Practical Theology and Christian History at Claremont School of Theology and Professor of Anglican Studies emerita, Bloy House, the Episcopal School of Theology at Los Angeles as well as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. "A New Era in Engaged Anglican & Episcopal History: Memory, Legacy & Embodied Practice."
Video | PDF
2018 Dr. Peter W. Williams, Distinguished Professor Emeritus Comparative Religion and American Studies, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, "Religion, Art, and Money: Episcopalians and American Culture from the Civil War to the Great Depression"
2015 Dr. Philip L. Barlow, Leonard J. Arlington Professor of Mormon History & Culture at Utah State University, "White Lies That Tell the Truth of the
Landscape: Mapping the Episcopal Church and The Impact of 'Place' On Religion.
2012 The Rev. Dr. Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr., “This Great Day of Suffering"
2009 The Rev. Canon Dr. Jane Shaw, Dean of Divinity and Fellow of New College, Oxford and Dr. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Assistant Professor of Church History at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific , "Anglican History in the 21st Century: Remembering All the Baptized",
2006 The Rev. Dr. Frederick Quinn, "'Oh Brave New World that has such people in it!' Anglicanism's Global Future"

Historical Society of the Episcopal Church

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