Arthur C. Lichtenberger

Arthur Carl Lichtenberger (January 8, 1900 – September 3, 1968) was a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. He served as Bishop of Missouri from 1952 to 1959, and as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church from 1958 to 1964.

Early life Lichtenberger was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where his father ran a grocery store. He attended Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he played quarterback on the football team and was president of the Sigma Pi fraternity chapter. He was also president of the senior class, chairman of the Commons Committee, president of the Kenyon Masonic Club, lettered in basketball, headed the college choir, and served on both the Collegian and Reveille staffs. He graduated cum laude from Kenyon with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1923 and was chosen by the English Department to give the class address. While working on a farm in Iowa during a summer in college he met his future wife, Florence Tate. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter. Their daughter died during her infancy.

Early ministries Lichtenberger was influenced to join the priesthood by his father-in-law, the Reverend Martin Tate, and entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He earned his Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1925, and did his postgraduate work at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. In 1956 he assumed the chairmanship of an Episcopal delegation studying the problems of the Church of South India.

In 1961 he was the first Episcopal Church leader to meet with a pope when he met Pope John XXIII at the Vatican. The meeting was commemorated with his image on a stamp from the Vatican post office.

In 1963, Princeton University gave him an honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.

On February 21, 1963, the church completed work on the Episcopal Church Center (which had begun in 1958) in New York City. The center housed the national church's missionary, educational, and social work offices.

On November 23, 1963, he received a telegram from Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. attorney general and brother of the late president, asking that he participate in the funeral of John F. Kennedy. Lichtenberger, was recovering from phlebitis at the time and asked Bishop William Creighton to represent him.

He retired from his position in 1964 because of health reasons and became a visiting professor at the Episcopal Theological Seminary.

He died in 1968 in Bethel, Vermont.