Sugeno
Jan 05, 2009
with Dr. Hans Frei, the 1988 Commencement preacher
with son David on SSW campus
return to campus during retirement
Ruth & Frank
Martin Marty & Frank shared University of Chicago roots
Booher Library display upon retirement
Frank brought the world of mission to the seminary
Funeral Sermon by Philip Turner
Memorial Sermon by son David Sugeno
The Rev. Frank Eiji Sugeno - teacher, historian, missiologist and advocate of ecumenism - died in Alexandria, Virginia, on December 27, 2008, at the age of 84.
Professor-emeritus of church history at Seminary of the Southwest, Sugeno taught generations of seminarians for three decades. He served the larger church as secretary of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church and convener of the Seminary Consultation on Mission and the Conference of Anglican Church Historians.
Professor-emeritus Sugeno moved to Alexandria from Austin in 1999 with spouse Ruth after retiring from full-time teaching five years earlier. A memorial service was held at the Virginia Seminary chapel in Alexandria on January 17. Seminary of the Southwest will honor Frank with a memorial Eucharist on Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 5 pm in Christ Chapel. The service will be held while seminary trustees are on campus for their February meeting. The Rev. David Sugeno, one of three Sugeno children, will preach.
"Frank would want to be remembered first as a husband and father and then a teacher," said David Sugeno, a 2006 Southwest graduate and associate rector of St. James the Apostle Church in Conroe, Texas. "Frank loved teaching - that's what he did."
"Wise, humble and deeply committed to forming priests and lay leaders in the Episcopal Church, he quietly worked at the intersection of the church's history, theology and mission," wrote George Kroupa in a Sugeno tribute article in the June 2007 issue of the "Anglican and Episcopal History" journal.
"Frank was a stalwart advocate of the ecumenical movement, including the seminary's relationship with the ELCA through the Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest," said the Rev. Charles James Cook, who retired from full-time teaching at Southwest at the end of December. "He was perhaps the first true missiologist on our faculty - having supported the teaching and study of Anglican mission for many years," said Cook, who was both taught by Sugeno during his Seminary of the Southwest studies in the first half of the 1970s and later as a faculty colleague for a decade.
“Frank’s wisdom usually took the form of probing questions, gently asked, as in, ‘Don’t you think….?’,” said the Very Rev. Dr. Durstan R McDonald, Southwest dean-emeritus. “He and I ate lunch together at least weekly, and whatever the topic of conversation, with Frank it always morphed into theological reflections (without academic jargon). He was synthetic and perceptive in his observations. This wise, grace filled servant of Christ was the yeast that leavened the life of the seminary community.”
"Frank was a great guide and wonderful listener. He was wise, faithful and thoughtful," said the Rev. William Bennett, retired provost at Seminary of the Southwest.
"Frank's healing presence enhanced the lives of more people than anyone will know," said the Rev. Dr. Philip Turner, former interim dean at Southwest who co-edited Crossroads are for Meeting with Sugeno in 1986.
"Your legacy to (students) is not a set of answers but a way of thinking and asking questions. Your insistence that this seminary be informed and governed by a realistic vision of its task as well as the needs of the church has contributed significantly to its growth and development," read the citation that accompanied an honorary doctor of divinity degree Southwest awarded him in 1994.
Seminary of Southwest friends launched the Frank E. Sugeno Scholarship Fund when he retired to honor his 30-year legacy. Persons wishing to contribute to that scholarship fund now should contact the seminary's Institutional Advancement Office - email (bchandler@ssw.edu) - phone (512.472.4133, ext. 326) - mail (P.O. Box 2247, Austin, Texas 78768).
A native of Seattle, Professor-emeritus Sugeno did his undergraduate studies at Bates College and graduate studies at the University of Chicago and the Institute for Historical Research, University of London. He also taught at Virginia Theological Seminary, the Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches affiliated with the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and the Graduate School of Theology at the University of the South. Southwest,
Sewanee and General Theological Seminary awarded him honorary doctoral degrees. Sugeno joined the faculty of Seminary of the Southwest in 1964.
Professor-emeritus Sugeno wrote in the areas of ecumenics, missiology and Episcopal Church history. Toward the end of his teaching, he focused on the role of the church in modern history - in the Third World as well as in the West. He helped organize pan-Anglican theology of mission symposia in Asia, Africa and Latin America that involved seminarians from Southwest, other Episcopal seminaries and throughout the Third World.
