With sadness we share the news of the death of the Rt. Rev. Herbert A. Donovan Jr., 94, on Nov. 2, 2025 in Colorado. Herb served in the Diocese of Newark as Rector of St. Luke’s, Montclair from 1970 until he was elected Bishop of Arkansas in 1980.
A graduate of the University of Virginia and Virginia Theological Seminary, he was ordained deacon and priest in 1957. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1955 as a chaplain and served in that capacity as a reserve officer until 1991. He also served on the Pastoral Care Team of the House of Bishops, ministering to armed forces chaplains during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq in the 1990s.
In the Diocese of Newark, he served on the Cathedral Chapter (Class of 1974), Standing Committee (Class of 1977), and as a General Convention Alternate Deputy (1973) and Deputy (1976 and 1979). In 1976, he was a candidate on the slate for 8th Bishop of Newark, from which Bishop Spong was elected.
Herb retired as Bishop of Arkansas in 1993 to become vicar of Trinity Church in New York City and assisting bishop in the Diocese of New York. Starting in 1998, he then served as provisional bishop of Chicago, an assisting bishop in New Jersey, interim Anglican observer at the United Nations, and rector of Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts.
He was then appointed executive director of the Compass Rose Society, where he worked to raise funds for Anglican mission initiatives worldwide. He was president of the American Friends of Cuttington University in Liberia, and deputy to the presiding bishop for Anglican Communion Relations, concluding his active career in 2010.
Herb was also active in Episcopal Church governance, including attending every General Convention from 1967 until 2012, either as a clergy deputy or a member of the House of Bishops, which he served as secretary for 12 years. He was twice elected to the church’s Executive Council, serving from 1979 to 1980 and again from 1985 to 1991.
He was awarded honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees by Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in 2003 and by Bard College in 2019.
He is survived by his wife, well-known author and professor Mary Sudman Donovan, whom he married in 1959; and three children: Mary Ellen, Herbert Alcorn III and Jane Elizabeth.
Funeral arrangements are pending and will be announced later.
Good and gracious God, the light of the faithful and shepherd of souls, you sent your servant Herb to be a priest and a bishop in your Church to feed your sheep with your word and to guide them by his example; give us the grace to keep the faith he taught and to follow in his footsteps. We entrust him into your unfailing mystery of Love and Hope through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
