Tyng, Stephen Higginson, Jr.

(June 28, 1839-Nov. 17, 1898). Leading evangelical. He was born in Philadelphia. Tyng graduated from Williams College in 1858. He studied for the ordained ministry at the Virginia Theological Seminary. He was ordained deacon on May 8, 1861, and served for two years as his father's assistant at St. George's Church, New York City. Tyng was ordained priest on Sept. 11, 1863. He then became rector of the Church of the Mediator in New York. He served as a chaplain in the United States Army in 1864. In 1865 Tyng founded Holy Trinity Church, New York. He served the remainder of his active ministry there. He resigned in Apr. 1881. Tyng was an ecumenical evangelical who participated in the services of other denominations. In 1867 he conducted a service in St. James' Methodist Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, without the permission of the local Episcopal clergy. This was contrary to canon law and custom in the Episcopal Church. The “intrusion” canon stated that no member of the clergy should officiate in another's parish without the express permission of the resident clergy. The two New Brunswick rectors from that parish, Alfred Stubbs and Edward Boggs, made a formal complaint to Bishop Horatio Potter of New York. A court of five New York clergy found Tyng guilty of “intrusion” and recommended public admonition. The decision was not a severe penalty, but it created a furor in the Episcopal Church. It became a cause in the Ritual Controversy of the period. On Mar. 14, 1868, Bishop Potter carried out the admonition of Tyng in the high church parish of the Church of the Transfiguration, New York. Several years later Bishop George D. Cummins left the Episcopal Church and formed the Reformed Episcopal Church. Tyng was persuaded by his father not to leave the Episcopal Church. Tyng remained an Episcopal priest, but after 1881 he worked mainly in the insurance business in New York and Paris. He died in Paris.