Background
Parks, Leighton was born on February 10, 1852 in New York City. Son of Review Martin Phillips and Georgiana Clough (Mabry) Parks.
Parks, Leighton was born on February 10, 1852 in New York City. Son of Review Martin Phillips and Georgiana Clough (Mabry) Parks.
Bachelor of Divinity, General Theological Seminary, 1876. Honorary Master of Arts, Saint John's, Maryland., 1890, Doctor of Divinity, 1892. South.T.D., Harvard, 1900.
M Margarita Alden Haven, of Geneva, Switzerland, August 12, 1878.
Ordained a priest the next year, from 1878 to 1904 he was rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston. He then became rector of Saint Bartholomew"s Church, New York, succeeding David H. Greer, who had been elected Bishop of the diocese. He was "a militant defender of theological modernism who denied the Virgin birth and defied the Bishops of his church to unfrock him for heresy".
Doctor Parks, who became noted for his direct and uncompromising preaching to one of the wealthiest congregations in the country, published The Winning of the Soul and Other Sermons (1893) and Moral Leadership and Other Sermons (1914).
Mistress Cornelius Vanderbilt Senior ceased to worship at Saint Bartholomew"s following Parks"s attacks on conservative elements within his own church. On the more-diplomatic side, in 1908, Parks convened a dinner meeting of New York church musicians, which continues to this day as Saint Wilfrid Club, a longstanding organization of prominent organists.
In 1878, Parks married Margaret Alden Haven, an expatriate then living in Geneva, Switzerland, and they became the parents of at least three daughters.
Children: Alice (wife of Sir.