Background
Rudolph, Robert Livingston was born on December 29, 1865 in New York City. Son of Richard and Victoria (Schmadel) Rudolph.
Rudolph, Robert Livingston was born on December 29, 1865 in New York City. Son of Richard and Victoria (Schmadel) Rudolph.
Rudolph graduated New York University in 1892, and received a master"s degree from the same institution four years later. In 1894 he graduated from the Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church. Desiring to study under the famous B.B. Warfield, he continued his postgraduate studies at Princeton Seminary for one more year.
In 1906 New York University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Divinity.
That same year he traveled to Erlangen, Germany to study under Professor Theodor Zahn, the leader in conservative New Testament scholarship at the time.
He was the first bishop to be raised with the church. Rudolph was widely recognized as an outstanding preacher, teacher, scholar and bishop. After finishing school, Rudolph went into the jewelry business for five years.
Education Ordination Rudolph was ordained deacon in 1895 and presbyter in 1896.
On January 12, 1909, he was consecrated a bishop in his home church by three bishops and ten presbyters with Bishop Charles Edward Cheney preaching the sermon. Rudolph first served as coadjutor of the New York and Philadelphia Synod before succeeding Bishop Sabine to the bishopric upon the latter’s death in 1913.
Throughout the next few years, he also served as Bishop in Canada, acting Bishop in Chicago, and Bishop of the Special Missionary Jurisdiction of the South. He became the Presiding Bishop of the denomination in 1922, and was re-elected to that position in 1924, 1927 and 1930.
He is credited with having saved the church from disintegration after the vestments controversy.
Seminary professor The Board of Trustees of the Reformed Episcopal Seminary elected Rudolph to teach Dogmatic Theology in 1903. He resigned as Bishop Sabine’s assistant in order to take up the challenge of this new work. Later, he became Professor of Biblical Theology and Christian Ethics.
He devoted twenty-seven years of his life to training men for pastoral service, using Associate of Arts Hodge’s Outlines of Theology, which presents theological topics in question and answer format, to stimulate discussion in the classroom.
And to make sure that his students knew the Bible, he required that they read through it in its entirety in two years using James M. Gray’s Biblical Synthesis course. The seminary granted Rudolph a sabbatical for the academic year 1930-1931 to study abroad, but he died at his summer home in Dorset, Vermont, on September 16, 1930, before he was scheduled to leave.
Member Executive Committee Federal Council Churches of Christ in America.
Married Anna Catherine Knight, January 18, 1900. Children: Katherine Elizabeth (deceased), Robert Knight.