page_title: Thomas Atkinson (bishop)
section_title: Bishop of North Carolina
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Atkinson (bishop) / Bishop of North Carolina
caption_attribution_description: English: Memorial plaque for Bishop Thomas Atkinson in the Memorial Garden of the Church of the Holy Comforter in Charlotte, North Carolina.
context_page_description: Thomas Atkinson was the third Episcopal Bishop of North Carolina.
context_section_description: Atkinson was elected Bishop of North Carolina on May 28, 1853, following the resignation of Bishop Ives in December the previous year. He was consecrated on October 17, 1853 by Bishops Thomas Church Brownell, Charles Pettit McIlvaine, George Washington Doane, James Hervey Otey, George Trevor Spencer, and John Medley. Atkinson became the 58th bishop in the Episcopal Church. As bishop, Atkinson founded a church school for boys in Raleigh and the Ravenscroft School in Asheville. He urged the religious instruction of slaves. Initially opposing secession, after the American Civil War began, Bishop Atkinson affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America.
  After the war, in 1866, Atkinson recommended placing the operation of black Episcopal churches fully in the hands of black clergymen, and the Diocesan Convention passed a series of resolutions doing so. Two years later, he opened the Episcopal school for blacks near Raleigh that eventually became St. Augustine's College. In 1867, he attended the first Lambeth Conference at Lambeth Palace. As his health declined, Atkinson requested the election of an assistant bishop, and Theodore Benedict Lyman was elected to that position in 1873.  Atkinson died on January 4, 1881 at his home in Wilmington; he was buried on January 7 within St. James Episcopal Church in Wilmington, North Carolina.
  The Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter in Charlotte is the memorial church of Bishop Thomas Atkinson.
caption: Bishop Atkinson
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