The Rt. Rev. Herbert Thompson, Jr., who retired last December after serving 17 years as Bishop of Southern Ohio, died unexpectedly Aug. 16, while on vacation in Italy. He collapsed after swimming and could not be revived, according to Richelle Thompson, who is communication director for Southern Ohio and unrelated.

Raised in Harlem, Bishop Thompson was working as a mechanic in the U.S. Air Force when he had a profound religious experience “that turned my life around,” he said in an interview last year. He earned his undergraduate degree from Lincoln University in 1962 and his master of divinity in 1965 from the General Theological Seminary. Following ordination, he worked in a number of churches in New York until 1988 when he was elected Bishop Coadjutor of Southern Ohio. In January 1992, he became one of the first black diocesan bishops of The Episcopal Church and in 1997 he became the first to be a candidate for Presiding Bishop, finishing a close second to the Most Rev. Frank Griswold.

Prior to attaining the mandatory retirement age of 72, Bishop Thompson was praised at diocesan convention last November by a number of honored guests, including Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu, the retired Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, who lauded Bishop Thompson’s efforts to combat racism in Cincinnati long before the city's April 2001 riots.

In 1993, as a response to the Ku Klux Klan placing a cross on Fountain Square, Bishop Thompson initiated a summit on racism in which Archbishop Tutu participated by teleconference and which spawned subcommittees that worked for two years to better race relations. The summit also led to the concept and development of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, to which the diocese contributed $1.25 million in grants.

During his episcopacy Bishop Thompson led the construction of the Proctor Camp and Conference Center a state-of-the-art facility 75 miles northeast of Cincinnati. He also served as chair of the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief (now Episcopal Relief and Development) and the Church Pension Fund. Friends and supporters in the diocese describe Bishop Thompson as a healer and a pastor par excellence.

“Bishop Thompson was a man of great faith and enormous compassion,” said Southern Ohio Suffragan Bishop Kenneth L. Price, Jr., who is serving as the ecclesiastical authority until the diocese elects a new leader later this year. “He never met anybody he did not immediately care about and [he] expressed that caring in a loving way. When you were with him, you thought you were the only person in the world.”

Bishop Price also said that Bishop Thompson “never met anyone who was not his friend. If he would walk down the street, whether it was a newspaper vendor or going into a restaurant it would be a waiter, or it would be [Archbishop] Tutu or the Archbishop of Canterbury, everyone was equal in his eyes.”

Bishop Thompson’s wife, Russelle, died of pancreatic cancer in 2002. He is survived by two sons, Herbert, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, and Owen, rector of Trinity Church, Long Island, and a daughter, Kyrie. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Episcopal News Service contributed to this report.