Gardiner M. Day, of Christ Church, Will Resign From Parish Next Fall After 25 Years as Cambridge Rector

Gardiner M. Day, rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, has announced that he will resign from his parish in September, Day, who is 66, has been at Christ Church for twenty-five years.

In his message of resignation, he noted that the parish, located "in one of the world's great educational centers," holds a tremendously influential position in the Episcopal Church today. Such a parish, he said, "teeming with young life," could best be served by a younger man.

In an interview Monday, Day said he has sought to meet the challenge that he feels the University presents to the church-meeting the intellectual and social problems of its parishioners, both students and adults.

Day has been deeply involved in the past quarter century with Harvard, Cambridge, and international affairs. The United Ministry to Harvard and Radcliffe, an ecumenical organization of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish chaplains to the University was started by a Christ Church chaplain who served on Day's staff.

First Joint Service

The first joint Episcopal-Roman Catholic service in the United States was held in Day's church in November 1964. He also helped to form an Interfaith Housing Corporation which provides subsidized housing to Cambridge citizens.

Under Day's direction. Christ Church sent parishioners to the March on Washington and the March on Selma. It has also sponsored a conference on Religion and Race, and currently tutors Negro children.

Day was a member of the committee of the World Council of Churches that drafted a report on Vietnam urging the government to appoint a church representative to go to Asia and report on conditions there to churches in this country.

"There are no problems that the church ought to stay out of," he said Monday. "There can be no distinction between the sacred and the secular terms of the problems that confront the church today."