GREAVES, Richard L(ee) 1938-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born September 11, 1938, in Glendale, CA; died of prostate cancer June 17, 2004, in Bethesda, MD. Historian, educator, and author. Greaves, whose specialty was the history of Protestant theology and of early modern British history, was a professor and former history department chair at Florida State University. Graduating with high honors from Bethel College in 1960, he earned his master's degree from Berkeley Baptist Divinity School in 1962 and a Ph.D. from the University of London just two years later. During the late 1960s, he held various teaching posts in Florida, Missouri, and Washington before landing a position at Michigan State University in 1969 as associate professor of humanities. In 1972, he left Michigan for Florida, joining the Florida State University faculty, where he became Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of History in 1989. From 1993 to 2002 he also chaired the history department. Greaves was a highly regarded scholar who earned several fellowships, grants, and writing and teaching awards, including the Phi Alpha Theta professor of the year award and Professorial Excellence Award from Florida State, and the Albert C. Outler Prize in Ecumenical Church History from the American Society of Church History. Elected to the Royal Historical Society in 1981, he was also a former president of the John Bunyan Society and the American Society of Church History. Though he wrote on other subjects, a continuing interest of Greaves' was the religious history of England. He wrote on this subject in such books as Theology and Revolution in the Scottish Reformation: Studies in the Thought of John Knox (1980), Deliver Us from Evil: The Radical Underground in Britain, 1660-1663 (1986), John Bunyan and English Nonconformity (1992), and Glimpses of Glory: John Bunyan and English Dissent (2002). He was also praised for his edited works, including John Bunyan: A Reference Guide (1982) and the three-volume Biographical Dictionary of British Radicals in the Seventeenth Century (1982-84), which he edited with James Forrest.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

ONLINE

Florida State University Department of History Web site,http://www.fsu.edu/~history/ (October 1, 2004).