New York’s Longest-Serving Pastor Dies at 93

Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times Msgr. Gerald Ryan in 2012 at St. Luke’s parish in the Bronx, which he had led since 1966. Father Ryan died on Thursday at age 93.

Msgr. Gerald Ryan, who began working as a priest in the Bronx in 1945 and went on to become the longest-serving pastor in New York and probably the country, died on Thursday at Our Lady of Consolation, a residence for ill priests, in Riverdale. He was 93.

The cause was stomach cancer, said Madelyn Feliciano, the office manager of St. Luke’s in Mott Haven, the parish Father Ryan led from 1966 until his death.

“Our hearts are broken here,” Ms. Feliciano said Thursday. “He was the most amazing priest; he was loving and caring, generous to a fault. He was a father to many people including myself, and he was just our heart and our joy.”

For over four decades, Father Ryan was a joyful though sometimes stern fixture on 138th Street in the Bronx, where the stone spires of the church rise among empty lots, bodegas and apartment buildings. When he started at the parish, some in the neighborhood called him the hippie priest, because he wore his red hair long, and was an active part of the civil rights movement, marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Ala., Father Ryan recalled in an interview last July.

When the South Bronx began to burn, Father Ryan stayed on, opening the church basement as a community center, and later, helping to lead a church effort to build housing projects from the ruins. Through the turmoil, the parish school remained open, offering a refuge to neighborhood children.

“What was most powerful to me is that nobody ever believes that anything good can come out of a place like that, but it was incredible to see how much good came out of that parish,” said Cynthia Ceilan, who graduated from the parish school in 1973 and continues to raise money for it.

When Father Ryan was awarded the title of monsignor in recognition of his many years of work, he asked parishioners to continue calling him by the more basic title of father. His rectory quarters were simple, with no air-conditioning or even a fan through the summer months.

Though archdiocesan rules required that he formally relinquish the title of pastor at age 75, he continued as parish administrator for 18 more years, waking up at 6 a.m. to lead services, officiating at weddings, and helping children find scholarships to pay for the parish school.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, in a statement Thursday, referred to him as a pastor, and called him “the epitome of what a priest should be.”

“Monsignor Ryan’s example has inspired me to be a better priest,” he said, “as I am sure it has inspired so many others who worked with and learned from this humble, hardworking, faithful follower of Jesus.”

For his part, Father Ryan said last year that he found that living simply helped remind him of the deeper meaning of his life’s work.

“I think I have come a long, long way from when I was ordained,” he said. “It isn’t about serving the church in the way you have envisioned, from the altar, and from the position of authority and power. But it is learning what human nature is, and what the struggles of people are. And where Jesus really is.”