John Winthrop Platner, professor of ecclesiastical history at the University and Dean of the Andover Theological Seminary, who was widely known as a Congregational minister and a theological teacher, died yesterday morning at his residence, 89 Appleton street, Cambridge, after in illness of several weeks. He was in his fifty-sixth year.

Professor Platner was born at Lee on May 15, 1865. He was graduated from Yale in 1885 and from Union Theological Seminary in 1893. During the years 1893-95 he held the foreign fellowship of Union Seminary and studied in Germany, chiefly at Berlin. On his return to America he became instructor in the history of religion and apologetics at Union Seminary, and the next year, 1896, he came to the University, where for five years he held the position of assistant Professor of ecclesiastical history.

In 1901 he was appointed professor of ecclesiastical history at Andover Theological Seminary. Seven years later, when the Andover Seminary moved to Cambridge and entered into close affiliation with the Divinity School, Professor Platner, with the other members of the Andover Faculty, was given the title of Andover Professor. In 1919 he was election Dean of the Andover Seminary. He was ordained a Congregational minister in 1901.

Professor Platner was an accomplished scholar and an excellent teacher of church history, as well as a popular preacher in the Congregational churches. In 1919-20 he had charge of the pulpit in the State Street Church at Portland, Me. As Dean, his relations with the students of Andover Seminary were singularly intimate.

The funeral services will be held Sunday, March 20, at three o'clock, in Appleton Chapel.