Showing 308 results

The General Board of Religious Education was canonically established in 1910 by General Convention to unify and develop religious education across the Church. Initially, the Board was meant to work on increasing Christian education at the primary and secondary levels, with particular emphasis on Sunday Schools. Membership consisted of the Presiding Bishop as ex officio President, along with seven bishops, seven clerical members, and seven lay members, all appointed triennially by the presiding officers of their respective Houses. In addition to these 22 members, each of the eight Missionary Departments was to organize a Sunday School Convention, at which it would elect two delegates who would also be members of the General Board.

In 1913 the canon was amended, reducing the number of representatives from each Missionary Department to one. General Convention also introduced the system of Provinces in that year, and accordingly the “Sunday School Conventions of the Missionary Departments” were renamed as the “Provincial Boards of Religious Education.” Spurred by a decline in postulants for clerical orders, the scope of the work quickly widened, including a new emphasis on campus ministries and theological seminaries. The Board organized its efforts under four new departments, which it reported on to General Convention in 1916: Parochial Education, Secondary Education, Collegiate Education, and Theological Education.

The General Board of Religious Education became the Department of Religious Education in 1919, when General Convention voted to replace the Board of Missions with the Presiding Bishop and National Council.

In 1910, General Convention established the General Board of Religious Education in response to the changing landscape of higher education in the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1913, the Department of Collegiate Education was created under the Board. In 1919, with the establishment of the National Council, the Board of Religious Education became the Department of Religious Education. In 1929, the department created thirteen separate commissions for its work, one of which was a Commission on College Work. The Secretary and Commission continued to operate under these titles through 1938, when the Religious Education Department was renamed the Department of Christian Education.

In 1940, the Division of College Work was created, and in 1942 it was placed on equal footing with the Department of Christian Education, under the newly formed Home Department. As the number of college and university students grew over the decades, the scope of the division’s work grew as well. By the 1950s, the division was involved in establishing college chaplaincies, supporting local parish work, and creating missions to young women and minorities. The division also ministered to university faculty, graduate students, and foreign students. The Division of College Work was renamed the College and University Division in 1963.

The restructuring of the Church in 1967 brought about the closure of the Home Department and, with it, the College and University Division. Higher education ministries for some time thereafter were carried on in a reduced capacity and on a largely provincial or entirely local level, supplemented with some financial grants or block funds towards stipends provided by Executive Council.

In response to urging by the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations, which identified the need for a single person to coordinate ecumenical efforts at the national level, the position of Ecumenical Officer was created in 1963. The first person to hold the position, Mr. Peter Day, was appointed in 1964. While initially under the Offices of the Presiding Bishop and President (1964-1971), over the decades the Ecumenical Officer shifted from one department to another: Jurisdictional Relations (1972-1974), Mission (1975-1977), National and World Mission (1978-1979), World Mission in Church and Society (1980-1990), World Mission (1991), Partnerships (1992-1994), Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations (1999-2003), Office of the Presiding Bishop (2004-2007, 2017), the Ecumenical and Interfaith division under the Partnership Center (2008-2009), the Global Partnership Team in the Mission Department (2010-2016), and Ministries Beyond the Episcopal Church (2019-current). In whichever department the office has been assigned, the Ecumenical Officer serves as the focal point for The Episcopal Church's involvement with and relationship to other churches and ecumenical organizations, both domestic and international, on common liturgical and social matters.

William Scarlett was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1883. He began his career in 1911 as dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix, Arizona, a position he held for eleven years. From 1922 until his election as bishop coadjutor in 1930, he
served as dean of Christ Cathedral in St. Louis. In 1933 he was appointed Bishop of Missouri and became a tireless crusader for social reform, committing the resources of the diocese to helping those left jobless and homeless by the Great Depression. In 1935 the Episcopal City Mission was created to minister to those in the city’s jails. He also revitalized Christian education in the congregations, recognizing that the future of the Church was at stake.

Known as a liberal clergyman, Scarlett championed the idea of church unity and wanted cooperation among all denominations. He was one of the founders of the St. Louis Chapter of the Conference of Christians and Jews and was invited to share ownership of St. Luke’s Hospital with the Presbyterians. As president of the Urban League of St. Louis, he sought to make his community aware of problems in race relations. While on the national board of the Urban League and American Civil Liberties Union, Scarlett advocated for the equal rights of blacks long before the issue was addressed by the institutional church. He retired in 1952 and was succeeded by Bishop Lichtenberger.

William Scarlett died in Castine, Maine on March 28, 1973.

Originally called St. Stephen’s Normal and Theological School, Bishop Payne Divinity School (Petersburg, Virginia) was founded in 1878 as a branch seminary of the Virginia Theological Seminary. Its first graduate was James S. Russell, who went on to found St. Paul’s Normal and Industrial School in nearby Lawrenceville. When the school was chartered by the State of Virginia in 1884, it was renamed Bishop Payne Divinity and Industrial School in honor of the Rt. Rev. John Payne, the first Bishop of Liberia.

Enrollment decreased dramatically in the 1890s following several canonical actions by the church that marginalized their African American congregations. The name was changed again in 1910 to Bishop Payne Divinity School when the school was given the power to confer the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. Maintaining an adequate budget to operate and improve the school and competing with white seminaries which began to admit black students were constant challenges that led to the decision to close the school in 1949. Its assets were transferred in 1953 to the Virginia Theological Seminary for the purpose of recruiting and educating African Americans.

Gailor Industrial School (Mason, Tennessee) was founded in 1905 by the Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Gailor III, Bishop of Tennessee, and first became affiliated with the American Church Institute (ACI) in 1921. The school was originally named in part for the donor, Rev. Charles A. Hoffman of New York, and then renamed Gailor Industrial School in honor of Bishop Gailor after his death in 1935.

Gailor Industrial School developed into a four-year high school for girls and boys, including boarders. Fire completely destroyed the school in 1945 but it was rebuilt and continued to function. ACI appears to have discontinued funding the school in 1949. The year the school closed is not known.

Founded in 1902 by Wallace A. Battle, Okolona Industrial School (Okolona, Mississippi) did not become affiliated with The Episcopal Church until 1920 when the Diocese of Mississippi and the American Church Institute (ACI) assumed oversight. When Battle became Field Secretary for ACI in 1927, his wife Effie T. Battle took over as administrative head of the school and remained until the arrival of A.M. Strange in 1933.

The school had been renamed Okolona College in 1932. Strange is credited with most of the modernization of Okolona’s physical plant and equipment. In 1965 the Diocese of Mississippi decided to transfer its funding from Okolona College to areas of the state it considered having greater need. The school closed that same year. The campus remained unused until 1990 when the National Council of Negro Women purchased the site with plans of reinstating educational and other support programs for the African American community. The Okolona College site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.