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The Executive Office of the General Convention (GCO) is one of the three offices of The Episcopal Church. The others are the Office of the Presiding Bishop and the Office of the President of the House of Deputies.

The GCO administers the governance of the Church in a variety of ways, including organizing and overseeing the triennial General Convention, supporting the activities of the various interim bodies of the General Convention, participating in official meetings of the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, generating the Church’s annual Parochial Report, and promoting the ministry of the ecumenical, inter-religious, and inter-Anglican bodies of the Church.

In addition, the GCO supports the Executive Officer in their role as corporate Secretary of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, Secretary of the Executive Council, and Registrar of the General Convention.

Julia Chester Emery was appointed secretary of the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions in 1876, after her sister Mary Abbott Emery resigned the position. During her forty-year tenure she directed the expansion of the Woman’s Auxiliary into every domestic and missionary diocese of The Episcopal Church and was key to the founding and growth of the United Offering (now the United Thank Offering). She traveled overseas extensively to promote the Auxiliary by addressing the woman’s missionary congress in London in 1897, representing the Diocese of New York at the Pan-Anglican Congress in 1908, and visiting mission stations throughout Europe and Asia. In addition, she authored several books, including “A Century of Endeavor” (1921), the centennial history of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Julia Emery is commemorated in the Episcopal Calendar of the Church Year on January 9th.

In addition to Mary Abbott and Julia Chester, their sisters, Susan Lavinia Emery (1846-1914) and Margaret Theresa Emery (1849-1925) were involved with The Episcopal Church and the Woman’s Auxiliary, although to a much lesser degree.

The Office of the Suffragan Bishop for the Armed Forces grew out of the Army and Navy Commission established by General Convention in 1919 "to press upon the attention of Congress the need for Army and Navy Chaplains." For the next 25 years the Commission raised money to aid churches near military camps, provided portable altars and communion sets to chaplains, distributed A Prayer Book for Soldiers and Sailors, paid the pension premiums of chaplains when needed, and contributed to chaplains' discretionary funds to help them respond to emergencies among service men.

In September 1945, the Commission decided to dissolve the existing body and on January 1, 1946, the Army and Navy Commission became the Army and Navy Division of the National Council, reporting to the Presiding Bishop. Since WWII had ended there was no longer an immediate need for chaplains, allowing the focus of the work to shift from wartime ministrations to reintegrating the soldiers into a peacetime society.

In 1946, General Convention determined that a position of Suffragan Bishop for the Armed Forces was required. However, the call for a bishop was not made until 1964 with the election of Arnold M. Lewis, which was due in part to the Unites States becoming fully involved in the Vietnam War. In 1988, the office expanded its scope, and was renamed under the umbrella of Federal Ministries.