Showing 104 results

The Advisory Commission on Ecclesiastical Relations was created by the authority of the General Convention in 1931 in its revision of Canon 59(v)(v). The National Council subsequently added the Advisory Commission to its bylaws to replace the earlier Committee on Ecclesiastical Relations, that had been set up in 1927 to consider matters of expanding ecumenical relationships.

By 1935, reduced budgets made it necessary to discontinue the salaried officer. A 1937 revision to Canon 59 dropped the Commission and left oversight of this work to the Presiding Bishop and Council. The Commission and an unsalaried officer were continued with a small budget allocation. The broader ecumenical purview of the Commission was extended by Bishop Tucker in 1939, who renamed the body as the Advisory Council on Ecclesiastical Relations.

The American Church Institute for Negroes, begun in 1906 and renamed as the American Church Institute in 1961, was the institutional Church’s response to the alarming disparity between educational opportunities for African Americans and privileged whites within the church. The organization’s strategy was to train African Americans to be successful tradesmen, businessmen, teachers, and clergy who would return to their communities and spread the benefits of their education to others.

The ACI made it a practice to give support to only one school in any state, although exceptions were made for Virginia and North Carolina. Six other southern states were homes to the ACI schools (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and South Carolina), and one school in Texas received funds from ACI but was never officially brought under its oversight. The eligibility criteria for a school to qualify for ACI support included that the school be located in the area of greatest concentration of African Americans in its state and that it receive financial support from all of the dioceses in its state.

The ACI was formally dissolved in 1967 after a reevaluation of the usefulness of its mission in light of integration.

The Associated Parishes of Liturgy and Mission (APLM), originally called Associated Parishes, was formed in 1946 as "A fellowship of clergy and laity interested in advancing the principles of the Liturgical Movement in the life of the Episcopal Church.” The program was initially carried out by distributing printed publications useful in the parish church and by holding Liturgical Conferences throughout the nation.

Membership was by invitation only until 1963, when it became open to anyone. It was at this time that the name changed from Associated Parishes to Associated Parishes of Liturgy and Mission.

APLM members were instrumental in drafting and promoting the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, reestablishing the Eucharist’s primacy in worship and parish life, and championing Baptism as the foundation for Christian ministry. The organization continues to “develop and promote worship that shapes, defines, and empowers the church to live in the midst of the world as a sign, foretaste, and instrument of the promised and immanent reign of God.”

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.

The Board for Theological Education (BTE) was established by canon at the General Convention of 1967 after concern over the decline in candidates for the ministry in the early 1960s caused the Division on Christian Ministries to call for a comprehensive study of the matter. The focus of the Board was to study the needs and trends of theological education and make recommendations. It was to assist the institutions undertaking the education of future clergy, assist in the enlistment and selection of candidates for ministry, promote the continuing education of both the clergy and the laity, and finally to seek support and funding for the entire enterprise.

The Board for Theological Education met formally four to five times a year, and was composed of fifteen members representing bishops, clergy, and laity. In 1997, General Convention voted to merge the Board of Theological Education into the newly-created Standing Commission on Ministry.

The Board of Foreign Parishes of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is a corporation founded in New York State in 1883. The purpose of the corporation is to establish and support Episcopal churches in Europe. These congregations were established to provide a familiar place of worship and a church community for Americans living in or visiting Europe.

The Board acts as a trusteeship for parishes in holding legal title to their property. It acts as both a fiduciary agent and a coordinating business entity for congregations of The Episcopal Church on the European continent. As of 2008, the Board served eight congregations. In 2019, fifteen Episcopal Church congregations were under the supervision of bishop for the Episcopal Churches in Europe (ECIE). It is unclear which, if any, of the additional seven are aided by the Board of Foreign Parishes.

Two parishes maintain independent boards: St. Paul’s Church (Rome, Italy) and St. James’ Church (Florence, Italy). Together, the three boards manage endowments for the Convocation of American Churches in Europe.

The Brotherhood of St. Andrew was formed on November 30, 1883, by a group of young men at St. James Church in Chicago. Inspired by James Houghteling, who taught a Bible class at the parish, the twelve men committed themselves to following the example of St. Andrew, the apostle who brought Peter to Christ. Their aim was to bring men back to church by practicing personal evangelism among men and boys.

As their work spread, the Brotherhood grew into a national organization with formal chapters, a shared mission, and common practices, including daily prayer and weekly efforts to connect others with the church. By the end of its first seven years, the Brotherhood boasted 15,000 members in 17 countries.

Over the years, the Brotherhood evolved to meet the needs of the times. During both World Wars, it supported chaplains and service members through outreach and care, while in peacetime, it emphasized leadership development and community service. Though it once distanced itself from The Episcopal Church’s social justice efforts, it has since embraced localized service work as a form of ministry, including prison outreach and disaster relief. The Brotherhood continues to operate through local chapters, focusing on faith, community, and service.

Founded in 1892 as an industrial and teacher training school by Charlotte Thorn, Calhoun School (Lowndes County, Alabama) was patterned after the Hampton Institute, an industrial school for African Americans in Virginia where Thorn had taught for a short time. Thorn served as the school’s first principal until her death in 1932. Support of Calhoun was taken up by the American Church Institute in 1941 after the Institute dropped its support for St. Mark’s School in Birmingham. In 1945 the school’s property was deeded to the State of Alabama and it became a Lowndes County public school.

Cathedral Films, Inc. was founded in 1939 by the Reverend James K. Friedrich, an Episcopal priest who believed in using film for Christian education and ministry. The company’s first production, The Great Commandment (1939), was a modest success but not widely distributed. Financial constraints shifted the company's focus to short biblical films for church and Sunday School use, which became its core output.

In 1943 Cathedral Films became a nonprofit corporation, and in 1947 the Articles of Incorporation were amended to stipulate that in the event of the dissolution of the corporation, its assets would go to The Episcopal Church.

For over four decades, Cathedral Films produced and distributed religious films, filmstrips, and recordings across denominations, including the acclaimed Day of Triumph (1954). In the 1960s and 1970s, the company and its subsidiary, Q-Ed Productions, addressed contemporary social issues such as drug abuse and premarital sex from a Christian perspective. Animated filmstrips—featuring characters like Disney’s Jiminy Cricket—were also used to teach children core Christian values. Under the Rev. James L. Friedrich in the 1980s and 1990s, Cathedral expanded into historical documentaries on the Episcopal and Anglican Churches.

In 1968, persistent financial challenges led President Ed Eagle to propose revoking the Trust to return Cathedral Films to for-profit status, which would allow broader funding sources and the production of secular educational content—activities potentially restricted under the nonprofit structure. Efforts to dissolve the Trust or buy back The Episcopal Church’s inheritance rights in the early 1970s were unsuccessful. In response, Cathedral Films created two subsidiaries: Q-Ed Productions in 1973 to produce educational films, and Religious Films Corporation in 1977 to support its religious media work.

By 1980, as Cathedral Films faced mounting insolvency, Eagle offered to sell the company to The Episcopal Church, which declined due to its financial liabilities. A year later, a tentative agreement was reached, but Trustee Elaine Friedrich withheld consent, citing concerns over the Trust’s dissolution. She and her son, the Rev. James L. Friedrich, raised allegations of financial mismanagement—including excessive spending on furnishings, vehicles, and gifts—and called for an audit. They submitted an alternative governance proposal, which the Board approved. Eagle resigned in 1982, and James L. Friedrich became President, continuing production into the mid-1990s.

At its annual Board of Directors meeting in 1834, the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society passed a resolution to establish a mission in China, and appointed its first missionaries the following year. Over the next decade, the missionaries worked to establish schools to include religious training, all while continuing their own study of the people they wished to serve.

After the appointment of the Rev. William J. Boone in 1844 as the first Bishop of China, the American Church Mission at Shanghai was established. Education remained the main focus. A boys' school was founded in 1846 followed by one for girls a short time later.

Over the next several decades, the Missionary District of China would be served by four additional Bishops and witness the establishment of several medical institutions including St. Luke's Hospital and St. Elizabeth's Hospital, both in Shanghai, as well as what would become St. John's University, later the most influential higher educational institution in China.

Soon after the end of the Boxer Rebellion in 1901, which attempted to purge China of Western influences but spared the Episcopal missions from serious harm, the General Convention restructured the Mission by defining the coastal Province of Kiangsu as the Missionary District of Shanghai, while the rest of the original missionary territory became the Missionary District of Hankow. Growth dictated yet another division in 1910, and the Missionary District of Wuhu (later renamed Anking) was created, comprising the Province of Anwhei and the northern portion of Kiangsi.

After many years of political conflict, the Communist Party, headed by Mao Zedong, won control of China in 1949, ushering in atheist policies and anti-American sentiment that prompted the foreign Episcopal missionaries to gradually vacate their stations. The National Council formally recalled all its workers from China in December 1950 at the same time that the United States made it illegal to send money to China, rendering it impossible for the General Convention to fund the China missions.

Church Publishing Incorporated (CPI), founded in 1918 and headquartered in New York City, is a leading global publisher serving both church and general readers. With over 1,000 active publications and three imprints—Church Publishing, Morehouse Publishing, and Seabury Books—CPI produces about 50 new titles each year in print and digital formats. Its catalog ranges from official Episcopal Church worship resources and clergy support materials to trade books on spirituality, leadership, and social justice, as well as scholarly works in religion and theology.