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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.

Lyman Cunningham Ogilby was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1922. After receiving his B.D. from the Episcopal Theological School in 1949, Ogilby became a teacher and chaplain at the Brent School, a position he held until 1952. From 1953 to 1967, he served as a bishop in the Philippines, first as Suffragan Bishop of the Philippines (1953-1957) and then as Missionary Bishop of the Philippines (1957-1967).

In spite of his attachment to the Brent School and to the Philippines, Ogilby saw his true ministry as a missionary bishop, whose calling was, in part, to prepare missionary dioceses of the Church for self-support. In 1967, Ogilby resigned as Bishop of the Philippines in order to give the leadership role to Benito Cabanban, a native Filipino who had served as Suffragan Bishop since 1959. Upon his return to the United States in 1967, Ogilby served as Bishop Coadjutor in South Dakota, which was then still a Missionary District. His address to the diocesan convention in that year shows that he expected to assist briefly and then take over the diocese. In January of 1970 he did briefly became Bishop in-charge of South Dakota upon the retirement of Bishop Conrad Gesner, but he served only long enough to guide the election of a new Bishop Diocesan before resigning in March of 1970. From 1971 to 1973, he served as Assistant Bishop of Pennsylvania, supervising missions and aiding parishes under Bishop Robert DeWitt. He became Bishop Coadjutor in 1973, and upon DeWitt’s resignation in 1974, Ogilby became Bishop of Pennsylvania. He held that position until his retirement in 1987. After retirement, he continued to carry out Episcopal duties in the dioceses of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Washington DC.

Lyman Cunningham Ogilby died on November 3 1990.

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.

The Pacific Basin Conference was held June 19-25, 1983 at Hawaii Loa College, Kaneohe, Hawaii. Conceived by Bishop Wesley Frensdorff of the Diocese of Nevada, and hosted by Bishop Edmond Browning from the Diocese of Hawaii, the conference was attended by over 150 participants and delegates from 51 dioceses of the Anglican Communion around the Pacific Basin. Its purpose was to discuss Roland Allen’s teachings on missionary work and examine how they could be implemented in the Pacific region. These teachings included giving indigenous people the responsibility for leadership in mission churches and enabling lay persons to have an important, effective role as evangelists, relying on local leaders to carry out the work of the Church rather than absentee bishops.