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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.

Organized in 1964, the Executive Council is the chief oversight body for implementing the programs and corporate business of The Episcopal Church in matters affecting its domestic and foreign mission, its ecumenical relationships, and its place in civil society. The Executive Council is the direct successor body to the National Council (1919-1963) and inherits the role held by the Board of Missions of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (1835-1918). The Executive Council marks the consolidation of authority for the implementation of national and international work of the Council under the single executive office of the Presiding Bishop. Membership is composed of individuals elected by General Convention, Provincial Synods, and ex-offico members.

The Evangelical Educational Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church was organized in November 1866 as a “general Education society” uniting the diocesan Societies of New York, Massachusetts, Ohio and Virginia [and possibly Maryland] with the Divinity Students’ Aid Society in Philadelphia. Twenty years later, it changed it’s name to the Evangelical Education Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church (EES).

EES occupied an important place in the polity of The Episcopal Church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was a strong and representative voice for promoting the thread of “rational religion” that dominated worship and clerical leadership in The Episcopal Church up to the post-Reconstruction period. It did this by supporting the education of men for ministry; sponsoring gatherings, conferences and workshops; publishing books and pamphlets; aiding campus evangelism and theological rigor; and providing biblically-centered Christian education.

EES expanded its membership in the 20th century by merging with the Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Evangelical Knowledge (PESPEK) in 1949 and the Episcopal Evangelical Fellowship (EEF) in 1961. Although a membership organization for most of its history, it shifted to a grant-making organization in the 1990s with an annual donation drive replacing membership dues. Grants are disbursed through the Evangelism for the 21st Century (E-21) grant program, established in 1977, to support emerging forms of lay and ordained ministries.

In 2014, the EES Board changed the organization’s name to the Episcopal Evangelism Society. It continues to support clerical education, publish books and newsletters, and award grants.

Founded in 1980 as an independent national organization of Episcopal women, the Episcopal Women's History Project has played an important role in recovering and documenting the lives of women who have made outstanding contributions to The Episcopal Church. The Project aims to raise awareness about the historic place of women in the Church and their ethnic, racial, regional, and class diversity. Since its formation, the group has produced historical resources, conducted oral history interviews, published a newsletter, distributed grants, and supported and encouraged research and scholarship related to the historical role of women in The Episcopal Church.

The Episcopal Service for Youth was formed in 1911 as The Church Mission of Help (CMH). Its original purpose was to promote family life by assisting unwed mothers to remain with their families and make it possible for them to take care of their children for at least the first two years. The scope of its case work grew through the 1920s to include preventative care for at-risk children. By 1930, it had not only expanded its scope, but also added 13 more societies to its mission field.

The Episcopal Church continued to support CMH, but in the face of declining diocesan funding, the General Convention cut its appropriation by half in 1934. As a result, the bylaws of the organization were radically amended along with a substantial reduction in staff. In 1945, after much discussion, the name of the organization was changed to The Episcopal Service for Youth to better reflect its purpose and better appeal to the young people whom it served. In 1960, much of the society's work was assumed by the Department of Christian Social Relations. The Episcopal Service for Youth continued primarily as a scholarship organization until its dissolution in 1976.

The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) was established in 1974 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, through the merger of the Philadelphia Divinity School and the Episcopal Theological School. EDS was a respected and progressive institution that sought to prepare both men and women for the ministry, whether lay or ordained. In 2016 the board of trustees decided to sell its Cambridge, Massachusetts campus and the following year, EDS affiliated with Union Theological Seminary in New York City, creating EDS@Union.

The Episcopal Church in the Dominican Republic began as a mission for English speaking residents. Responding to a call to minister to US occupational forces and to the British West Indian laborers of Anglican background who worked in the sugar and banana industries, Benjamin Isaac Wilson, a self-taught priest, founded the Church of the Holy Trinity, which was consecrated by the Right Reverend James T. Holly, Bishop of the Orthodox Apostolic Church in Haiti, in 1897.

This initial Dominican congregation, headed by Father Wilson, was at San Pedro de Macoris, and operated under the episcopal jurisdiction of the independent Haitian Orthodox Apostolic Church. In 1913, both the Dominican church and the church in Haiti were received into The Episcopal Church of the United States, although both were remained under the supervision of the Diocese of Puerto Rico for some time.

In 1928, jurisdiction over the Dominican church was transferred to the Bishop of the Missionary Diocese of Haiti. Though a Missionary District of the Dominican Republic was formed by General Convention in 1940, the Bishop of Haiti continued as Bishop-in-Charge, under the direction of the Presiding Bishop. In 1961, the Rt. Rev. Paul Kellogg became the first Bishop of the newly recognized mission diocese of the Dominican Republic.

Originally authorized by the General Convention in 1871 to coordinate the work formerly conducted by a large number of isolated women’s missionary societies, The Woman’s Auxiliary to the Board of Missions initially served in an advisory role, however, the Auxiliary evolved into a planning and promotion group. The first General Meeting of the Auxiliary was held in 1874, when the women resolved to meet concurrently with General Convention and came to be known as the Triennial Meetings of the Woman’s Auxiliary.

During the 1956-1958 triennium women’s work in the Church was reorganized. The Auxiliary transitioned into a division of National Council and was renamed the General Division of Women’s Work. Rejecting the auxiliary status, diocesan organizations began to name themselves the Episcopal Church Women. Symbolic of the turbulent social climate of the late 1960s and 1970s, the Church initiated structural reorganizations aimed at integrating women into the Church on every level. As part of these changes, the General Division of Women’s Work was dissolved in 1968.

Subsequent Triennial Meetings were organized by various ad hoc committees until the 1985 gathering, at which time bylaws were adopted forming the Episcopal Church Women (ECW) at the national level. This organization reclaimed its right as the successor body to the Woman’s Auxiliary and assumed responsibility for coordinating the women’s activities in the Church and for organizing the Triennial gatherings.

A resolution was filed at the June 1986 meeting of Executive Council confirming that the newly formed Episcopal Church Women “is the same or successor organization to the Woman’s Auxiliary, the General Division of Women’s Work, the Committee for Women, the Triennial Program and Planning Committee, and the Triennial Committee.”

The first issue of “The Witness was published on January 6, 1917. The Rt. Rev. Irving Peake Johnson, of Colorado, was the first editor-in-chief and also formed the first board of directors for the publication. William B. Spofford succeeded Johnson as editor. In the earlier years, The Witness combined traditional church news and advertising with impassioned editorials concerning workers' rights and other issues of religious and social consequence.

Sometime in the 1940s, Irving Johnson and William B. Spofford, along with several other men, established the Episcopal Church Publishing Company (ECPC) that continued to publish The Witness. After Spofford’s death in 1972, publication temporarily ceased. Resuming in 1974 after the formation of a new board of trustees, the first issue featured the irregular ordination to the priesthood of 11 women deacons in Philadelphia.

Although it had undergone changes in frequency of publication and appearance, The Witness retained its emphasis on social action and justice in light of the gospel. Its roots remained Episcopal, but its readership ecumenical. Publication ceased in 2003.

William Chauncey Emhardt was born in Philadelphia on January 29, 1874 and educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Divinity School, Columbia University, and General Theological before being ordained as a priest in 1898. After serving in various schools and parishes in Kansas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, he was rector of St. Luke's, Newtown, Pennsylvania from 1907-1920.

In 1920, Emhardt resigned from the parish of St. Luke’s to become Field Director for Church Work Among Foreign-Born Americans, a position he held for ten years. During that time, he also served as Secretary-in-Charge of the Near East Chaplaincies and became a trustee of Near East Relief (formerly the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief).

In addition to his involvement in several other charitable organizations, Emhardt was a member of the Eastern Orthodox Relations Committee of the Federal Council of Churches, and the Commission to Confer with the Orthodox and Old Catholic Churches of the General Convention. He was American Chairman of the Russian Orthodox Seminary in Paris, France (1928-1934) and Chairman of the Hill School in Athens, Greece (1931-1936). From 1936 until 1943 he was vicar of the Pro-Cathedral of St. Mary, Philadelphia.

Ermhardt died in Oceanville, New Jersey, on August 4, 1950.