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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.

Pamela Pauly Chinnis was born in Springfield, Missouri, and raised in Galena in a politically active family. A 1946 graduate of the College of William and Mary with a degree in psychology, she became the first woman to serve as president of its Society of Alumni and as national editor of The Mortar Board Quarterly.

After moving to Washington, D.C. in 1948, she joined the Church of the Epiphany and soon became deeply involved in parish, diocesan, and national leadership. An advocate for women’s rights, she broke barriers in the church, serving as her parish’s first female warden and holding numerous lay leadership positions at every level. She went on to preside over the 1976 Triennial Meeting of the Episcopal Church Women, serve as vice-president of Province III (1979–1985), sit on the Executive Council, and represent the church in the Anglican Consultative Council.

In 1991, Chinnis became the first female President of the House of Deputies in its 220-year history, serving three consecutive terms until 2000 after earlier terms as Vice-President. Widely respected for her inclusive leadership, strong advocacy for women’s ordination and under represented groups, and deep faith, she described herself as a feminist and occasionally drew controversy for her outspoken views.

She received several honorary doctorates from General Theological Seminary. With her former husband, Carter C. Chinnis Sr., she had two children, Ann and Cabell. She died on August 24, 2011, and was buried in Galena, Missouri.

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.

John Rowan Claypool, IV was born on December 15, 1930 in Franklin, Kentucky. In 1952 he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Baylor University and ordained a Baptist minister in 1953. He subsequently went on to earn two degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville: a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1955, and a Doctor of Theology degree in 1959. His first ministry assignment after receiving his doctoral degree was as associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia. In 1960 he became pastor of Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. For eleven years he held this position and, under his leadership, Crescent Hill was one of the first congregations in the area to integrate.

Over time, Claypool found himself increasingly disenchanted with the Baptist Convention. In 1985 he sought admission to the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, where he completed a Certificate of Individual Theological Studies in 1986. He was ordained deacon and priest in 1986 in the Diocese of West Texas and began his first job as an Episcopal priest as Associate Rector of Christ Episcopal Church in San Antonio, where he had served as Theologian-in-Residence while completing his certificate program. Claypool’s next assignment took him to Birmingham, Alabama, where he served as rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church from 1987 until his retirement from full-time ministry in 2000. While at St. Luke’s, Claypool took the riskier path of hiring the first two female priests in Birmingham to work with him.

In the years following his semi-retirement, Claypool served as Theologian-in-Residence at Trinity Episcopal Church in New Orleans, Louisiana; a Priest Associate at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta, Georgia; and as Professor of Homiletics at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta. Claypool died on September 3, 2005.