Showing 419 results

In 1942, Wilbur Cochel offered his 320-acre farm, Roanridge, near Kansas City, Missouri to serve as a training and conference center for the rural mission of the Episcopal Church. In light of the Joint Commission on Rural Work’s report of 1940 calling for the promotion of rural work within the Episcopal Church, the Church accepted Mr. Cochel's offer. Other than the farm itself, programs at Roanridge were administered by the National Town and Country Church Institute (NTCCI), which held its first session on the farm in 1945.

In donating his farm and estate to the Episcopal Church, Cochel established the Roanridge Rural Training Foundation in 1947. Funding and administration of the Center was the joint responsibility of the Trustees of the Roanridge Foundation and the National Council’s Division of Town and Country. The Executive Secretary of the Division of Town and Country Work, the Rev. Clifford Samuelson, managed the Center from New York City until the appointment of the Center’s first resident director, the Rev. Norman Foote, in 1950.

In 1955, the Board of Trustees incorporated the Roanridge Rural Training Foundation as the Roanridge Rural Training Center, Inc. The corporation changed its name to the Roanridge Foundation, Inc. in 1972 with a Board of Directors constituted in the same manner as the former Board of Trustees.

Initially, Roanridge offered agricultural training, however, over time it shifted to emphasize conferences and short courses for clergy and laity. The most active of these was the Summer Parish Training Program, during which students lived and worked on the farm while serving several local rural congregations. Other noteworthy activities taking place at Roanridge included the summer Vacation Church School Program for local children, Church Army training sessions, National Episcopal Town and Country Conferences, Indian Work consultations, and meetings of the Rural Workers Fellowship and National Advisory Committee on Town and Country.

With the waning need for rural work and the financial status of the Roanridge Foundation deteriorating, the Foundation Board of Trustees voted to dissolve the Wilbur A. Cochel Trust at its meeting of August 12, 1976. Its assets were divided between the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, Holy Trinity Cathedral in Kansas City, and St. Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City. With the proceeds from the sale of the land, the Executive Council established the Wilbur A. Cochel, Caroline F. Cochel, and Roanridge Trust for the training of rural ministry.

Malcolm Riker was born on February 12, 1925, in Austin, Texas. At the age of 18 he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to the South Pacific during World War II. After returning home in February of 1946, he enrolled at the University of Texas, graduating three years later with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. From there he attended seminary in New York City and Berkeley, California where he graduated in the top of his class in 1951.

Upon being ordained, Riker became the first priest at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in La Marque, TX. During his time in the Galveston area he started several more missions. After moving back to Austin in 1958, he revived St. George’s Episcopal Church and proceeded to initiate or take a leading role in the founding of a series of parishes in the Austin area, including missions established at St. Paul’s of Pflugerville and St. Richard’s of Round Rock during his retirement. While at St. Luke’s on the Lake, Riker presented several of the largest Confirmation classes ever confirmed in the history of the Diocese of Texas. In total, Riker founded eleven Episcopal churches in Texas, all of which are thriving today.

Malcolm Riker died on November 17, 2002.

Walter Righter was born on October 23, 1923 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After serving in the Army during World War II, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1948 and a Bachelor of Sacred Theology degree from Berkeley Divinity School in 1951. He was ordained in 1951 and served at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh, where he led the racial integration of the parish, effectively doubling the size of the congregation. Several years later, he took a call to be rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Nashua, New Hampshire, where he was active in interfaith and ecumenical work.

In 1972 he was elected Bishop of the Diocese of Iowa. At his first General Convention, that same year, Righter cast the deciding vote in favor of ordaining women to the priesthood and the episcopate. The resolution was passed in 1976 and in December of that year, he ordained the first woman in Iowa, the Rev. S. Suzanne Peterson. Righter retired as Bishop of Iowa in 1988.

From 1988 to 1991, Righter served as the assistant bishop to John Shelby Spong in the Diocese of Newark. In 1990, at the behest of Bishop Spong, he ordained an openly gay priest, Barry Stopfel. Six years later, just before the statue of limitations expired, ten bishops brought a presentment against Righter, charging him with heresy for violating a doctrine of the church and his own ordination vows. After a short hearing in May 1996, all charges against Righter were dismissed, thus opening the door for partnered gay clergy to be accepted into The Episcopal Church.

Walter C. Righter died in Pittsburgh on September 11, 2011.

James Milton Richardson was born in Sylvester, Georgia, on January 8, 1913. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1934 and went on to earn a Bachelor of Divinity (1936) and Master of Arts (1942) from Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1939, Richardson served at multiple parishes in Atlanta before becoming Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Houston, Texas, in 1952. After John Hines, the sitting diocesan, was elected Presiding Bishop in 1965, Richardson was chosen as the fifth Bishop of the Diocese of Texas, serving from 1965 until his death on March 24, 1980.

During his career, Richardson held numerous leadership roles, serving as a trustee for several religious and educational organizations, including Baylor College of Medicine, the Church Pension Fund, and the Episcopal Radio-TV Foundation. As Bishop of Texas, he chaired the boards of institutions such as St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest. He also took part in an episcopal visit to Texas' sister diocese of Malawi in 1969 and assisted in hosting the 1970 General Convention in Houston.

When the Church Pension Fund was established by the General Convention in 1913, no provision was made to include deaconesses. To rectify this, deaconesses formed their own not-for-profit corporation and began to raise funds.

On September 30, 1927, the Retiring Fund for Deaconesses (RFD) of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was formally incorporated to provide financial assistance to retired and disabled deaconesses who were unable to provide for themselves.

Forty-five years later, on September 27, 1972, the RFD voted to change its name to The Retiring Fund for Women in the Diaconate in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America to reflect the ordination of women to the diaconate after the General Convention of 1970. It began operating under this name in 1973.

The RFD has since changed names twice more, both times to acknowledge an expanded membership. In 1998 it changed its name to The Fund for the Diaconate of The Episcopal Church in the United States of America, following a 1990 vote to admit male deacons. In 2018 it changed its name to The Fund for the Diaconate of the Episcopal Church, emphasizing its availability to all deacons of The Episcopal Church and continues to operate under that name.

Born in Reigate, England in 1927 and educated at Oxford, Nigel Renton (sometimes known as Nigel Auld Lindsey Renton) emerged as a prominent lay leader in The Episcopal Church after settling in California in 1957.

Renton began his church service in the 1960s and 1970s as vestry member and Senior Warden at All Souls and Saint Mark’s in Berkeley. He soon moved into national church politics, first elected as alternate lay deputy to the 1982 General Convention and seated as a full deputy in 1985. From 1987 to 2006 he was a prominent presence in the House of Deputies, co-chairing the California deputation and earning the nickname “the Terminator” for his skill in closing debate. Between conventions, he served as a deputy to the Synod of Province VIII and, as Treasurer from 1994–1997, sat on its Executive Committee and Provincial Council.

In the Diocese of California, Renton simultaneously served as a Diocesan Convention delegate and as President of the Diocesan Council (1981-1983). He was elected to the Standing Committee for a four year term in 1990 and served as President from 1993-1994. He was appointed chair of the Diocesan Resolutions Committee in 1990, and served in that capacity until his election as Secretary of the Diocesan Convention in 1994. He filled that office from 1994-2006.

Renton’s church work centered on his passion for liturgy and the expanded role of lay participation in worship. As Chair of St. Mark’s Worship Committee, he emphasized that “liturgy is the work of the people.” For nearly three decades he shaped Episcopal services through roles on the Diocesan Liturgical Renewal Commission, the General Convention’s Legislative Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music (1991), the Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission, and the Association of Diocesan Liturgy and Music Commissions, which named him “Person of the Year” in 1990. He also wrote widely on worship for The Living Church, Pacific Church News, and other publications.

Nigel Renton died on January 10, 2021 in Berkeley, California.

Beginning in 1841, General Convention recognized the need for a person, chosen by the House of Bishops, to procure and maintain all the Journals of the proceedings and record the time and place of the consecrations of all bishops. At the time, the Librarian of the General Theological Seminary was chosen to be the “Register of the House of Bishops”. It wasn’t until 1853 that a Canon was officially passed establishing a Registrar of the General Convention, with the Rev. John Henry Hobart elected to fill the position.

In 2012, Canon I.1.5 was amended, stipulating that the Secretary of the General Convention would act as the Registrar going forward.