Church News Briefs
Diocesan Press Service. February 14, 1975 [75063]
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The 100th anniversary of the consecration of James Theodore Holly, first black bishop of the Episcopal Church in the U.S., was commemorated Feb. 7-8 at the Washington Cathedral. Co-sponsored by the cathedral and the Black Episcopal Clergy Association, the celebration featured addresses by several persons from Haiti, where Bishop Holly ministered for more than half a century. Bishop Holly, who was born in 1829, was consecrated bishop of Haiti in 1874 and he died in 1911.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The director of a new "Mid-South Career Development Center," sponsored by several church groups, including the Episcopal Church, has been appointed and an office opened Feb. 3 in Nashville on the Scarritt College Campus. Frank A Robinson, 37, is the first director of the center which is a part of a network of 16 "Career Development Centers " related to a nationally church sponsored professional career development council. The Mid-South Center will serve professional church workers in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Special Unemployment Assistance is now available to unemployed ordained, commissioned or licensed clergy, to members of religious orders, and to lay members elected or appointed to an office in the church and engaged in religious functions. According to a new Federal law, unemployed clergy may apply to the state unemployment office in order to qualify for this assistance.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Members of Christ Episcopal Church, Charlotte, N.C., have decided that world hunger is a more important priority than a proposed new activities building. The vestry voted in January to raise $250,000 during the next three years to feed hungry people rather than to finance a new building. The money will be spent in their own community, in the U.S., and in various parts of the world. Russell M. Robinson II, a lawyer who has been named to head the fund-raising campaign, said, "Instead of spending the money on ourselves, the church felt an obligation to turn our attention outward. And we identified hunger as obviously one of the great problems. "
MOSCOW -- The Rev. Michael W. Spangler, 31, a United Presbyterian minister, has gone to Moscos to begin a three-year stint as pastor to the English-speaking community in the Soviet capitol. He replaces the Rev. Raymond Oppenheim, an Episcopal priest, who has held the post for the past three years. The sixth American to hold the chaplaincy since it was established in 1956 by the National Council of Churches, Mr. Spangler will preach alternate Sundays in the ballroom of the American Ambassador to Russia, the Hon. Walter Stoessel, and in the British Embassy. He will minister to an international congregation of some 70 to 80 adults and 30 children from the community of Christian diplomats and businessmen who temporarily make their home in Moscow.
TORONTO, Ont. -- The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada has rejected the plan of union proposed for their Church and the United Church of Canada and The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Some observers expressed the opinion that the Anglican bishops' rejection of the plan of union is a result of their fear that their traditional powers and duties would be severely curtailed in the proposed new church.