Special General Convention Announced for September, 1969
Diocesan Press Service. May 5, 1968 [65-3]
The Episcopal Church will hold the second special General Convention in its history at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. from Aug. 31, 1969, to Sept. 5, 1969, according to an announcement by the Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop. Normally, General Convention, the Church's governing body, meets every three years.
The reason for the special meeting is to complete some of the unfinished business which could not be considered at the regular Convention in September 1967. A further reason is the anticipated need to act on matters of Church and world-wide concern, arising from the Lambeth Conference, which is to be held in London next July. There will be reports on ecumenical developments, including dialogue with Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and other churches and a report of progress in the Consultation on Church Union.
Since each of the regular conventions is identified numerically, the last (in 1967) having been the 62nd General Convention, the extra meeting will be designated by the numeral II.
The University of Notre Dame was chosen as a convention site because many clergy and lay members of a special committee to investigate sites agreed that an academic setting would provide fewer distractions as well as more opportunities for coordinating meetings in one place.
This departure from the three-year schedule of conventions will also test the desirability of more frequent meetings of the General Convention, which is being called for by many Church leaders. A constitutional amendment making more frequent meetings possible was proposed by the 1967 General Convention. If adopted in 1970, meetings could be held biennially, or even annually.
The first special General Convention was called in 1821 to consider the moving of the General Theological Seminary to New York where a large residuary bequest had been made to the Church for theological education, with the stipulation that such training take place in New York. At the time the General Seminary was located in Connecticut.