Episcopal Press and News

Report on Appalachia Given to Council

Diocesan Press Service. May 18, 1972 [72057]

GREENWICH, Conn. (DPS) -- On Tuesday night, May 16, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church heard four spokesmen from Appalachia give a dramatic report on the millions of Americans living in abject poverty in the 825-mile stretch between New York and Alabama known as Appalachia.

The Rt. Rev. William Marmion, Bishop of Southwestern Virginia and president of Appalachian People's Service Organization (APSO), formerly Appalachia South, recalled that his involvement in the region began at the age of 30, when he served in a mission in the Virginia coal mine area, and now as a bishop working with six other bishops to strengthen the Church in the area and ecumenically minister to the vast needs of the people.

APSO works ecumenically through the Commission on Religion in Appalachia (CORA), a three-year-old agency whose 17 member denominations, 11 councils of Churches, and the National Council of Churches, are uniting to fulfill the Church's mission through regional planning, education and service. Speaking for CORA was its president, the Rt. Rev. William Sanders of Tennessee. He pointed out that there was much reason for hope, but to remember that "the problems in the mountains are the problems you and I created. "

The Rev. William Cox, a late convert to the Episcopal Church, told how, in his youth, the Episcopal Church was "conspicuous by its absence," and how it was now becoming a presence in Appalachia.

The Rev. R. Baldwin Lloyd, Executive Director of APSO, presented a moving, documentary slide show on the region and its 19 million people. It was the story that APSO and CORA want to bring to General Convention in Louisville, Ky., in the fall of 1973. APSO operates on a $27,000 budget, CORA, $100,000.