National Officers
Diocesan Press Service. September 1, 1962 [II-7]
National Council officers did some world-hopping this summer as a part of their work and responsibilities.
Presiding Bishop Lichtenberger attended a meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches August 7 to 15 in Paris.
The Rt. Rev. John B. Bentley, D.D., Overseas Department Director, attended a week-long meeting in late July near Frankfurt, Germany of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches. Bishop Bentley is a member of the committee which administers the fund. Following this meeting he had conferences with the various mission boards in London.
Both he and the Rt. Rev. David Richards, Bishop of Central America and president of the Council of the Caribbean, attended the Synod of the Province of the West Indies in British Guiana in August. It was also the Silver Jubilee of the consecration of the Archbishop. The synod took affirmative action on the proposed transfer of the jurisdiction of the Church in British Virgin Islands to the American Church.
Warren H. Turner, Jr., Council's second vice president, spent 10 days in Europe last May. He addressed the American Convocation at their Florence, Italy meeting. Mr. Turner attended the consecration of Coventry Cathedral and represented the American church at the Tercentenary Celebration of the Prayer Book at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He visited St. Augustine's College at Canterbury and met with officers of the Church of England involved in the Waites-Seabury Exchange.
Dr. David Hunter, director of the Christian Education Department, and five other departmental officers attended the International Conference on Christian Education sponsored by the World Council of Churches Education and Sunday Association held July 9-20 in Belfast, Ireland. They included Miss Carmen Wolfe, the Rev. Ed Adkins, the Rev. Milton LeRoy, the Rev. Richard Harbour and Mrs. Maxine Thornton. Miss Wolfe, the Rev. Henry Myers and the Rev. George Peabody, also of the Department, and the Rev. Roswell O. Moore of Exeter, N.H., were on the staff of Leadership Training Institutes planned by the Church of England Board of Education at Chichester, England June 25 to July 7.
Mr. Peabody, Mrs. Thornton, The Rev. Reid Isaac of the Department, and the Rev. John Denham of the Diocese of Maryland, attended a conference in ate July at "Boldern" near Zurich, Switzerland. This was a gathering of English speaking persons interested in the European Evangelical Academy movement. Mr. Isaac went on a tour to study centers of renewal of the Church in Europe with the Rev. Sam Wiley.
In late July, Miss Wolfe attended a conference for clergy and lay leaders in the Lusitanian Church of Portugal. This brought together the American, Brazilian and Portuguese Churches.
As Chairman of the Executive Committee of Church World Service, The Rev. Canon Almon Pepper, D. D., director of Council's Christian Social Relations Department, attended a consultation of the Division of Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service of the World Council in Nyborg, Denmark in July. This was a meeting of representatives of giving and receiving churches, discussing the nature and extent of the program.
Dr. Pepper served as chairman for a conference on "Churches and Social Welfare" in Mulheim, Germany in late July. Representatives primarily from Europe and the United States, explored issues and worked on the question of the place of the church in relation to social welfare in this time of change. Again as chairman of the Church World Service executive committee, Dr. Pepper spent two weeks in Greece in August, visiting institutions, refugee camps, church leaders, villages, cities - observing what Church World Service is doing for Greece through the Greek Orthodox Church.