Religion: Episcopalian Assent

“I’m quite speechless!” exclaimed the Most Rev. Arthur C. Lichtenberger, Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Like everybody else at the Episcopalians’ 60th triennial General Convention in Detroit last week, he was astonished at the speed with which the House of Bishops committed themselves to negotiate toward Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake’s proposal for a four-church merger (TIME cover, May 26).

A whole day had been set aside for debate on the issue, and an overflow crowd of spectators jammed the side aisles of the room in Cobo Hall to be present when the Episcopal fireworks went off. Virginia’s Bishop Robert F. Gibson Jr. moved the acceptance of the invitation issued by the United Presbyterian General Assembly, to begin talks looking to eventual union of the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists and United Church of Christ.* He reminded his 190 fellow bishops that they were not passing on the merits of the Blake proposal as such, but on “an official invitation from the United Presbyterian Church—an official, important and deeply serious invitation.” It was noon, and Presiding Bishop Lichtenberger interrupted the proceedings to give the regular noonday prayer: Look mercifully, 0 Lord, on the broken body of thy church. And suddenly, within about 30 seconds and without a single dissenting voice, the motion was unanimously passed. Three days later, the House of Deputies added its assent by a vote of 139½ to 18½.

Elected to preside over the House of Deputies was Layman Clifford Phelps Morehouse, 57, of Katonah, N.Y., the vice president and secretary of Manhattan’s Morehouse-Barlow Co., an Episcopal publishing house. High Churchman Morehouse was one of those who favored dropping “Protestant” from his church’s name (TIME, Sept. 22), but the House of Bishops voted 70 to 54 against the change. He is only the second layman to head the 670-man House of Deputies since the church was established in 1785. The other: the late Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, who served from 1946 to 1949.

* Guidelines for the merged church, as suggested by Dr. Blake, who is Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (Northern), include: A “diversity of theological formulations of the faith, and a variety of worship and liturgy”: a “truly democratic government”; “visible and historical continuity with the church of all ages, before and after the Reformation.”