The new organ at Church of the Epiphany, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Manhattan’s Upper East Side in New York. Photo: Adelle M. Banks/RNS

[Religion News Service] The organ arrived from Utah on a warm August morning. Greeted by holy water, incense and slide whistles, it came in a 53-foot-long truck that was double-parked on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The Church of the Epiphany’s priests clambered up on the truck’s loading dock, tossed on stoles and blessed the long-awaited instrument. Their prayers were punctuated by the sound of confetti cannons shot off by about 30 parishioners.

Then, for hours, children, adults and elders into their 90s hoisted pipes and boxes up flights of stairs to the church’s second-floor sanctuary. The biggest spectacle was the entrance of the 600-pound organ console, which parishioners and organ builders spent over 30 minutes wrangling up an external staircase.

“What has been the most beautiful part of this organ is the way it has brought our entire community together,” Denise Cruz, a  vestry member, speech pathologist and mother of two, told RNS. “It was all hands on deck.”

Even with reports of declining worship attendance in the U.S. — and an overall reduction in the numbers of professional organists — some churches are investing in new versions of the age-old instrument to fill their sanctuaries with music and possibly attract community members to come inside. The new organ on East 74th Street joins others in New York City, where special concert series introduced new instruments at Trinity Church in September and at St. Thomas Church in 2018.

To the Rev. Matthew Dayton-Welch, the new, handcrafted organ at Church of the Epiphany represents more than a commitment to quality music; it’s emblematic of the final phase of a multiyear, $70 million effort to relocate and rebuild the Episcopal congregation, an investment in community as much as sound. The organ costs totaled $2.5 million.

“So many churches make difficult decisions because they’re shrinking and they’re consolidating and they’re trying to survive. And that wasn’t the case here,” Dayton-Welch, the church’s rector, told RNS. “This was the church that was healthy, but it was still willing to risk everything it had in order to create an even better platform in a city where churches don’t get up and move.”

In 2018, space constraints led the nearly 200-year-old Episcopal parish to consider moving from its location at the time, on York Avenue. The congregation set its eyes on the former Jan Hus Presbyterian Church, a larger space just one block west that needed a remodel. But, as Dayton-Welch put it, “crossing First Avenue, for us, we might as well have been crossing the Red Sea.”

The church’s then-rector, the Rev. Jennifer Anne Reddall, was elected bishop of Arizona, propelling Church of the Epiphany into an unexpected rector search. Then, a 2020 excavation of the new property revealed that it sat over a natural creek, and the threat of flooding required a redesigned building foundation.

“We had things flood in the basement of the church,” said Christian Vanderbrouk, who has attended Epiphany for about a decade.

Located in the middle of a medical hub, the church’s community was also hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. Congregants recall refrigerated morgue trucks circling the neighborhood. And in 2021, hot steel beam rafters didn’t cool as expected, briefly setting the church ablaze.

“You had a flood, a fire and a plague,” said Dayton-Welch, who arrived at the church in 2023, by which time the church had officially moved to its current location on East 74th Street.

Meanwhile, Church of the Epiphany contracted with Bigelow & Co. Organ Builders in American Fork, Utah, in 2020 to design a new organ for the new space. Bigelow founder Michael Bigelow is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his workshop is in an old LDS church building whose tall ceilings allow for organ assembly.

In April, RNS visited Bigelow’s workshop, where builders were completing the trackers, the mechanical linkages that pull open the valves releasing air into the correct pipe. Like most of Bigelow’s organs, the Epiphany organ uses mechanical tracker action in contrast to electric-action pipe organs, where pressing a key sends an electric signal to open the valve under the corresponding pipe.

Initially, the organ’s sound had a German flair, focused on volume and power, but church leaders’ feedback led the builders to swap some of the neo-Baroque style stops in favor of producing a more expressive, versatile sound.

“That decision was made basically to better serve the Anglican style of liturgy,” said Conner Kunz, an experienced woodworker and member of the Bigelow team. He said Bigelow added a Flute Celeste stop, creating an “ethereal, sort of wavy, shimmery effect” that is “less boisterous than our shrieky little harmonic pipes that are sort of traditional in the neo-Baroque style.”

Builders were also completing an initial phase of voicing the pipes, cutting the ends, adjusting the openings and nicking the edges to shape the sound. David Chamberlin, the tonal director and vice president of Bigelow, is also an organist, with a master’s degree in organ performance. He oversaw the voicing, blowing on each pipe to test the sound quality.

“We want to do something that will create, uplift, enrich, spiritually, the lives of our listeners,” he said.

By late summer, the organ had been disassembled and loaded into tractor-trailers. To prepare for its arrival, the church building underwent a litany of preparations. A team of engineers and HVAC workers reset electrical lines, adjusted the temperature and humidity, and excavated holes in the 140-year-old brick wall to create pathways for the air system “so the organ’s lungs can breathe,” Dayton-Welch explained.

He said that, typically, you build an instrument after a room, but the construction of the new location created an opportunity for both to be designed in tandem. “The room is part of the organ, the room is part of the instrument,” he said.

Church of the Epiphany leaders envision the organ not solely as a source of music for their sanctuary, but as a tool to bring people in — and not solely for Sunday morning worship, where 60 to 80 people gather each week. They are hoping to build on already developed relationships, with decades-long members going to dinner with young couples who are newly attending, and the church continuing its Wednesday night dinner program that feeds housing-insecure neighbors, college students and others needing a meal.

“What we’re trying to do is meet the needs of our community by creating a place of belonging,” Dayton-Welch said. “And our hope is that the music program facilitates that.”

Alex Nguyen, who began as Epiphany’s new director of music in September, envisions using nontraditional ways to introduce the organ to the community, such as hosting jazz ensembles or multimedia events.

“Of course we will have recitals, but I think we’d like to try some different things, unconventional pairings with the organ, doing things with the kids to help create that interest,” he said.

Cruz, who lives near Epiphany and was first inspired to attend in 2023, after a hospitalization, said the church has “felt like home” since day one. Anticipating the organ, she said, has been part of what’s drawn the congregation together, and she compared the instrument’s arrival to a birth.

“The organ has almost breathed a new sense of life or purpose, and we get to share now this musical ministry with our community,” she said.

Andrew Gingery, vice president of Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America, a trade organization, said some churches — often Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran or Presbyterian — continue to appreciate pipe organs. And high-quality organ building companies are “all very busy right now,” since the end of the height of the pandemic.

“There are still churches with means, and they want to have good music,” said Gingery, who is also executive vice president of C.B. Fisk, a pipe organ builder based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which is developing an organ for the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral in New York for 2027. “That’s one of the things that makes them an active church. Frankly, you put on a good show and people are likely to come.”

This past fall, Epiphany’s congregation heard the organ played during worship for the first time. Though the voicing of the organ pipes wasn’t yet complete, parishioners told RNS that even hearing the unfinished organ was profoundly moving. On Tuesday (Jan. 6), the Feast of Epiphany, which celebrates the wise men’s visit to the infant Jesus, the voicing process was nearing completion. The organ will be blessed Tuesday by the bishop of New York.

Cruz said that for her Puerto Rican family, Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day, is “almost bigger than Christmas.”

“We’re all like little kids waiting to see how is it going to sound that day when it’s absolutely, fully complete,” she said.

Vanderbrouk, who served as junior warden when the plans for the organ were first made, noted that Epiphany’s congregation has moved numerous times over the nearly two centuries it’s been around. To him, the organ is now like an anchor for the “itinerant” church.

“It’s a signal to the parish and to our neighbors that after all that moving and construction, we’re fully invested, and we’re here to stay,” he said. “There’s a sense of permanence.”

Cypress House Bakery, a nonprofit based in a building attached to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in downtown Scranton, Pennsylvania, is a training program that will teach formerly incarcerated people baking and culinary skills. Here, the program’s operations manager, Brian Goble, far right, reviews kitchen renovation plans with architects and construction managers, including the Rev. Susan Treanor, center right, an Episcopal priest who previously ran a construction management consultant agency. Photo: Helen Wolf

[Episcopal News Service] Pennsylvania has one of the highest recidivism rates in the United States: on average, over 50% of formerly incarcerated people will get rearrested or reincarcerated. 

The congregation at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in downtown Scranton is hoping to reduce that percentage by launching the nonprofit Cypress House Bakery, a 6-month job training program that will teach formerly incarcerated people baking and culinary skills. Those skills and a support network established by the church and its partners will help graduates find jobs.

“Cypress House is a way for us to show previously incarcerated people that we love and care for them by connecting them with the resources that they need to succeed as they restart their lives,” the Rev. Tyler J. Parry, priest-in-charge of St. Luke’s and president and CEO of Cypress House, told Episcopal News Service. “Being seen as a beloved human being is so important, especially with this demographic of people who may not find it anywhere else.”

Parry, who also serves as priest-in-charge of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Moscow, has served as a prison chaplain throughout Pennsylvania.

“In our society, we look at currently incarcerated or formerly incarcerated folks, not as people, but as their crimes,” Parry said. “We look at them and say, ‘Your past is something that’s an impediment to the kind of human-to-human connection that you need in order to heal,’ but … they are, in fact, human beings.”

Pennsylvania’s State Transition Reentry Incentive Validating Endeavors program, which helps formerly incarcerated people transition back to life outside of prison, will connect Cypress House with potential students, up to eight at a time, with four students in each of two cohorts, daytime and nighttime.

Four or five days a week, 20 hours total, students will learn baking techniques, food safety and business management. While enrolled, they will be paid hourly through a living stipend.

“It’s something to help them get by while they’re training,” Helen Wolf, Cypress House’s vice president, told ENS.

Graduates will earn a Pennsylvania Food Handler Certificate.

Unemployment drives recidivism. Previously incarcerated people can have a difficult time finding a job for several reasons, including employer bias and, often, a lack of post-secondary education and employable skills. 

As the program is set to launch later this month, Cypress House’s board of directors has recently hired Asa Frost to oversee it. Her duties include designing the curriculum and serving as the program’s baking instructor.

Plans to establish Cypress House began in 2015, when St. Luke’s congregation debated the best use of an underutilized building. While they researched Scranton’s biggest needs, the church’s previous rector, the Rev. Rebecca Barnes, learned about Homeboy Industries. The Los Angeles, California-based project, founded by the Rev. Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, is the world’s largest gang intervention and rehabilitation program. It provides clients with job experience, training and a supportive community.

After realizing that Scranton had no similar program, the Episcopal congregation agreed to renovate the building’s kitchen to create a training space. Construction began in 2018 after they established a nonprofit organization and began raising money, including $300,000 for the kitchen renovation project. Fundraising and construction halted in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and resumed in 2022. In 2023, Cypress House received a $50,000 United Thank Offering grant.

Cypress House will be a Homeboy Industries’ global network affiliate.

While fundraising and renovating the building, Barnes and Cypress House’s board of directors developed relationships with local bakeries and other businesses to help future graduates find jobs. 

“With these bakery skills, graduates will open the door to not just getting hired at hospitals or hotels, but also to operating a standalone bakery or catering business,” Brian Goble, Cypress House’s operations manager, told ENS. “There will be many possibilities out there for them.”

Barnes left St. Luke’s in 2024 to serve as dean of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in Buffalo, New York. Parry said he was easily able to continue Barnes’s work with Cypress House because he already had served on the nonprofit’s board of directors and because of his prison ministry background.

Through local connections Barnes made, Cypress House additionally will connect students and graduates with “wraparound” services, such as résumé writing assistance, professional networking and physical and mental health assistance, including trauma support from being incarcerated.

“Cypress House’s short-term goal is to get folks on their feet with a full-time job somewhere, but the long-term goal is to build relationships and learn from each other based on where our lives have taken us,” Wolf said. “Hopefully, graduates, if they want, will want to mentor others coming out of incarceration. Whatever they decide, our doors will never close on them.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, “chalks the door” after worship services on the Sunday closest to Epiphany as part of its annual celebration of the feast day. Photo: Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, via Facebook

[Episcopal News Service] If you see the initials “C + M + B” marked in chalk above the door of a church or home, it could refer to Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, the biblical “three wise men,” whose visit to the baby Jesus is celebrated every Jan. 6 on the Feast of Epiphany.

Or “C + M + B” could be read as a shorthand for the Latin phrase “Christus mansionem benedicat,” or “Christ bless this house.”

For any Episcopalians thinking this week of participating in the tradition of “holy graffiti,” there is no need to choose between the two interpretations. “Why not both?” the Rev. Matthew Wright said in a recent social media post about the practice. Wright is rector at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, New York, one of many Episcopal churches promoting “chalking the door” this Epiphany.

The full inscription includes the numerals of the current year, so for 2026, that will be “20 + C + M + B + 26.” The Table, an Episcopal church in Indianapolis, Indiana, also offers more detailed instructions that Episcopalians can follow at home for blessing their home and chalking their doors.

“Chalk is used in this tradition because it is an ordinary substance of the earth, ‘dust’ put to holy use,” according to The Table. “It reminds us that we are of the dust of the ground, the most ordinary of substances, and yet are fashioned as holy beings for holy purposes.”

Other Episcopal churches have scheduled Epiphany events this week featuring ceremonial blessings of the chalk that members will use to mark the church entrance and the doors of their own homes. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Salisbury, Maryland, held its chalk blessing on Jan. 4. Parishioners then were encouraged, on or around Epiphany, to inscribe the traditional markings atop the entrances to their homes, “symbolizing Christ’s presence and inviting blessings.”

Saint Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Boulder, Colorado, will celebrate Epiphany on Jan. 6 with an Evensong and plans to distribute chalk for worshipers to take home. Similar “home chalking kits” will be distributed by the Episcopal Church of the Nativity in Dothan, Alabama.

St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, New York, is one of many Episcopal congregations encouraging members to bless their homes with “holy graffiti.” Photo: St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, via Facebook

Church of the Good Shepherd in Austin, Texas, chalked its door after its Jan. 4 worship services. Blessing the chalk that parishioners take home has become a cherished annual event for the congregation’s families, the Rev. Brin Bon, Good Shepherd’s senior associate for liturgy and formation, told Episcopal News Service.

“The kits that we send home with families are really fun,” she said. They include a Scripture reading and a brief service of blessing taken from the Book of Occasional Services. “It’s a way of marking the beginning of a new year with a blessing.”

Chalking the door is also an Epiphany tradition that marks the transition in the liturgical calendar to the season after Advent and Christmas and before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.

“Seeing the symbols over our door during the year reminds us that as life goes back to a routine after Christmas, our homes and all those who dwell there belong to Christ,” Christ & Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church in Norfolk, Virginia, said in a Facebook post about chalking the door on Epiphany. “They are also reminders of the welcome the Magi gave to Jesus. Who might we welcome into our hearts and homes this coming year?”

Although Epiphany is celebrated by Christian communities worldwide, the holy day’s origins date to the early centuries of the church as a kind of Christian response to pagan commemorations of the winter solstice. “In opposition to pagan festivals, Christians chose this day to celebrate the various manifestations, or ‘epiphanies,’ of Jesus’ divinity,” according to The Episcopal Church’s online description.

“These showings of his divinity included his birth, the coming of the Magi, his baptism, and the Wedding at Cana where he miraculously changed water into wine.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

Supporters of Venezuelan leader Nicholás Maduro gather Jan. 24 in Caracas, Venezuela’s city center to protest after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the Venezuelan president had been captured and flown out of the country. Many Venezuelans are also celebrating Maduro’s removal from office. Photo: Jeampier Arguinzones/AP

[Episcopal News Service] Following last weekend’s U.S. military attack on Venezuela and the removal of President Nicholás Maduro from office, Episcopal leaders have released statements calling for prayers and peace in the South American country. They expressed both support for Venezuelans celebrating Maduro’s removal and concern over the legality of the attack. 

“The Episcopal Church’s General Convention has a long-standing policy that ‘condemn[s] in any nation the first use of armed force in the form of a preventive or pre-emptive strike that is aimed at disrupting a non-imminent, uncertain military threat,’” The Episcopal Church said in a Jan. 3 Action Alert released by the Episcopal Public Policy Network. “Even as we recognize that intervention in sovereign states can sometimes be necessary to prevent atrocities, we discourage ‘the abuse of this norm to rationalize military actions in sovereign states for political ends.’”

In the early hours of Jan. 3, the U.S. military attacked Venezuela, taking Maduro and his wife into custody. The attack followed months of strikes against so-called drug-carrying boats, the seizure of two oil tankers and a massive buildup of U.S. forces off Venezuela’s coast.

Before the attack, the Trump administration did not seek congressional approval, as required by the U.S. Constitution; legal experts suggest the strike also violated international law.

Maduro, an authoritarian ruler who has been accused of human rights abuses and other violations, has led Venezuela since the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013. In 2024, Maduro was declared the winner of an election declared fraudulent by independent monitors. He and his wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, have been charged by the United States with narco-terrorism and drug trafficking. They both pleaded not guilty during their federal court appearance on Jan. 5 in New York.

The Episcopal Diocese of Venezuela, based in the capital, Caracas, has 10 parishes, 14 missions and four preaching stations. Ecuador Litoral Bishop Cristóbal Olmedo León Lozana is the provisional bishop of the diocese, which is part of the church’s Province IX.

“Episcopalians in Venezuela carry out vital ministries in increasingly challenging conditions, and we fear for their well-being and their church community if these military interventions, and any form of U.S. occupation, lead to more instability and violence,” The Episcopal Church’s statement said.

Church leaders have been communicating with Lozano, standing committee leadership and Honduras Bishop Lloyd Allen, who serves as president of Province IX, according to the statement.

Los Angeles Bishop-elect Antonio Gallardo, who continues to serve as rector of St. Luke’s/San Lucas Episcopal Church in Long Beach, California, is from Venezuela and has family living there, including his mother, siblings and cousins. He said in a Jan. 3 Facebook post in English and Spanish that his “heart is experiencing mixed emotions” after Maduro’s capture.

“When the Venezuelan people celebrate the extraction of Maduro, they get a renewed sense of hope, a sense that they almost lost after these many years of trying to elect other leaders in elections that [were] very likely rigged,” Gallardo said in his Facebook post.

While Gallardo’s “heart is full of joy” for Venezuelans, his “heart is also afraid of what may come to them.” After Maduro’s capture, U.S. President Donald Trump said during a Jan. 3 news conference that the United States will “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition” to new leadership. Venezuela Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who has served since 2018, was sworn in Jan. 5 as the country’s interim president.

“When the U.S. government says within a few hours of the operations, words like ‘We are going to run the country,’ and ‘We will rebuild the oil infrastructure before a transition,’ it makes me fear that the Venezuelan people may have shifted from one form of oppression to another,” Gallardo said. “I don’t think this military operation was about the people in Venezuela, when here in the U.S., we treat Venezuelans and other immigrants of color with cruelty.”

In its statement, The Episcopal Church urges Congress to call for an investigation of recent U.S. military operations in Venezuela, and for support of a “peaceful transition that respects the rule of law and the will of the Venezuelan people.”

El Camino Real Bishop Lucinda Ashby concurred. “As a church that spans many nations and cultures, we are mindful that decisions made by governments can have profound consequences far beyond their borders,” Ashby said in a Jan. 3 statement to the Salinas, California-based diocese. “Our faith calls us to witness to the dignity of every person and to seek paths that lead toward peace rather than further harm.”

When former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry was primate of The Episcopal Church from 2015-2024, he visited every diocese except Venezuela over safety concerns due to violence and civil unrest under the Maduro regime.

Following U.S. military operations and Maduro’s removal, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted a prayer vigil for Venezuela on Jan. 3.

“I bid your prayers for our nation, for the people of Venezuela, for the members of our military, for those who were killed or captured, for the Congress and for the uncertain future before us,” Arizona Bishop Jennifer Reddall said in a Facebook statement announcing the prayer vigil. “We pray for those good things which Jesus has taught us to pray for: for peace, for justice, for righteousness and mercy and for the healing of the world and the children of God.”

New York Bishop Matthew Heyd, in his Jan. 5 email newsletter, also called for prayers for Venezuela and for Venezuelans living in the Diocese of New York, as well as for members of the U.S. armed forces.

“As Christians, we proclaim an incarnational faith. We believe in human dignity and human possibility,” he said. “That’s the bright thread that we follow through disorienting times. We can at once denounce despots and affirm the rule of law.”

As of June 2025, roughly 1.1 million of the nearly 8 million forcibly displaced Venezuelan migrants have fled to the United States. About 600,000 of them legally entered the United States through a humanitarian program known as Temporary Protected Status. Tens of thousands of them have settled in New York, according to New York Times analysis.

Indianapolis Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows has been communicating with several diocesan members with family living in Venezuela, she said in a Jan. 4 statement.

“There is no question that we are living in turbulent times that will demand much of us as people of faith,” Baskerville-Burrows said. Regarding Venezuela, “there is a sense of both optimism and fear for the future.”

Gallardo, who is scheduled to be ordained and consecrated as Los Angeles bishop diocesan on July 11 at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, expressed gratitude for the support and prayers offered to Venezuelans after Maduro’s removal.

“I give thanks to God for giving me a heart capable of holding multiple, and at times conflicting, feelings, and more than anything, I give thanks for all the prayers that the people are offering to sustain the people of Venezuela during this time of transition,” Gallardo said.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

“You might be greeting Christmas this year with the awe of the shepherds or the wariness of the Magi,” Rowe said. “Either way, the Gospel reminds us that Jesus came both to experience all of the joy, uncertainty, and brokenness of our humanity, and to bring God’s kingdom near.”

Rowe also drew Episcopalians attention to three ministries supporting “the most vulnerable among us” and encouraged donations to the three, Episcopal Migration Ministries, the Good Friday Offering and Episcopal Relief & Development.

The following is Rowe’s full Christmas message.

Dear people of God in The Episcopal Church,

If you imagine yourself as a character in the Gospel Nativity readings, you’ll soon realize that the first Christmas was not about staying home by a warm hearth with chestnuts roasting and stockings hanging. Everyone in these passages is on the move, mostly without warning and against their will. Joseph and Mary are summoned from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census. Shepherds, at the behest of an angel, leave their sheep in the fields to see what all the fuss is about. And the three Magi, my favorites, are just sitting there minding their own kingdoms when a star intrudes on their lives and leads them on an unplanned and uncomfortable trip far away from home.

The Anglican poet T.S. Eliot wrote a poem about that arduous journey from the perspective of one of the Magi, recounting, among other things, the difficulty of getting camels to do as they are told. The three kings’ encounter with the newborn son of God was hard, disruptive, and unsettling. And when they returned home—by a different road to elude capture by Herod—it no longer felt like home. In Eliot’s retelling, the first Christmas turned the Magis’ lives upside down, and they had mixed feelings about the whole experience.

You might be greeting Christmas this year with the awe of the shepherds or the wariness of the Magi. Either way, the Gospel reminds us that Jesus came both to experience all of the joy, uncertainty, and brokenness of our humanity, and to bring God’s kingdom near. The birth of the Christ Child heralds a new reality in which the last shall be first, the hungry will be fed, and the stranger among us shall be welcomed as a beloved child of God.

This Christmas, I hope that you will join me in proclaiming these good tidings by supporting the most vulnerable among us with a donation to one of these Episcopal Church ministries:

Episcopal Migration Ministries, which works with dioceses and ministry networks to serve migrants and protect their rights.

Good Friday Offering for the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East, which supports lifesaving ministry in Gaza and across the Holy Land.

Episcopal Relief & Development, which works for lasting change in communities affected by injustice, poverty, disaster, and climate change.

I am grateful to be on the journey of faith with you. May God bless you and all those you love this Christmas and always.

The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe
Presiding Bishop
The Episcopal Church

Dan Beazley, left, holds a large cross as he prays with visitors at a memorial for flood victims on July 10 in Kerrville, Texas. Photo: Associated Press

[Episcopal News Service] A new presiding bishop completes an eventful first year, including reorganization of the churchwide staff to better serve dioceses. A new archbishop of Canterbury — the first woman — is chosen to lead the Anglican Communion at a time of rising tensions between some provinces. A new U.S. president takes office and upends governing norms, forcing church leaders to make tough decisions on how best to minister to and protect their communities.

Nearly from start to finish, 2025 was a momentous year for The Episcopal Church and the world it serves. Along the way, Episcopal News Service has reported the news, from big headlines to smaller updates and some stories that just make you go “hmm.”

In Texas and California, churches mobilized to respond to natural disasters. Numerous dioceses launched bishop searches, including a closely watched process in Florida. And a church property fight in New Jersey made news far beyond the congregation’s local community.

As we prepare to greet 2026, ENS is highlighting the following 10 stories from the past year. They include some of the most significant examples of The Episcopal Church at work in the world, and all 10 ranked among our top stories in pageviews. Several of them entailed ongoing coverage of evolving stories that will continue developing into the new near, so watch for continued coverage by ENS.

And look further below for a list of additional articles that resonated with our readers in 2025, from a Florida priest who teaches a course on ghosts and exorcisms to a Minnesota couple who bring a faith perspective to their personas as professional wrestlers.

Washington Bishop Mariann Budde preaches Jan. 21 at the Service of Prayer for the Nation at Washington National Cathedral. Photo: Washington National Cathedral, via Facebook

Washington bishop asks Trump to show mercy

There may have been bigger church news in 2025, but few stories seemed to resonate as loudly and widely for readers as Washington Bishop Mariann Budde’s sermon Jan. 21 at Washington National Cathedral’s Service of Prayer for the Nation.

With the newly inaugurated President Donald Trump in attendance, Budde addressed part of her sermon to the most powerful man in the room: “In the name of our God,” Budde said, “I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”

The reaction afterward was immediate and intense, with Trump and his supporters openly criticizing Budde while others in the church and across the country praised the bishop as a kind of folk hero for expressing their own fears at the start of the new administration.

Massachusetts Bishop Julia Whitworth prays with Blanca Martinez at a rally in September in Burlington before Martinez’s appointment with federal immigration officials. Photo: St. Peter’s-San Pedro Episcopal Church, via Facebook

Episcopalians mobilize to protect immigrants, LGBTQ+ Americans

Budde’s comments to Trump had singled out concerns raised by LGBTQ+ church members and immigrant communities. Within the first days of his presidency, some of those fears were realized.

The Trump administration began rolling back policies that it said were illegally promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, particularly related to transgender Americans. And the Department of Homeland Security ramped up immigration enforcement efforts and deportations to fulfill Trump’s promise of stricter policies toward both legal and illegal immigration.

Throughout the year, Episcopalians mobilized in their congregations, communities, dioceses and at the denominational level to protect vulnerable populations. More than 400 people attended a webinar in January on protecting transgender and nonbinary people, and Episcopalians showed renewed support for Pride Month in June, Transgender Day of Visibility in March and Transgender Day of Remembrance in November.

Several dioceses, from New York to Los Angeles, affirmed sanctuary policies toward immigrants as Trump’s immigration crackdown loomed, and throughout the year, many Episcopal churches have been involved in front-line response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting immigration raids and arrests in numerous cities.

The Episcopal Church also joined an ecumenical lawsuit seeking to prevent enforcement officers from patrolling churches and other houses of worship without warrants. In addition, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris issued a joint statement emphasizing “Christ’s call to welcome the stranger.”

And Rowe, at his ceremonial seating at Washington National Cathedral in February, preached against contemporary political divisions as “not of God” and lifted up immigrants, transgender people, the poor and other marginalized communities as central to the kingdom Jesus envisioned.

“God did not come among us as a strongman. God came among us as a child,” he said.

St. Michael’s Interfaith Refugee Resettlement Ministry at St. Michael’s, Brattleboro, Vermont, assisted Afghans arriving in the United States. That federal program was suspended in January by President Donald Trump. Photo: Lisa Sparrow

EMM ends decades-long refugee resettlement work

Trump’s shift in immigration policies was particularly decisive in gutting the federal refugee resettlement program that The Episcopal Church had helped facilitate for decades through the work of Episcopal Migration Ministries and its affiliates.

When the president on his first day in office suspended the refugee program, a form of legal immigration that has long held bipartisan support, EMM soon announced it was forced to lay off 22 employees and begin winding down that federal contract work.

Then in May, Rowe announced that the church would not participate in the Trump administration’s new plan to selectively classify certain white South Africans as refugees and welcome them into the United States as exceptions to his otherwise restrictive resettlement policies. The Episcopal Church formally ended all federal resettlement work when its contract expired at the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.

“It has been painful to watch one group of refugees [Afrikaners], selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” Rowe said in explaining the end of EMM’s federal work. EMM continues to support refugees and immigrants in other ways.

The headquarters of The Episcopal Church at 815 Second Avenue in New York City. Photo: Egan Millard/Episcopal News Service

Presiding bishop oversees church restructuring to serve dioceses

One of Rowe’s top priorities since taking office in November 2024 has been a reorganization of churchwide structures, including the denominational staff, partly in response to a cost-cutting mandate approved by the 81st General Convention as part of the church’s 2025-27 budget plan. Rowe also said he intended the reorganization to help fulfill his goal of better supporting and serving diocesan and congregational leaders as they follow Jesus’ call to spread the Gospel and minister to their communities.

In February, Rowe issued a letter to the church summarizing a series of staff cuts, including 14 layoffs, as well as department reorganizations and changes to certain staff’s titles as he carries out the first phase of the realignment.

Since then, Rowe has continued to seek input on those and other structural changes from Executive Council, the church’s governing body between meetings of General Convention. The result was an estimated $2.5 million in annual savings on personnel starting with the budget that Executive Council approved in December for 2026.

The Diocese of Florida’s Camp Weed & Cerveny Conference Center in Live Oak, Florida. Photo: Camp Weed

Diocese of Florida looks to the future with new bishop search

In March, the Diocese of Florida, which has been without a diocesan bishop since October 2023, announced it was launching a new bishop search, after an ongoing healing process to address divisions that had festered in the diocese under former Bishop John Howard.

Previously, the diocese had twice tried to elect Howard’s successor, but those elections were successfully blocked by objections filed by some Florida clergy and lay leaders. A new election is now scheduled for September 2026.

Separately, Rowe moved to resolve two disciplinary cases against Howard under the church’s Title IV disciplinary canons for clergy. On Oct. 1, Rowe announced he had reached an accord with Howard without any disciplinary action and without Howard admitting any wrongdoing in the cases, which involved allegations of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination and financial impropriety.

Rowe’s message also said that the 74-year-old Howard, independent of their agreement to end the cases, informed Rowe after he’d signed the accord that he wished to be released and removed from ordained ministry. Howard is no longer a bishop or clergy in The Episcopal Church.

Bishop Sarah Mullally was named as the 106th archbishop of Canterbury. She takes office in January. Photo: Associated Press

Sarah Mullally is first woman chosen to be archbishop of Canterbury

The Anglican Communion has been without an archbishop of Canterbury since former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned under pressure in a church scandal in January 2025.

The archbishop of Canterbury, in the historical role as head of the Church of England, is a kind of “focus of unity” and “first among equals” to archbishops and other primates in the 42 autonomous, interdependent global Anglican provinces, including The Episcopal Church.

In October, London Bishop Sarah Mullally was named as Welby’s successor, and when her election is confirmed in January 2026, she will become the first woman to assume that role.

“As I respond to the call of Christ to this new ministry, I do so in the same spirit of service to God and to others that has motivated me since I first came to faith as a teenager,” Mullally said. “I look forward to sharing this journey of faith with the millions of people serving God and their communities in parishes all over the country and across the global Anglican Communion.”

Bishops pose for their portrait during the Lambeth Conference on July 29, 2022. Photo: Egan Millard/Episcopal News Service

Conservative Anglicans threaten to leave Anglican Communion

Mullally will take office with a full plate of challenges before her. Foremost will be the fragile state of the Anglican Communion, with some conservative Anglican leaders threatening to split and form a kind of shadow communion that no longer accepts the archbishop of Canterbury as its “focus of unity.”

Two weeks after the Church of England announced Mullally as its next archbishop, the conservative Anglican network GAFCON, a mix of leaders from Anglican provinces and breakaway groups, released a statement saying it would disengage from the Anglican Communion’s existing deliberative bodies.

Some of those conservatives already had effectively boycotted Anglican meetings over theological disagreements on women’s ordination and LGBTQ+ inclusion. So far, there has been little evidence of a groundswell of support for expanding that boycott.

A key test of Anglican unity could come, however, in June and July 2026, when the Anglican Communicative Council is scheduled to convene its next meeting in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Proposed reforms to the Anglican Communion’s structures, known as the Nairobi-Cairo proposals, are expected to be discussed thoroughly.

The Rev. Bert Baetz leads a dedication ceremony in Hunt, Texas, for an RV purchased by St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Kerrville for use as a mobile relief unit in the aftermath of the July 4 Hill Country flood. Photo: Lauren Vereen/St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

Dioceses of Texas communities are devastated by deadly flash floods

More than 100 people were killed July 5 when flash flooding from the rain-swollen Guadalupe River overwhelmed communities in the Texas Hill Country, particularly in Kerr County.

Episcopalians from St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Kerrville were among the dead, and the congregation immediately opened its doors to mourners, began raising money for relief and recovery efforts and provided additional support to its community alongside ecumenical and secular partners.

“It was all hands on deck,” the Rev. Bert Baetz, St. Peter’s rector, told ENS in August, describing his community’s emergency response during and immediately after the disaster.  The stories of survival were harrowing, yet also somehow filled with hope, and the congregation leaned into that hope as Kerr County looks to the future.

The congregation of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Altadena, California, gathers Jan. 19 for its first Sunday worship service at nearby St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Eagle Rock after the St. Mark’s church and school buildings burned down earlier in the month. Photo: Matt Wright.

Urban wildfires level whole neighborhoods in Diocese of Los Angeles

An Episcopal church in Altadena, California, and two rectories in Pacific Palisades were among the more than 1,000 structures that were destroyed in January by a series of wind-fueled California wildfires that devastated communities across Los Angeles County.

In the worst hotspots, the deadly fires left some neighborhoods in smoldering ruins, as the Diocese of Los Angeles mobilized to assist and console the victims.

Episcopalians will do “our Gospel work of banding together in faith,” Los Angeles Bishop John Harvey Taylor said in a message to the diocese. “God bless all who’ve reached out to offer shelter and other resources for evacuees.”

Members of Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, New Jersey, urge drivers to help the parish fight the mayor’s planned land grab. Photo: Courtesy of Denise Henry

New Jersey church fights back against mayor’s eminent domain threats

One of the most unusual and unexpected Episcopal stories of 2025 involved Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, New Jersey. The congregation’s efforts to create a 17-bed overnight shelter on church property to serve people experiencing homeless raised objections from neighbors and some elected officials.

While that plan was under consideration, Toms River Mayor Daniel Rodrick announced in April a plan to seize the church’s 11 acres and five other privately owned lots for parkland, either through purchase or by eminent domain.  That plan sparked an outcry from church leaders and their supporters, while legal experts suggested the church was on solid ground if the matter were to escalate into a court battle.

Eventually, Rodrick backed down, saying in August he was dropping his plans to turn Christ Episcopal into parkland. The church also gave up its effort to open an overnight shelter there.

Other top ENS headlines from 2025

• South Dakota bishop apologizes to for diocese’s involvement in Indigenous boarding schools
• Religious leaders welcome Gaza ceasefire, lament Israel’s imprisonment of Anglican Palestinian
• Episcopal priest teaches course on church and ghosts, exorcisms
• House of Bishops, Dominican Episcopalians worshipping together was ‘worth the wait’
• Council of Nicaea’s decisions 1,700 years ago affect today’s church
• William Barber arrested in Capitol Rotunda after praying against Republican-led budget
• San Diego diocese, partners open migrant shelter for women and children in Tijuana
• Missouri congregations move US flags from altars as church condemns Christian nationalism
• Minnesota couple relies on their Episcopal faith as they serve their local wrestling community
• Fort Worth church purchases property for new home 4 years after eviction by ACNA
• From a South Korean base, Episcopal Army chaplain performs unique, multifaceted duties
• Jimmy Carter remembered by President Biden at National Cathedral funeral
• Michigan church to take part in citywide ‘Gilmore Girls’-themed weekend

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

Students and board members of United Protestant Campus Ministries at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, gather after Sunday dinner church on Dec. 7. The campus ministry has placed 12 international students with host families, including three who are Episcopalians, during the school’s winter break. Photo: Courtesy of Amanda Powell

[Episcopal News Service] Twelve international students at the Cleveland, Ohio-based Case Western Reserve University will spend their winter break with area host families, three of whom are Episcopalians, thanks to the efforts of a campus ministry group.

United Protestant Campus Ministries, which includes seven denominations including The Episcopal Church, has arranged housing for student participants of the Davis UWC Scholars Program through United World Colleges, which helps poor, high-performing students, primarily from Africa and the Middle East, attend college in the United States.

The students, some of “the best and brightest” from their countries, are in “intense” majors, including bioscience and engineering, Amanda Powell, the group’s campus minister, told Episcopal News Service.

They can’t afford the $1,000 it costs to stay in a dorm over the four-week winter break, and a trip home would cost even more. By staying in Ohio, she said they also were heeding the university’s suggestion, first issued this spring, that international students remain on campus during breaks because of what it called “political considerations” in their home countries and in the U.S.

When Powell learned that 12 students were seeking winter break hosts, Episcopalians were among the most eager to offer, she said. Beside the three Episcopal families or individuals who were matched with a student, four are on a waiting list, should more ask for a place to stay.

She interviewed each student and potential host who applied and then “played matchmaker” for them.

One of the hosts is Courtney Steer-Massaro, a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, who has an 11-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. She learned about the need through emails from the church, and she was eager to sign up.

“I am grateful for everything I have,” she told ENS. “I have a house and extra space… and students need housing. It’s my honor to do that.”

Beyond that, she said that when she has lived in other countries, she was treated with great kindness. Hosting an international student not only lets her children meet and learn from a person from outside the U.S., “it pays back the kindness I received.”

Her family will be hosting Thando, a second-year student from Zimbabwe. Steer-Massaro’s daughter, who was born in and adopted from Lesotho, was very excited to have another African in the house, she said.

After what she called a “a chaotic Zoom” where she and her children met Thando, the kids were very worried that she wouldn’t have a stocking to hang with theirs or any presents. She assured them she would have a stocking and presents, as well as Christmas pajamas.

Thando told them she has two brothers back home, who are 17 and 5, so she was looking forward to being around Steer-Massaro’s young son.

Powell said a woman from Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland has talked with the student she will be hosting, and they already have made plans to bake Christmas cookies together, cook special meals and watch movies.

A few students had been placed with host families during the 2025 summer break, Powell said, and without being asked, the families reached out to their students to see if they would join them again during winter break.

The Rev. Gabriel Lawrence, assistant rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, serves on campus ministry’s board of trustees. He told ENS that when he learned about the Episcopalians who were serving as hosts, he was thrilled but not surprised. “I know a lot of the folks who were opening their homes for these students. It is wonderful to see.”

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.

“Sunday in Palm Beach” is a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle by Michael Storrings for Galison. The puzzle depicts the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida. Photo: Shireen Korkzan/ENS

[Episcopal News Service] The holiday season is a time for loved ones do fun activities together, like completing a jigsaw puzzle.

For dissectologists, or jigsaw puzzle lovers, who happen to be Episcopalian, an ideal puzzle to complete may be Galison’s new 500-piece “Sunday in Palm Beach” puzzle. The image depicts the Gothic Revival exterior of the historic Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Diocese of Southeast Florida, on a sunny day.

“I think Michael Storrings created a wonderful, whimsical depiction of Bethesda-by-the-Sea that really captures the beauty of the architecture and the whole vibe of Palm Beach,” the Rev. Tim Schenck, the church’s rector, told Episcopal News Service. “The other thing I love about this puzzle is that it’s not just a puzzle of the building, as beautiful as that is, but that the puzzle is full of people. To me, that’s a reflection of this vibrant, welcoming, diverse community here in Palm Beach. It’s an amazing community.”

In Galison’s 500-piece “Sunday in Palm Beach” jigsaw puzzle depicting the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, the Rev. Tim Schenck, rector, can be found among the people gathered in front of the church. Photo: Shireen Korkzan/ENS

The puzzle’s art is an original Caran d’Ache watercolor crayon and ink painting made for Galison by Storrings, a New York-based artist whose work is featured on home accessories, housewares, gifts, book covers and more and sold in stores worldwide.

Galison President Bill Miller is a Bethesda-by-the-Sea parishioner in the winter. The rest of the year he’s a member of  St. James’ Church on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. The New York-based company has been selling gifts since its founding in 1979. Today, the company is best known for its jigsaw puzzles and for its commitment to employing real artists in a market that’s becoming increasingly saturated by artificial intelligence-produced images.

Miller told ENS that plans to design a puzzle depicting the church began in the spring. He commissioned Storrings, Galison’s bestselling artist, to paint it because he’s previously painted images of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, Notre-Dame de Paris and Basilique du Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre in Paris, France.

“Bethesda not only has the gorgeous Gothic exterior, but it also has the grounds around it and the gardens that are just so beautiful,” Miller said. “We wanted to build a whole community gathering and show that the church is active and alive. …I thought Michael would connect better with the image we had in mind, and he did a great job.”

Storrings, who’s also executive art director at St. Martin’s Press, a subsidiary of Macmillan Publishers, is known for painting colorful scenes, in different seasons, of cities and everyday life. 

“Sunday in Palm Beach” is no different. In the image, which is mostly made with blue and green hues, intentionally faceless people are gathered on the church’s front lawn and engaged in various activities. Some people are listening to a chamber ensemble perform while others are running with dogs. Some people are having a picnic while others are walking into the church. A child is playing hopscotch. Schenck, in his clerical collar, stands center-bottom on the sidewalk. Palm trees stand tall from the lawn and surround Bethesda-by-the-Sea’s building. Behind the white building, boats are out in the ocean and birds are flying.

Michael Storrings’ artist statement on “Sunday in Palm Beach,” a jigsaw puzzle depicting the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, that he designed for Galison. Photo: Shireen Korkzan/ENS

While researching the church and designing the puzzle’s image, Storrings “was drawn to the sense of community and friendship that has brought people together in this historic building over the years.”

“I just loved the fact that [Bethesda-by-the-Sea] was near the ocean, under a vast big open blue sky and surrounded by palm trees,” Storrings told ENS in an email. “Through drawing this visual and sensory location, I felt a genuine connection to the sacred. The creative act itself became a form of spiritual expression, deepening my sense of faith and presence.”

The box Galison’s 500-piece “Sunday in Palm Beach” jigsaw puzzle depicting the Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach, Florida, comes in. Photo: Shireen Korkzan/ENS

“Sunday in Palm Beach” went through a few revisions between Storrings, Schenck and Miller before it was finalized. A copy of the painting was then sent to Package Right, a jigsaw puzzle and board game manufacturing company in Tipton, Indiana, to make and distribute the puzzle.

Storrings, Schenck and Miller all described the collaboration as “wonderful.”

“By virtue of this puzzle, it feels as if people are able to take a little piece of Bethesda home with them, and that’s pretty special,” Schenck said.

“Sunday in Palm Beach” is now available for purchase on Galison’s website, in Bethesda’s giftshop and in retailers like Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Puzzle Warehouse and Puzzledly. A small portion of sales will support Bethesda’s outreach ministries, most of which address food insecurity in Palm Beach County.

Galison puzzles are manufactured and sold for about three years before they are discontinued, Miller said. 

Professional bias aside, Miller said jigsaw puzzles are ideal Christmas gifts because they “bring families and friends around the table to work on something special together.”

“There’s nothing better during the holidays than pulling your loved ones together and having them around the table,” he said. “Completing a puzzle together is a great opportunity for bonding and creating new, happy memories.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Every December, Trinity Episcopal Church, in partnership with the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, hosts a memorial service for people who died during the year while homeless. Photo: Jed Dearing

[Episcopal News Service] Columbus, Ohio, is facing a homelessness crisis as the number of unhoused people increases annually. At the beginning of 2025, more than 2,550 people were reportedly experiencing homelessness in the state capital. Since then, at least 168 of them have died while unsheltered.

“Columbus experiences extreme cold and heat in the winter and summer months, so unhoused people oftentimes die from the weather,” the Rev. Jed Dearing, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church on Columbus’ Capitol Square, told Episcopal News Service. “There are addiction-related deaths from substance abuse, yes, but also mental health problems unrelated to substance abuse that go untreated when you are unhoused. Many unhoused people also die from violence or lack of access to medical care and not getting the medications they need.”

Trinity, in partnership with the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, will honor those 168 people Dec. 18 by hosting an interfaith memorial service for the 22nd year. Dearing will give the opening remarks.

The annual memorial service features a keynote speech instead of a traditional sermon. Franklin County Coroner Nathaniel Overmire will be this year’s keynote speaker.

During the livestreamed service, each name will be read aloud, followed by the ringing of a bell. Coalition members will light and give attendees candles that will burn down completely during the service. A volunteer choir will sing hymns of sorrow and hope. Steve Skovensky, chief program effectiveness officer of the Community Shelter Board, will read a poem.

“It’s an opportunity to bring some humanity to the realities of homelessness in our community,” Ben Sears, executive director of the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, told ENS.

Dearing said the service normally takes place on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, to symbolically acknowledge the “darkness” many people feel when they are unhoused or when they lose their loved ones to homelessness. Trinity is holding the service a few days early this year, however, because winter solstice falls on a Sunday, which conflicts with regular worship services.

Every January, the Columbus-based nonprofit Community Shelter Board, which helps Central Ohio residents secure safe, affordable housing, publishes a “point-in-time” count of how many people locally are experiencing homelessness. This year’s report revealed that 2,556 people were unhoused, up 7.4% from the 2024 count of 2,380 people.

The number of people who die annually while experiencing homelessness also keeps growing. Last year, 112 people died.

Homelessness is projected to increase by nearly 70% in the next five years, according to the latest data reports. Rising costs of living, a lack of affordable housing, stagnant wages and other systemic issues are driving the homelessness crisis.

Year-round, Trinity serves unhoused people through its weekly “needs” pantry, offering outerwear, tents, tarps, sleeping bags, can openers and other items needed to live outside. At the church’s “In the Garden” community lunch program, volunteers make and serve homemade hot meals every Sunday afternoon. In August, sack lunches are served.

“This has been our biggest year ever for ‘In the Garden.’ The need for this ministry keeps growing as the unhoused population keeps growing,” Dearing said.

Trinity also offers a limited financial assistance program to anyone experiencing homelessness or an emergency eviction. Narcan – the nasal spray version of the drug naloxone, which can quickly reverse an opioid overdose when immediately administered – is available throughout Trinity’s building.

Because Trinity, which has about 300 members, is located downtown, the church has “an advantage” of being able to work directly with city officials, nonprofits addressing homelessness and other churches. Parishioners, many of whom are unhoused themselves, also are active with advocacy work beyond the church’s ministries.

Because unhoused people often can’t afford end-of-life planning, Trinity designates 10% of its columbarium to people who died experiencing homelessness. They are given a marker paid for by the church, and their interment looks the same as everyone else.

Most recently, Dearing said, Trinity laid to rest the cremated remains of a 4-year-old boy who was murdered by his father’s girlfriend while unhoused.

“It’s heavy. …No one wants to be homeless,” Dearing said.

Sears said he hopes the memorial service will “energize” attendees to continue advocacy work addressing homelessness year-round.

“Too many of us take for granted how much having shelter – any shelter – makes an enormous impact in people’s lives,” he said. “Having shelter helps ensure that kids stay in school and families stay together. It also, literally, can save lives.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.