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.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State had asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas for permission to defend the so-called Johnson Amendment, an IRS rule that bars nonprofits from taking sides in political campaigns, in the case filed by religious groups opposed to the amendment. In its motion to join the suit, Americans United said a proposed settlement to the lawsuit, which would allow churches to make political statements during services, violates federal law and would give religious nonprofits rights that secular groups don’t have.

The group also argued that the federal government has refused to defend the Johnson Amendment in court.

In mid-December, U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Baker turned Americans United down, saying the lawsuit in question was not the right place to air the group’s concerns. But, he added, “[I]f a nonprofit has an equal-protection challenge to its own anticipated treatment under the Johnson Amendment, that separate dispute as to a separate transaction can be litigated in an appropriate forum.”

For years, conservative legal groups have sought to challenge the Johnson Amendment in court, organizing groups of pastors to endorse candidates during services and then mailing recordings of the endorsements to the IRS in hopes of provoking a legal battle. The IRS had long declined to respond. President Donald Trump has claimed from early in his first presidency that he wants to get rid of the Johnson Amendment, saying it harms pastors.

In a court filing last summer, the IRS said that the Johnson Amendment ban on nonprofit political endorsements does not apply to comments made during religious services. That filing came in response to a 2024 lawsuit filed by two Texas churches and two religious nonprofits — the National Religious Broadcasters Association and Intercessors for America — which claims that the bar on endorsements during sermons was unconstitutional. The IRS hopes to settle the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Groups like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State oppose the settlement that would allow endorsements during sermons, saying it will open the door for so-called dark money to flow between campaigns and churches.

“Christian Nationalists, with help from the Trump administration, are attempting to eviscerate the popular Johnson Amendment so that they can misuse charitable donations for partisan political campaigns,” Americans United said in a statement. “We’re disappointed that the court didn’t allow Americans United to intervene to defend this federal law since the Trump administration will not.”

The settlement needs final approval from a judge in order to take effect. Americans United has not decided whether to appeal, it said.

“We remain hopeful the court will reject the proposed settlement agreement that attempts to usurp Congressional power to write our laws,” Americans United said in its statement.

In a response to the concerns raised by Americans United, the plaintiffs said the settlement applies only to speech during religious services. Other bans in the Johnson Amendment, the plaintiffs argue, such as those barring financial contributions to campaigns, remain in place.

“While the consent decree addresses only worship services, it is inaccurate to claim that the line drawn by the decree is between religious and secular organizations,” the plaintiffs wrote in a December court filing. “All nonprofits, religious and secular alike — including churches in other contexts — must still adhere to the Johnson Amendment.”

The proposed settlement makes no mention of allowing churches to spend money on political campaigns. However, critics argue the settlement would result in a flood of partisan donations to churches, with no way of tracking the donations or how those funds are spent.

“Liberal and conservative churches alike would be pressured to accept partisan contributions, and their leaders would be incentivized to act as campaign operatives rather than spiritual guides,” lawyers for the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center argued in an amicus brief filed in the case.

Alexandra Zaretsky, litigation counsel at Americans United, said that while the proposed settlement doesn’t allow for political contributions, the settlement could open the door to such contributions in the future.

“One of the many problems with the proposed settlement agreement is that it is unclear,” Zaretsky said in an email. “The parties themselves don’t seem to agree on the parameters of precisely what speech the settlement agreement covers. While the decree does not facially authorize political contributions, we’re concerned that the parties — or others — could try to interpret this language broadly.”

The Campaign Legal Center also filed an amicus brief opposing the settlement. Kevin Hancock, the group’s director for Campaign Finance Litigation, argues that if approved, the settlement could turn video feeds from worship services into ads for campaigns—especially if a service containing an endorsement was broadcast online.

“The sermon isn’t just taking place live, but they’re publishing it later over on their website,” Hancock said. That could be considered a contribution to a campaign, in the same way that taking an ad in the newspaper or on TV would be.

Under the terms of the settlement, comments about politics or candidates — if they take place in service or through a church’s “customary channels of communication on matters of faith” — would not be considered a violation of the Johnson Amendment.

That phrase, “customary channels of communications,” leaves a lot of wiggle room, said Hancock.

“The language of this consent decree, I think, is not actually that narrow,” he said.

Endorsing candidates during worship services has long been controversial among Americans. Most — 77% — disapprove of political statements during services, a 2022 Pew Research Center survey found. And few Protestant pastors say they have endorsed candidates at church, according to Lifeway Research.

While the IRS has investigated churches for political statements — including a church led by Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Trump ally — those investigations are rare. In 1992, the Church at Pierce Creek, a congregation in New York, lost its tax exemption after taking out an anti-Bill Clinton ad. It remains the only congregation to lose its tax-exempt status for violating the Johnson Amendment.

If the court does approve the proposed settlement, Americans United said it might push for the right to make political endorsements as well.

“AU views endorsing or opposing political candidates as a valuable benefit and would begin conversations about doing so if other nonprofits were permitted to engage in these activities,” the group said.

According to the bishop, there have occasionally been some small showers, but these were not sufficient to put water in the ponds or even cause the growth of vegetation.

“Right now, there are serious water shortages, borehole breakdowns, and there’s no food,” Wario said. “Earlier, the people had a lot of expectations, planting their farms but everything has now dried up.”

Read the entire article here.

“This project is a Jesus project,” the church’s rector, the Rev. Anna Woofenden, said. “We are called to see the image of God in each and every human being, and no one — no one — should freeze to death in the winter.” 

The church’s 12-bed shelter was created to fill a gap in the city’s cold weather housing, operating on cold nights when the city’s shelter reaches its 70-bed capacity. Every winter in Northampton, some 20 nights reach temperatures of 15 degrees Fahrenheit or below, which can pose severe or even fatal risk to those without shelter.

“While we can’t solve all the suffering in the world, we can do our part to re-spin this part of the broken web in our community,” Woofenden said.

Trained volunteers run the shelter at St. John’s, which is fully funded by donations. Many of the area’s unhoused neighbors already are familiar with the church through its Manna Community Kitchen and Community Center.

The shelter will be blessed during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Jan. 8. Western Massachusetts Bishop Douglas Fisher and Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra will take part, along with Woofenden.

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.

The boy, Johnathan Everet Boley, was last seen alive walking into some woods with his dog Dec. 31 in Jasper, Alabama, about 40 miles northwest of Birmingham. Authorities launched a search of the area and found his body on Jan. 2, with the dog still alive.

Johnathan had been staying at his father’s Jasper home. After the boy went missing, the father, Jameson Boley, was arrested on charges unrelated to the boy’s disappearance and death.

Johnathan’s mother, Angel Boley, works as director of guest services at DaySpring Camp & Conference Center in Parrish, Florida. She previously worked at Camp McDowell in Nauvoo, Alabama.

During the search, DaySpring called for prayers as it provided updates on its Facebook page. Camp McDowell also posted updates.

On Jan. 2, DaySpring Executive Director Brad Thompson announced Johnathan’s body had been found, and Thompson called on the camp community to support the Boleys as they confront tragedy.

“Dancing in the hallway as our guests entered DaySpring these last 12 months has been Johnathan Boley,” Thompson said. “The entire DaySpring staff is heartbroken at the loss of this amazing little boy and wonderful blessing to our community.”

The camp and conference center invited donations through its website to support Angel Boley through this time of loss.

“DaySpring is and will remain always a place to feel cherished. We lost someone we cherish today. Thank you for being there for the Boleys.”

The circumstances of Johnathan’s initial disappearance remain unclear, though Walker County Sheriff Nick Smith told local reporters that the 4-year-old “was an adventurous boy and loved the outdoors.”

“Like so many of you across our community, we’re devastated by this news,” Smith said.

Former Ohio Bishop J. Clark Grew II/ Facebook

[Episcopal News Service] The Rt. Rev. J. Clark Grew II, who was bishop of the Diocese of Ohio from 1994 to 2004, died Dec. 22, 2025, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was 86.

The diocese said in announcing his death on its Facebook page, “We in the Diocese of Ohio are grateful for his faithful ministry with and for us during his episcopacy. He will always be remembered and honored here.” It added, “In our prayers, we surround the family with love and commend Bishop Grew to God’s eternal care.”

Grew was born in New York City on Dec. 20, 1939, and was named after his great uncle, Joseph Clark Grew, who was the U.S. ambassador to Japan during World War II.

After graduating from Harvard in 1962, he served in the U.S. Navy for five years, including as the 52nd commander of the U.S.S. Constitution, which was first launched in 1797. He then taught in private schools until entering Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1978.

He served churches in Westwood, Massachusetts, and Lake Forest, Illinois, before his election as bishop of Ohio in 1993 and his consecration in 1994. During his tenure as bishop, he was known for his support for greater inclusion of women and LGBTQ+ people in the church.

He also served as head of Episcopal Divinity School’s board, and he received an honorary doctorate from the seminary in 1997 for his pastoral and prophetic leadership

In retirement, he returned to Boston and was involved with Epiphany School and with St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island.

He is survived by Wendy, his wife of nearly 53 years; three children; eight grandchildren; one great-grandchild; a sister and a brother.

His funeral service will take place at 11 a.m. on Jan. 31 at Emmanuel Church in Boston.

In a statement, he warned that the attacks set a dangerous global precedent by normalizing the use of armed force to achieve political objectives.

He also appealed to the United Nations and the Organization of American States to take swift action to ensure all members respect the relevant charters and conventions.

Read his entire statement here.