Posted on 06/22/2026 3:09:06 AM PDT by Cronos
The Episcopal Church headquarters building in Midtown Manhattan. (Photo by Zbig Jedrus Photography)
The Episcopal Church, once the spiritual home of America’s founders, presidents and other members of the elite, announced Wednesday that it wants to sell or lease its 12-story New York City headquarters, a sign of the shrinking of mainline Protestantism and institutional religion in the United States as well as the way religious groups are radically reshaping their commercial footprint in the 21st century.
The denomination — the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion — announced after a meeting of its executive council that the building would go on the market. The Church has been talking about such a sale for decades, but new remote work habits left less than half the building being used, Chief Financial Officer Chris Lacovara said in a statement.
The building, at 815 Second Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, was completed in 1963 for a cost of $4 million and has 146,000 square feet of space. It is the 1.5-million-member denomination’s most valuable asset, outside of endowments.
“The church hopes to enter into a long-term ground lease with a group that would redevelop the building, potentially as affordable housing,” the release said, adding that any decision is likely months away.
Half of America’s founders were Episcopalians, the American counterpart to the Church of England. More U.S. presidents have been Episcopalian than any other faith group, and until recent decades the denomination was shorthand for a type of crème de la crème of American society.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Between November 2006 and November 2015 the Episcopal Church's top boss, called the Presiding Bishop, was Katharine Jefferts Schori.it is sad how a denomination that was the belief system of the bulk of the founding fathers could fall and fall so far. A lesson for all of us to learn
As a result of doctrinal differences between Schori and Episcopal congregations around the USA, in 2008 a new religious denomination was founded here called the Anglican Church in North America. Approximately 750 Episcopal Churches and their congregations seceded from The Episcopal Church and joined the Anglican Church in North America.
What ensued was a vicious, appalling, ungodly, money grubbing legal war started by Schori, who hired a gigantic national law firm to sue almost every Angllican congregation which dared to leave The Episcoopal Church but continued to occupy their cogregation's Church and related buildings like priest's residences. it was every one of those 750 congregations who used local members weekly donations to buy the land those Episcopal Churches were built on. The vast majority of those 750 local Episcopal congregation's members were the ones whose donations paid to build the 750 church buildings and associated structures and too buy the local house for the congregation's Episcopal priest to live in. The local partitioners paid for the maintenance of their church owned buildings. The church members, like me, formed emotional attachments to those Episcopal church buildings, especially when the church buildings had been built by the membeders' parents or grandparents generations through their weekly donation.
Like most mainstream denominations, the Episcopal Church lost its way when it moved away from scripture (God’s instruction manual) and began taking a path away from it, embracing many of the things Scripture told us was wrong.
There's a clue.
“the Presiding Bishop, was Katharine Jefferts Schori.”
1 Timothy 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
Seems pretty clear to me what some of the problem was.
Wiki: Katharine Jefferts Schori concluded her historic nine-year term as the 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church on November 1, 2015, and has since remained active in church ministry, teaching, and serving as an assisting bishop.
A breakdown of her journey and current roles:Completion of her term: Elected in 2006, she made history as the first woman to lead a national church body in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Because the church’s mandatory clergy retirement age is 72, and she was years away from that milestone in 2015, she was eligible for a second term but chose not to seek reelection so other bishops could discern their vocations.
She passed the crozier to her successor, Michael Curry, on November 1, 2015.
Pride goes before destruction,
And a haughty spirit before stumbling.
— Proverbs 16:18
NASB
https://literalword.com/nasb?q=Pr+16:18
For anyone else curious, per AI...
“Assessed Value: The New York City tax assessor’s market value for the property is approximately $51.7 million.”
Boy, does that seem low.
Hmmmmm....
They can get a zillion for that NYC property. The whole Episcopal Church may be losing membership, but it is swimming in money. Lots of wealthy members, plus land grants from colonial times. Trinity Church in lower Manhattan owns some of the land with commercial skyscrapers on Wall Street, etc.
A lefty “capture” on steroids.
and until recent decades the denomination was shorthand for a type of crème de la crème of American society.
“The church hopes to enter into a long-term ground lease with a group that would redevelop the building, potentially as affordable housing,”
“the Presiding Bishop, was Katharine Jefferts Schori.”
1 Timothy 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
Seems pretty clear to me what some of the problem was.”
Exactly. Women given executive authority ruin everything they take over, with extremely few exceptions.
It is the 1.5-million-member denomination’s most valuable asset, outside of endowments.
Trinity Church Wall Street owns $6 billion in lower Manhattan real estate from land grants from the king when it was the established church. Those are assets of the individual church, not the whole organization. The endowments are probably also large.
I spell "Sodomy" with a capital-S because it is the name of a religion.
Jefferts-Schori was the death knell of TEC. She was a cynical progressive who cared not a whit for either the church or the body of Christ. The results were baked into her disastrous and tyrannical leadership. Selling off their headquarters is only a visible sign of the church’s spiritual decay. Same denomination btw as the wretched Marian Budde of the National Cathedral, a bird of the same feather.
Amusing side note: at one time the elitist Episcopalian Church was known as “The Republican Party at prayer.”
Sad, but ultimately predictable and inevitable. Feminism kills everything it infects.
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