History of The Episcopal Church and the United Nations
From at least 1942, Episcopalians welcomed the creation of the wartime United Nations body—and then advocated for the formation of a permanent, international organization to improve worldwide collaboration and stability. The U.N. was founded in 1945, and The Episcopal Church has promoted its human rights, environmental, disarmament, and peacekeeping initiatives since 1948.
Learn more below about our history with the United Nations, based on research by The Archives of The Episcopal Church.
Overview timeline
– Pre-1945: Episcopal archival evidence reveals Episcopal leaders’ dialogue and support of the emerging idea of a United Nations before its actual founding.
– 1945-1999: Episcopal Church involvement in U.N.’s founding in San Francisco (1945); longstanding General Convention support; representation through both Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church.
– 1995: Anglican/Episcopal women attend Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing) and annual meetings of U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.
– 2014: The Episcopal Church is granted U.N. Economic and Social Council special consultative status.
– 2017: The Episcopal Church is granted observer organization status with U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
– 2018: The Episcopal Church is granted observer organization status with U.N. Environment Programme.
– 2024: The Episcopal Church is granted observer organization status with U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.
Individual Episcopalians and the United Nations
Episcopalians have been involved with the United Nations since before its inception, with several filling substantial roles. Among the earliest, in the 1940s, was Bishop William Scarlett of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, a longtime proponent of church engagement with social causes who chaired the General Convention’s Joint Commission on Social Reconstruction. Bishop Scarlett served on and later chaired the Federal Council of Churches Commission on a Just and Durable Peace, which was one of the first organizations to call for the creation of a United Nations organization.
During the joint commission’s work, Bishop Scarlett worked with Eleanor Roosevelt, an Episcopal church member and first lady of the United States, who later chaired the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. In 1946, the church’s commission prepared a book relating Christian principles to key social situations of the time (including the United Nations), and Mrs. Roosevelt contributed a chapter on minority issues.
Ongoing General Convention support
In the decades since the establishment of the United Nations, nearly every session of The Episcopal Church’s General Convention has included resolutions relating to the United Nations. In many cases, the resolutions support new or ongoing U.N. initiatives or actions, such as those relating to human rights, disarmament, care of the environment, efforts to end hunger and discrimination, and peacekeeping. Others either highlight to the U.N. special concerns of the church or urge the United States to take certain actions relating to the U.N., such as ratifying U.N. conventions. In subsequent years, the General Convention advocated on behalf of other U.N. conventions relating to human rights, such as those on genocide, slavery, forced labor, and the political rights of women, and regularly urged ratification by the U.S.
Episcopal representatives (ambassadors) to the United Nations
A significant number of U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations have been Episcopal laypeople and clergy. This list includes the first ambassador, Edward Reilly Stettinius Jr. (1946), Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1953-1960), George Herbert Walker Bush (1971-1973), Madeleine Korbel Albright (1993-1997), and the Rev. John Claggett Danforth (2004-2005).
