February 17 Today in OPC History

On February 17, 1977, a special subcommittee on chaplains of the Presbyterian Church in America met in Montgomery, Alabama. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss reaching out to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, to form a joint commission on chaplains. The recommendations of the special subcommittee were adopted by the PCA General Assembly later that summer and the OPC and the RPCES were invited to a "working group" meeting in Seattle that December. Representing the OPC in the "working group" were Michael Stingley and Patrick Morison. From that meeting, the three churches continuing working together to establish a joint Chaplains Commission that would serve the two OPC active chaplains (Tom Foh and Charles Lee) six PCA, and eleven RPCES active chaplains. Following the approvals at the General Assemblies and Synods of the three churches in June 1978, the first meeting of the PRJC took place on September 21, 1978 at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis with Elmer Dortzbach and Dennis Prutow representing the OPC.

Picture: Tom Foh