The General Church Incorporated

The General Church Incorporated is a non-profit organization, incorporated in the State of Pennsylvania, for the purpose of holding and managing the physical and financial assets of the Church. The Corporation consists of any General Church member who, after three years' membership, has applied for membership in the corporation. The board of directors of the General Church Incorporated is selected from this body. It is the board of directors that is charged with assuring the legal, financial and business welfare of the General Church.

The General Church and the Academy of the New Church are separate legal institutions. They have separate boards and bylaws and separate funding mechanisms. There are connections between the two in that the President of the Academy is a General Church minister and is answerable to the Executive Bishop of the General Church. But the day-to-day affairs of operating the Academy and the General Church are, by and large, independent.

The General Church Unincorporated

The General Church is now the largest of the six worldwide church organizations that use the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg as the basis of their theology. The others are the Convention Church (headquartered in Boston, MA), the Conference Church (mostly in Europe), the Australian Association of the New Church, and the Lord's New Church which is Nova Hierosolyma (also located in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania). (A sixth organization, the New Church in South Africa, may have larger numbers, but its membership is much less structured). Note that the church organizations in Australia and South Africa are distinct from the General Church societies in these locations.

“The mission of the General Church is to cooperate with the Lord in building the New Church in the hearts, minds, and lives of all people through fostering, first, the belief that the Old and New Testaments and the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg are the Lord’s Word, and second, a love for and obedience to that Word.”

Both the General Church, unincorporated and incorporated, are headed by an Executive Bishop, and the ecclesiastical affairs (church services, sacred rites) are performed by a clergy that must be ordained by the current (or previous) bishop. New bishops are selected by the clergy, "seconded" by the board of directors of the General Church Corporation and, finally, voted on by the membership of the unincorporated General Church.

To learn more about the New Church, visit www.newchurch.org

Contact Information:
Media Representative 1100
Cathedral Rd. PO BOX 743
Bryn Athyn, PA 19009
257-502-4911, fax: 215-914-4912
email: outreach@newchurch.org