Savings from the sale of the Episcopal...

Savings from the sale of the Episcopal cathedral in downtown Los Angeles 10 years ago have nearly doubled to $9.2 million, indicating that a new cathedral “is an increasingly valid option” to consider, says the newspaper for the six-county Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.

However, said Bishop Frederick H. Borsch, “this is not the time to make the decision.”

Borsch recently told church officials that the decision last year to build a new diocesan headquarters and parish-size church on a site overlooking Echo Park takes precedence in diocesan plans. The present headquarters property was sold a week before Borsch was elected bishop in January, 1988.

“We must have a place for our offices. . . . We can wait on a decision about a cathedral,” Borsch told the Episcopal News, the diocesan paper.

Although he said he was not against the idea of designating an existing parish church as the cathedral, Borsch indicated that none is now large enough to seat a representative portion of the diocese. Because of increasing property and building costs, he added, “the whole diocese really needs to be a party to the decision” on whether to construct a new edifice.

The site of the old St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was fated for demolition a decade ago because it did not meet city earthquake codes, was sold for $4.7 million. The diocese’s Cathedral Corp. put that sum in a trust for a future cathedral. Meanwhile, part of the interest earned has gone into an ongoing grants program benefiting church projects from Lompoc to Laguna Beach to Needles. Of $3.2 million disbursed to date, one-third has gone to ministries categorized as urban ($982,000), Latino ($462,000), Asian ($312,000), youth ($133,000), justice issues ($59,000) and AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, ($59,000).

PEOPLE

The Rev. Carol L. Anderson, a priest prominent in national Episcopal Church matters, has been elected rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills--the first woman to become pastor of a major parish in the Los Angeles diocese. The Beverly Hills parish has more than 2,300 baptized members, second in size only to All Saints Church in Pasadena. She will succeed the Rev. M. Gregory Richards in September. Anderson, 44, most recently founder-director of the Institute for Clergy Renewal in Fairfax, Va., has served two New York City parishes, was a delegate to three national conventions and is on the denomination’s boards for evangelism and theological education. She is only the second clergywoman to be named a rector in the diocese; the first was the Rev. Carole Herzog at St. Stephen’s in Whittier.

The Rev. John Killinger, senior minister at the imposing First Congregational Church of Los Angeles since September, 1986, has resigned that post to become distinguished professor of religion and culture at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. Killinger, who taught at Vanderbilt Divinity School for 15 years, will assume his new position at the Southern Baptist-related school in late summer. Killinger was pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, Va., for six years before moving to Los Angeles. He was a founding member of both Project Literacy Los Angeles and Hope-Net Inc., a multichurch agency to combat hunger and homelessness in the Wilshire District.

GRANTS

Mazon, the nationwide Jewish anti-hunger organization based in Los Angeles, announced that it has allocated $700,000 this year to nonprofit groups. Grants from Mazon have steadily risen since its founding four years ago. Its income comes primarily from Jewish families who agree to donate 3% of the cost of their “joyous occasions”--weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs and other events. Among the grants made this year were $12,000 to El Rescate in Los Angeles, $7,500 to Harbor Interfaith Shelter in San Pedro and $4,000 to the South-Central Family Health Center in Los Angeles.

MEDIA

As many as 6,000 Filipino-American members of the Church of Christ, known as Iglesia Ni Cristo in the Philippines, are expected to see and hear their Manila-based spiritual leader, the Rev. Erano Manalo, via satellite television today in a church celebration at Aviation Park Auditorium in Manhattan Beach. The 75-year-old denomination, which began establishing U.S. churches in 1968, has 14 congregations in Southern California with nearly 10,000 members, according to a spokesman, the Rev. Teody Samson.