text:
George Reeves

George Reeves (born George Keefer Brewer; January 5, 1914 – June 16, 1959) was an American actor. He is best known for portraying Superman in the television series Adventures of Superman (1952–1958).

His death by gunshot at age 45 remains controversial. The official finding was suicide, but some believe that he was murdered or the victim of an accidental shooting.

Early life
Reeves was born January 5, 1914, as George Keefer Brewer in Woolstock, Iowa, the son of Donald Carl Brewer and Helen Lescher. Reeves was born five months into their marriage. When the couple separated, soon after Reeves's birth, Reeves and his mother moved from Iowa to Ashland, Kentucky, to stay with relatives for a time and then to her home in Galesburg, Illinois.

Later, Reeves's mother, who was of German descent, moved to California to stay with her sister. There, by 1920, she had met and married Frank Joseph Bessolo (according to that year's federal census). Reeves's father married Helen Schultz in 1925. Reeves reportedly never saw his father again. In 1927, when Reeves was 13, Frank Bessolo adopted him, and the boy took his stepfather's last name, becoming George Bessolo. The Bessolos’ marriage lasted 15 years, ending in divorce, with the couple separating while Reeves was away visiting relatives. When he returned, his mother told him his stepfather had died by suicide. According to biographer Jim Beaver, Reeves did not know for several years that Bessolo was still alive. Bessolo actually died March 4, 1944, at age 51, when his adopted son was well into his movie career.

Reeves began acting and singing in high school and continued performing on stage as a student at Pasadena Junior College.

Acting career
While studying acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, Reeves met his future wife, Ellanora Needles, great-great-granddaughter of John Robinson, who had been a circus magnate and founder of the John Robinson Circus. They married on September 22, 1940, in San Gabriel, California, at the Church of Our Savior. They had no children and divorced 10 years later.

Reeves's film career began in 1939 when he was cast as Stuart Tarleton (incorrectly listed in the film's credits as Brent Tarleton), one of Scarlett O'Hara's suitors in Gone with the Wind. It was a minor role, but he and Fred Crane were in the film's opening scene. (Reeves and Crane both dyed their hair red to portray the Tarleton twins.) After Gone with the Wind was filmed, Reeves returned to the Pasadena Playhouse and was given the lead role in the play Pancho. This part directly led to his being contracted to Warner Brothers. Warner had him change his professional name to George Reeves. His Gone with the Wind screen credit reflects the change. Between the start of production on Gone With the Wind and its release 12 months later, several films on his Warner contract were made and released, making Gone With the Wind his first film role, but his fifth film release.

He starred in a number of two-reel short subjects and appeared in several B-pictures, including two with future President of the United States Ronald Reagan and three with James Cagney (Torrid Zone, The Fighting 69th, and The Strawberry Blonde). These roles did little to advance Reeves's career, and his contract with Warners was dissolved by mutual consent.

Released from his Warner contract, he signed a contract with Twentieth Century-Fox but was released after only a handful of films, one of which was the Charlie Chan movie Dead Men Tell. Twentieth Century-Fox loaned him to producer Alexander Korda to co-star with Merle Oberon in Lydia, a box-office failure, after which he freelanced, looking to find work in westerns. His friend Teddi Sherman introduced him to her father, producer Harry Sherman, who asked Reeves to do a screen test with Teddi for the Hopalong Cassidy films. Reeves and Sherman impressed the casting director by performing seven pages of script in a single take without pause. Reeves appeared in five Hopalong Cassidy westerns before being cast as Lieutenant John Summers opposite Claudette Colbert in So Proudly We Hail! (1942), a war drama for Paramount Pictures, which signed Reeves up for two films a year.

However, Reeves was inspired by So Proudly We Hail! to put his budding acting career on hold and enlist in the U.S. Army. He was drafted in early 1943. He was assigned to the U.S. Army Air Forces and performed in the USAAF's Broadway show Winged Victory. The long Broadway run was followed by a national tour and a movie version. Reeves was then transferred to the Army Air Force’s First Motion Picture Unit, where he made training films.

Discharged at the war's end, Reeves returned to Hollywood. Many studios were slowing down their production schedules, however, and some production units had shut down completely. He appeared in a pair of outdoor thrillers with Ralph Byrd. As more and more time passed between acting jobs that paid less and less, Reeves was reduced to appearing in a low-budget serial produced by Sam Katzman, The Adventures of Sir Galahad, and taking a second job digging cesspools. Reeves fit the rugged requirements of the roles, and, with his excellent memory for dialogue, he did well under rushed production conditions. He was able to play against type, starring as a villainous gold hunter in a Johnny Weissmuller Jungle Jim film. After separating from his wife, Reeves moved to New York City in 1949 (their divorce became final in 1950). He performed on live television anthology programs, as well as on radio, and then returned to Hollywood in 1951 for a role in a Fritz Lang film, Rancho Notorious.

In 1953, Reeves played a minor character, Sergeant Maylon Stark, in From Here to Eternity. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and gave Reeves the distinction of having appeared in two "Best Picture" films.

Superman
In June 1951, Reeves was offered the role of Superman in a new television series titled Adventures of Superman. He was initially reluctant to take the role because, like many actors of his time, he considered television unimportant and believed few would see his work. The half-hour films were shot on tight schedules; at least two shows were made every six days. According to commentaries on the Adventures of Superman DVD sets, multiple scripts were filmed simultaneously to take advantage of the standing sets; for example, all the "Perry White's office" scenes for three or four episodes would be shot the same day, and the various "apartment" scenes would also be done consecutively.

Reeves's career as Superman had begun with Superman and the Mole Men, a film intended both as a B-picture and as the pilot for the TV series. Immediately after completing it, Reeves and the crew began production of the first season's episodes, all shot over 13 weeks in the summer of 1951. The series went on the air the following year, and Reeves was amazed at becoming a national celebrity. In 1952, the struggling ABC Network purchased the show for national broadcast, which gave him greater visibility.

The Superman cast members had restrictive contracts preventing them from taking other work that might interfere with the series. Except for the second season, the Superman schedule was brief (13 shows shot two per week, a total of seven weeks out of a year), but all had a "30-day clause", which meant that the producers could demand their exclusive services for a new season on four weeks' notice. This prevented long-term work on major films with long schedules, stage plays that might lead to a lengthy run, or any other series work.

Reeves, however, was able to leverage his new role and earn additional income by making numerous personal appearances. He had affection for his young fans and took his role-model status seriously. He avoided smoking cigarettes where children could see him and eventually quit smoking. He kept his private life discreet, including a romantic relationship with Toni Mannix, wife of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer general manager Eddie Mannix.

In the documentary Look, Up in the Sky: The Amazing Story of Superman, Jack Larson said that, when he first met Reeves, he told him that he enjoyed his performance in So Proudly We Hail! According to Larson, Reeves said that if Mark Sandrich had not died, he would not be there in "this monkey suit". According to Larson, Reeves also said he would feel better about the role if he knew he had any adult fans; he never learned that Adventures of Superman had adult fans even during its original broadcast run.

Between the first and second seasons of Superman, Reeves got sporadic acting assignments in one-shot TV anthology programs and in two feature films, Forever Female (1953) and Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia (1953), but by the time the series was airing nationwide, Reeves found himself so closely associated with the characters of Superman and Clark Kent that it was difficult for him to book other roles.

During the show's run, Reeves worked tirelessly with Toni Mannix to raise money for fighting myasthenia gravis; his efforts resulted in his being appointed as national chairman for the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation in 1955. During the second season, Reeves returned to working with the government when he appeared in a short film for the Treasury Department entitled Stamp Day for Superman, in which he caught the villains and told children why they should invest in government savings stamps.

After two seasons, Reeves decided not to renew his contract and left the show. He was frustrated with his low salary, the one-dimensional nature of his character, and how associating himself with Superman had ruined his credibility as a dramatic actor. At 40 years old, he also felt uncomfortable playing such an intensely physical role.

Eager to jump-start his failing career, Reeves established his own production company and conceived a TV adventure series called Port of Entry, which was to be shot on location in Hawaii and Mexico. Reeves wrote the pilot script himself. However, the producers of Superman, unable to find a suitable replacement, lured him back to the show with a major salary increase. He was reportedly making $5,000 (about $ in today's dollars) per week, but only while the show was in production (about eight weeks each year). Reeves was never able to gain financing for his Port of Entry project, and the show was never made.

In 1957, the producers considered making a theatrical film: Superman and the Secret Planet. A script was commissioned from David Chantler, who had written many of the TV scripts. In 1959, however, negotiations began for a renewal of the series, with 26 episodes scheduled to go into production. By mid-1959, contracts were signed, costumes refitted, and new teleplay writers assigned. Noel Neill was quoted as saying that the cast of Superman was ready to do a new series of the still-popular show.

His good friend Bill Walsh, a producer at Disney Studios, gave Reeves a prominent role in Westward Ho the Wagons! (1956), in which Reeves wore a beard and mustache; it would be his final film appearance. Attempting to showcase his versatility, Reeves performed a song on the Tony Bennett show in August 1956. He appeared as Superman on I Love Lucy (Episode #165, "Lucy and Superman") in 1957. Character actor Ben Welden had acted with Reeves in the Warner Bros. days and frequently guest-starred on Superman. He said, "After the I Love Lucy show, Superman was no longer a challenge to him... I know he enjoyed the role, but he used to say, 'Here I am, wasting my life.'"

Reeves, Noel Neill, Natividad Vacío, Gene LeBell, and a trio of musicians toured with a public-appearance show from 1957 onward. The first half of the show was a Superman sketch in which Reeves and Neill performed with LeBell as a villain called "Mr. Kryptonite" who captured Lois Lane. Kent then rushed offstage to return as Superman, who came to the rescue and fought with the bad guy. The second half of the show was Reeves out of costume as himself, singing and accompanying himself on the guitar. Vacio and Neill accompanied him in duets.

Reeves and Toni Mannix split in 1958 and Reeves announced his engagement to society playgirl Leonore Lemmon. Reeves was apparently scheduled to marry Lemmon on June 19 and then spend their honeymoon in Tijuana. He complained to friends, columnists, and his mother about his financial problems. The planned revival of Superman was apparently a small lifeline. Reeves had also hoped to direct a low-budget science-fiction film written by a friend from his Pasadena Playhouse days, and he had discussed the project with his first Lois Lane, Phyllis Coates, the previous year. However, Reeves and his partner failed to find financing, and the film was never made. Another Superman stage show was scheduled for July with a planned stage tour of Australia. Reeves had options for making a living, but those options apparently all involved playing Superman again—a role that he was not eager to reprise at age 45.

Jack Larson and Noel Neill both remembered Reeves as a noble Southern gentleman (even though he was from Iowa) with a sign on his dressing room door that said "Honest George, the people's friend". Reeves had been made a "Kentucky Colonel" during a publicity trip in the South, and the sign on his dressing room door was replaced with a new one that read "Honest George, also known as Col. Reeves", created by the show's prop department. A photo of a smiling Reeves and the sign appears in Gary Grossman's book about the show.

Death
Reeves died of a gunshot wound to the head, in the upstairs bedroom of his home at 1579 Benedict Canyon Drive in Benedict Canyon between 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. on June 16, 1959, according to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) report.

Leonore Lemmon and other party guests were in the home at the time. Lemmon told the police that she was in the living room with the guests at the time of the shooting, but hearsay statements from Fred Crane, Reeves's friend and colleague from Gone With The Wind, put Lemmon either inside or in direct proximity to Reeves's bedroom. According to Crane (who was not present), Bill Bliss had told Millicent Trent after the shot rang out, while Bliss was having a drink, that Leonore Lemmon came downstairs and said, "Tell them I was down here, tell them I was down here!"

A number of questionable physical findings were reported by investigators and others. No fingerprints were recovered from the gun. No gunpowder residue was found on Reeves's hands. (Some sources contend that it may not have been looked for, as gunshot residue testing was not routinely performed in 1959.) The bullet that killed Reeves was recovered from the bedroom ceiling, and the spent shell casing was found under his body. Two additional bullets were discovered embedded in the bedroom floor. All three bullets had been fired from the weapon found at Reeves's feet, though all witnesses agreed they heard only one gunshot, and there was no sign of forced entry or other physical evidence that a second person was in the room. Despite the unanswered questions, Reeves's death was officially ruled a suicide, based on witness statements, physical evidence at the scene, and the autopsy report.

In contemporaneous news articles, Lemmon attributed Reeves's alleged suicide to depression caused by his "failed career" and inability to find more work. The report made by the LAPD states, "[Reeves was]... depressed because he couldn't get the sort of parts he wanted." Newspapers and wire-service reports quoted LAPD Sergeant V.A. Peterson as saying: "Miss Lemmon blurted, 'He's probably going to go shoot himself.' A noise was heard upstairs. She continued, 'He's opening a drawer to get the gun.' A shot was heard. 'See there—I told you so!'"

Reeves is interred at Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum in Altadena, California. In 1960, Reeves was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard for his contributions to the TV industry. In 1985, he was posthumously named one of the honorees by DC Comics in the company's 50th anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great.

Controversy
Reeves's mother thought it was premature and peremptory to rule the death a suicide, and retained attorney Jerry Giesler to petition for a reinvestigation of the case as a possible homicide. The findings of a second autopsy, conducted at Giesler's request, were the same as the first, except for a series of bruises of unknown origin about the head and body. A month later, having uncovered no evidence contradicting the official finding, Giesler announced that he was satisfied that the gunshot wound had been self-inflicted and withdrew.

Actors Alan Ladd and Gig Young were reportedly skeptical of the official determination. Reeves's friend Rory Calhoun told a reporter "No one in Hollywood believed the suicide story." In their book Hollywood Kryptonite, Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger make a case for the involvement of MGM vice president and fixer Eddie Mannix. Reeves had been having an affair with his wife Toni Mannix. Others suggested that Eddie Mannix, rumored to have Mafia ties, ordered Reeves killed.

In popular culture
The 2006 film Hollywoodland, starring Ben Affleck as Reeves and Adrien Brody as a fictional investigator loosely based on actual detective Milo Speriglio, dramatizes the investigation of Reeves's death. The film suggests three possible scenarios: accidental shooting by Lemmon, murder by an unnamed hitman under orders from Eddie Mannix, and suicide.

A CG version of Reeves as Superman appears in the DC Extended Universe film The Flash (2023). The use of the CG render led to backlash from fans.

title: George Reeves


text:
Talk:Boris Spassky

Moved
I've moved this back here from Boris V. Spassky because his middle initial (or middle name in full) is almost never used. List it in the article, for sure, but the convention is to give the article title its most common form. --Camembert

In a recent book (Bobby Fischer goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time by David Edmonds and John Eidinow; Ecco, 2004) on the 1972 match, the authors discuss the report that Spassky had a Jewish mother (his paternal grandfather was an Orthodox priest) - when the authors asked Spassky about this, he denied it, saying he had no idea how this idea might have arisen. In the absence of any evidence I think we should accept this. Also according to Jewish religious law there is no such thing as being half-Jewish. I don't speak German, but the German link on this page seems to imply that he was Jewish. PatGallacher 00:11, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

 * Interesting London Telegraph article cited here: Outrage in Russia as Spassky puts name to rabidly anti-Semitic petition. Billbrock 03:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC) More sources can be found here: the petition-signing was widely reported. Billbrock 03:28, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why two of my changes were removed. Neither appears to be related to the Jack O'Lantern unsourced changes. Spassky's GM title at age 18 was in fact a record at the time, as documented elsewhere in Wikipedia. Furthermore, I believe that the change of "success" to "career" is valid as losing the 1972 match by 4 points and the 1974 match by 3 points can hardly be defined as successes. - albertod4

 * I removed the latter dilemma by removing sentence altogether. His pinnacle was clearly around 1969, while he was still a force until 1977. Rocksong 02:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Spassky may have a better claim to being a prodigy than Fischer does: Botvinnik, in the introduction to his first games collection, praises the talent of the 12-year-old Spassky. (Fischer at 12 was quite strong for his age, but nothing special--he "got good" at 13.)  Was Spassky a pre-teen prodigy as were Capablanca, Reshevsky, or Arturo Pomar?  I'm not sure.  Billbrock 13:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Having added an interesting piece of trivia to the David Bronstein page, it seemed sensible to add the same information to this page Vonhangman 08:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)vonhangmanVonhangman 08:01, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I disagree with the sentence "Spassky returned home to the USSR in disgrace, and was never again the same dominant player." Spassky returned home and may have been a persona non grata, but ended up winning the 1973 Soviet Championship, which is undoubtedly the strongest Soviet Championship of all time and I believe is a class-15 tournament according to chessmetrics. (I could be wrong, but it is still the one of the strongest tournaments ever). Spassky was still dominant into the 80s, regularly competing in the Candidates' Cycle and was ranked 6th in the world still in 1979. Losing a WC match doesn't make a player less dominant. I won't change it though because God knows you wouldn't want a 22 year old college student writing a thesis about Soviet chess to mess up what has already been typed here...they aren't old or wise enough... The5thHorseman 08:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

 * A lot of the chess articles were originally written in the early days of Wikipedia. While they are a good starting point, some of them do contain a lot of hyperbole - or downright inaccuracies - such as the example you point out. By all means edit it yourself, otherwise I will when I get the chance. Rocksong 01:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

 * Awesome job on the editing Rocksong (I figure you did it). The article, in my opinion anyway, is more appropriate. I would add something about Linares 1983, where Spassky placed 1st ahead of Karpov, and that this was the primary reason Spassky became a French citizen. This was the primary event that permanently ended Spassky's relationship to the Soviet Union. If you need a source, I will refer you to Andrew Soltis' volume "Soviet Chess". It's an excellent book and one that helped me complete my thesis. I'd edit it myself, but I'm not totally familiar with how things are edited on here. It's your decision though, I just want to commend you on the work you've be doing on here. I may come across badly at times...but I really do appreciate it. The5thHorseman 23:07 3 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Hmm, I fixed up his 80s record after reading your input, but User:FrankEldonDixon has also been busy. Thanks for your thanks, anyway. :) Like I said before, feel free to edit it yourself. If you leave a mess, someone will usually come along and clean up after you :) Regular Wikipedia editors have a "watchlist", so if you edit a chess-related article, the chances are I (and a few others) will see the change and check that it looks sensible (which I'm sure it would be, in your case). Rocksong 11:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

 * There's still some POV and hype that could use an exit visa-I'll have a go at it. Hushpuckena (talk) 22:28, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Need better image
I think we need a better photo of Spassky. The one in the article now is from a long distance and doesn't show his face well. Also, I think it would be better to have one from about 1960 to 1975. Bubba73 (talk), 02:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Some issues with the article

 * 1) The manual of style says to spell out small numbers and their ordinals.  Thus "he tied for 1st-2nd" should be spelled out.
 * 2) I know what "URS-ch27" is, but many readers will not.  That needs to be clarified.   Bubba73 (talk), 01:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is starting to happen; I agree that the usage is clumsy and should be cleared up a bit. Give it some time, I'm working on it now. Hushpuckena (talk) 03:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Good - I've cleaned up a large number of them in articles, but I think I got only a small percentage of them. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:41, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I've found some clear errors in this as I've gone along, such as Spassky's score in his World Junior win being 14/16, which in toto was correct, but he qualified from a preliminary section, then won the final, so the original way in which it was displayed was misleading. By the way, Bubba, if you should read this, we'll probably never get all the awkward usage for those events out, but I'm willing to purge them root and branch as I go! Hushpuckena (talk) 06:00, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The section on Reykjavik is heavily POV and laden with peacock language; there's no doubt in my mind that the thrust of the section as written is essentially true-that the match would probably not have come off without Spassky accomodating Fischer-but it's hardly presented in an encyclopaedic manner, and I'm not sure what to do for reliable sources. No wonder this article was listed as needing much improvement! Hushpuckena (talk) 06:21, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
 * One thing about the use of fractions in text vis-a-vis numerals is that they're practically illegible; this may not be a big deal when it comes to fractions such as halves typically used in articles on chess, but in other contexts it could very easy indeed to misread the equivalent of eg 2.125. Hushpuckena (talk) 00:21, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

 * The use of 2½ looks OK to me. But there is another possibility: 2-1/2.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

 * And also $2 1/2$, but on my screen it takes up about a half line above and a half line below. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:04, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

 * I assume it is okay then to change all the .5s to ½s, to eliminate the inconsistency (50–50 split) in the article. Please say if not okay. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

12.5–10.5 12½–10½ $12 1/2$–$10 1/2$" Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Here were the options for visual compare: "12-1/2–10-1/2

 * I agree with making the change. Number 1 was a bad idea (mine), with the dash between the scores it is a real mess!  #4 doesn't look good.  #3 is my preference, but #2 is the only other one that seems acceptable.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Prefer ½ also, as mentioned elsewhere so did Fletch79 and Krakatoa at ProjChess Talk. I assume we can ignore for now MoS's char accessability issue. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

 * As to the four options, #2 is (obviously) my favoured method; if fractions are to be used, I prefer #3 over #4. Hushpuckena (talk) 17:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

 * As far as the character accessibility issue in browsers, that was probably quite a few years ago. Probably any browser these days can display Unicode characters.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 18:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Out of curiosity I checked some other articles:"Bobby Fischer: (48) ½s, (1) .5s Emanuel Lasker: (16) ½s, (0) .5s Alexander Alekhine: (98) ½s, (1) .5s Capablanca: (82) ½s, (0) .5s Paul Morphy: (9) ½s, (1) .5s Mikhail Botvinnik: (60) ½s, (0) .5s Garry Kasparov: (37) ½s, (0) .5s Wilhelm Steinitz: (49) ½s, (0) .5s Anatoly Karpov: (9) ½s, (0) .5s Viswanathan Anand: (15) ½s, (4) .5s"So, I'll also change the stragglers in the Fischer, Alekhine, Morphy, and Anand articles. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 22:39, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

 * You have to be a little careful doing that with AWB or find & replace. Sometimes x.5 is not in a score. Also, 0.5 can get changed to 0½.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:45, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

 * Also x.0 scores need to be changed to x. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:31, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok I checked, and there weren't any ".0" scores in the above articles. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:00, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

 * One more thing in re the proposed changes: how does one key in the fractions? Hushpuckena (talk) 02:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

 * On the edit screen, below the Save button is a combo box - Symbols. From there you can select Insert, Wiki markup, Symbols, etc.  Select Symbols and the common fractions are there.  You can click on it and it will be inserted to the cursor location or you can highlight it and copy & paste.  You can also store it somewhere and copy & paste.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:25, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah (I like to highlight/copy it from the symbol list or from an article where it already occurs, then it's avail to paste at any time). Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:03, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Family and personal life
This article lacks some basics: I believe his father was Russian Orthodox Christian, mother Jewish. What religion was he raised as, and what religion is he now? His wife is mentioned very briefly, yet there is no mention of when he married her, nor is their any mention of their children. When did he move to France? Does he possess Russian and French citizenship? If he holds French citizenship, when did he acquire it? Nietzsche 2 (talk) 09:19, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Did Spassky defect or was he given permission to leave?
The article is unclear on the legality of that particular issue, and I understand it may not be that important. For another article, we were putting together a list of defectors, and it is unclear in this article whether Spassky defected and just kept the asylum process quiet so he wouldn't upset the Soviets, or whether he had quietly worked out a deal for a permitted emigration.

Any insight would be appreciated.Mosedschurte (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

 * according to this Spassky did not defect - he was allowed to emigrate. Bubba73 (talk), 22:58, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

 * Thanks.Mosedschurte (talk) 23:04, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

 * There's an illuminating, contemporary account given here. Brittle heaven (talk) 00:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

 * The ole Marital Gambit opening. A time honored classic.  Thanks.Mosedschurte (talk) 00:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Interesting but atypical source
Some years ago I read a web page with a very interesting biography on Spassky (and on some others players also) by Larry Parr. This page disappeared (what a pity!), but it can be read at the internet archive:[ http://web.archive.org/web/20040603211723/www.worldchessnetwork.com/English/chessHistory/salute/kings/spassky.php].. Can it be used? Is it quotable? Dumu Eduba (talk) 13:32, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Some of the English usage appears awkward
From the beginning of the article:

"Boris Vasilievich Spassky (also Spasskij; Russian: Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский; born January 30, 1937) is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from late 1969 to 1972. he was known one of the greatest and oldest chess player."

The last sentence is awkward and missing at least one word. I think it should read:

"He is known as one of the greatest and oldest living chess players."

I have changed the article, substituting my sentence for the original.

jbarntt 03:43, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm removing "and oldest" because, at 75 or so, Spassky cannot be reasonably said to be "one of the oldest living chess players". Perhaps something else was meant? --Haruo (talk) 05:32, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Boris & the Beluga
I've been hearing tales online about a beluga whale named Minsky beating a chess master (one site specifically names Boris Spasky [sic]). This is often used as an example of the high IQ of beluga whales. Has anyone seen a credible source on this, or is this just another 'net tale?

The hidden ones (talk) 15:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

World U26 Team 1960 and aftermath
As far as I know, Spassky lost his right to play abroad for a time after he lost a critical game to William Lombardy in this event. Does anyone know of a source which might substantiate this? I've found vague allusions, but nothing I'd go with as a reliable source. Hushpuckena (talk) 04:50, 9 June 2012 (UTC) Better photo?

Surely there must be a better photo of Spassky that could be used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.42.59.247 (talk) 00:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Boris Spassky. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121007073815/http://www.chessbase.com/newsprint.asp?newsid=1882 to http://www.chessbase.com/newsprint.asp?newsid=1882

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 16:41, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

"Under disputed circumstances" Paris -> Moscow
I feel like the departure from Paris/return to Moscow section ought to be elaborated on, however I can see how there may be some questions of libel/liability. The claims that Spassky has made, however, seem worth noting here, and are at this point very well documented in a number of different reliable sources and interviews. It would be good to get a clear editorial consensus however on how to proceed on this point here. MarcelB612 (talk) 23:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

1969 World Championships Match v Petrosian
The above is barely covered, when it needs a subsection of its own instead of appearing under 'Challenger' Billsmith60 (talk) 00:44, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Boris Spassky


text:
Methodist Episcopal Church

The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself nationally. In 1939, the MEC reunited with two breakaway Methodist denominations (the Methodist Protestant Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South) to form the Methodist Church. In 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church.

The MEC's origins lie in the First Great Awakening when Methodism emerged as an evangelical revival movement within the Church of England that stressed the necessity of being born again and the possibility of attaining Christian perfection. By the 1760s, Methodism had spread to the Thirteen Colonies, and Methodist societies were formed under the oversight of John Wesley. As in England, American Methodists remained affiliated with the Church of England, but this state of affairs became untenable after the American Revolution. In response, Wesley ordained the first Methodist elders for America in 1784. Under the leadership of its first bishops, Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, the Methodist Episcopal Church adopted episcopal polity and an itinerant model of ministry that saw circuit riders provide for the religious needs of a widespread and mobile population.

Early Methodism was countercultural in that it was anti-elitist and anti-slavery, appealing especially to African Americans and women. While critics derided Methodists as fanatics, the Methodist Episcopal Church continued to grow, especially during the Second Great Awakening in which Methodist revivalism and camp meetings left its imprint on American culture. In the early 19th century, the MEC became the largest and most influential religious denomination in the United States. With growth came greater institutionalization and respectability, and this led some within the church to complain that Methodism was losing its vitality and commitment to Wesleyan teachings, such as the belief in Christian perfection and opposition to slavery.

As Methodism took hold in the Southern United States, church leaders became less willing to condemn the practice of slavery or to grant African American preachers and congregations the same privileges as their European American counterparts. A number of black churches were formed as African Americans withdrew from the MEC, including the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. By the 1830s, however, a renewed abolitionist movement within the MEC made keeping a neutral position on slavery impossible. Ultimately, the church divided along regional lines in 1845 when pro-slavery Methodists in the South formed their own Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Around the same time, the holiness movement took shape as a renewal movement within the MEC focused on the experience of Christian perfection, but it eventually led a number of splinter groups to break away from the church, most notably the Free Methodist Church and Wesleyan Methodist Church. Due to large-scale immigration of Catholics, the Catholic Church displaced the MEC as the largest US denomination by the end of the 19th century.

Background (1766–1783)

The Methodist Episcopal Church originated from the spread of Methodism outside of England to the Thirteen Colonies in the 1760s. Earlier, Methodism had grown out of the ministry of John Wesley, a priest in the Church of England (also known as the Anglican Church) who preached an evangelical message centered on justification by faith, repentance, the possibility of having assurance of salvation, and the doctrine of Christian perfection.

Wesley was loyal to the Anglican Church, and he organized his followers into parachurch societies and classes with the goal of promoting spiritual revival within the Church of England. Members of Methodist societies were expected to attend and receive Holy Communion in their local parish church, but Wesley also recruited and supervised lay preachers for itinerant or traveling ministry.

Around fifteen or twenty societies formed a circuit. Anywhere from two to four itinerant preachers would be assigned to a circuit on a yearly basis to preach and supervise the societies within their circuit. One itinerant preacher in each circuit would be made the "assistant" (because he was an assistant to Wesley), and he would direct the activities of the other itinerant preachers in the circuit, who were called "helpers". Wesley gave out preaching assignments at an annual conference.

In 1769, Wesley sent itinerants Robert Williams, Richard Boardman, and Joseph Pilmore to oversee Methodists in America after learning that societies had already been organized there as early as 1766 by Philip Embury, Robert Strawbridge, and Thomas Webb. In 1773, Wesley appointed Thomas Rankin general assistant, placing him in charge of all the Methodist preachers and societies in America. On July 4, 1773, Rankin presided over the first annual conference on American soil at Philadelphia. At that time there were 1,160 Methodists in America led by ten lay preachers. Itinerant Methodist preachers would become known as circuit riders.

Methodist societies in America also operated within the Church of England. There were several Anglican priests who supported the work of the Methodists, attending Methodist meetings and administering the sacraments to Methodists. These included Charles Pettigrew of North Carolina, Samuel Magaw of Dover and then Philadelphia, and Uzel Ogden of New Jersey. Anglican clergyman Devereux Jarratt (1733–1801) was a particularly active supporter, founding Methodist societies in Virginia and North Carolina.

Establishment (1784)
The American Revolution severed ties to England and left America's Anglican Church in disarray. Due to the scarcity of Anglican ministers, Methodists in the United States were unable to receive the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion. On September 1, 1784, Wesley responded to this situation by personally ordaining two Methodists as elders for America, with the right to administer the sacraments, and also ordained Thomas Coke (who was already an Anglican priest) as a superintendent with authority to ordain other Methodist clergy.

Because Wesley was not a bishop, his ordination of Coke and the others was not recognized by the Church of England, and, consequently, this marked American Methodism's separation from the Anglican Church. Wesley's actions were based in his belief that the order of bishop and priest were one and the same, so that both possess the power to ordain others.

The founding conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, known commonly as the Christmas Conference, was held in December 1784 at Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland. At this conference, Coke ordained Francis Asbury as co-superintendent according to Wesley's wishes. Asbury had been serving as general assistant since Rankin returned to England. The German-born Philip W. Otterbein, who later helped found the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, participated in Asbury's ordination.

The conference adopted Articles of Religion prepared by Wesley (and adapted from the Church of England's Thirty-nine Articles) as a doctrinal statement for the new church, and it also received an abridged version of the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer provided by Wesley, titled The Sunday Service of the Methodists; With Other Occasional Services. American Methodists, however, preferred non-liturgical worship and The Sunday Service was largely ignored.

The conference adopted an organization consisting of superintendents, elders, deacons, traveling preachers, and local preachers. Preachers were licensed to preach but were not ordained and could not administer sacraments. Traveling preachers worked full-time in itinerant ministry and were supported financially by the societies they served. Local preachers pursued secular employment but preached on Sundays in their local communities. Deacons were preachers authorized by a superintendent to officiate weddings, bury the dead, baptize, and assist the elders in administering the Lord's Supper. Only ordained elders could administer the Lord's Supper, and they were also placed in charge of circuits. In the year of its founding, the church claimed 14,986 members and 83 preachers.

Early characteristics
Early Methodists were drawn from the ranks of slaves, poor whites, and "middling people"—artisans, shopkeepers, petty merchants and small planters. These social classes were attracted to Methodism's condemnation of the worldliness of the gentry. Slaves and free blacks were especially attracted to the Methodist Episcopal Church's condemnation of slavery. Prominent Methodists such as Coke, Asbury, and Freeborn Garrettson preached an antislavery message, and the Christmas Conference mandated that all Methodist laity and preachers emancipate their slaves. While African Americans were not yet ordained and classes were segregated by race, important African American leaders did emerge, such as Harry Hosier who was an associate of Asbury and Coke.

Because of Methodism's conscious repudiation of upper class values and lifestyles, elite women who converted took on a revolutionary character. While women were not granted formal leadership roles (though some were class leaders occasionally), they played important roles in evangelization through class relations, family networks, correspondence, and in the home. It was common for both women and slaves to publicly deliver exhortations—testimonials and personal conversion narratives distinguishable from sermons because exhorters did not "take a text" from the Bible.

Meetings and services were often characterized by extremely emotional and demonstrative styles of worship. As part of the conversion experience, people often trembled, groaned, screamed, or fell motionless to the ground as if dead. These bodily experiences as well as Methodist ascetic practices and claims of receiving direct communication from the Holy Spirit inspired its opponents to accuse Methodism of being a form of religious enthusiasm that caused insanity. Because of its Arminian doctrines, the evangelistic work of the Methodist Episcopal Church was often opposed by Calvinists.

Growth, the first General Conference, and the O'Kelly Schism (1785–1792)
Coke had returned to Britain in 1785 but arrived back in the United States in 1787 with written instructions from Wesley. Wesley ordered the holding of a conference and that Richard Whatcoat be appointed a superintendent. At the conference, James O'Kelly and Jesse Lee led opposition to Coke and to Wesley’s authority. Many preachers were offended that Coke and Wesley seemed to be taking decision making out of the hands of the American church. They also feared that Whatcoat's appointment would lead to the recall of Asbury, and this led the conference to reject Whatcoat's appointment (Whatcoat would successfully be elected in 1800). In 1788, the title of superintendent was changed to bishop.

Coke's reputation among American Methodists further suffered when his secret negotiations for a union with the Episcopal Church (as American Anglicans now styled themselves) were discovered. Coke had written and met with William White, the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop, discussing the possible lowering of Episcopal ministerial standards, the reordination of Methodist preachers, and the reconsecration of Coke and Asbury as Episcopal bishops. When Asbury learned of the negotiations, he blocked the merger plan from being considered.

Despite controversies over authority, the Methodist Episcopal Church continued to enjoy growth. By 1788, there were 37,354 members, of which 6,545 were African American. The number of circuits had grown to 85 and the number of annual conferences had grown to six. A year later, the number of annual conferences had increased to eleven. The church's reach also began to significantly expand beyond the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountain ranges. In 1791, a circuit was established in Upper Canada by William Losee. It was during this time that the first Methodist college in America was established, the short-lived Cokesbury College in Maryland.

This growth revealed problems with the church's decision-making process. Each annual conference had to agree on legislation before it was enacted, but this became unwieldy when the number of conferences grew to eleven. The need for a centralized policy-making body led to the creation of a council of bishops and presiding elders (who supervised multi-circuit districts) in 1789, but this body was soon abolished after meeting only twice.

After the failure of the council, a General Conference was held in November 1792 at Baltimore. This first General Conference gave itself legislative power over the church, determined to meet every four years, and decided membership for general and annual conferences would include all elders, deacons, and traveling preachers. Local preachers and other lay members were denied voting rights.

At the General Conference, a dispute emerged over the power of bishops to assign preachers to circuits. O'Kelly and his supporters wanted the right to appeal assignments to the conference, but this proposal was defeated. In response, they left to form the Republican Methodist Church, initiating the first schism in American Methodism. As reflected in the use of the term republican in their name, Republican Methodists desired a more egalitarian church and objected to the centralized governance and episcopal polity of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Methodist Episcopal Church lost one-fifth of its members and would not begin to experience growth again until 1800. In 1801, the Republican Methodists rejected the Methodist label and later merged with other groups to become the Christian Connection. This group was a predecessor body to the United Church of Christ.

Development of a constitution
The second General Conference was held at Baltimore in October 1796. It reduced the number of annual conferences to six and, for the first time, gave them geographical boundaries. With the drawing of definite borders, it would become understood that preachers belonged to a specific annual conference. The General Conference also required that local church property be held in trust for the Methodist Episcopal Church. Local preachers were made eligible for ordination as deacons after four years of service.

Another bishop was found necessary to aid Asbury due to Coke's frequent trips to Britain; Coke was regarded as a leading figure in Britain's Wesleyan Methodist Church, which itself split from the Anglican Church after Wesley's death in 1791. At the third General Conference held in May 1800, Richard Whatcoat was finally elected and consecrated the third bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Since the annual conferences were given geographical boundaries in 1796, they increasingly acted like states, demanding proportional representation in General Conference. Because General Conference met frequently in Baltimore, it was often dominated by the conferences closest to that city, the Philadelphia and Baltimore conferences. At the 1804 General Conference, these two conferences together had 70 preachers present, while the other five conferences combined had only 42 preachers present.

To solve this problem, delegated representation for General Conference was introduced in 1808. Each annual conference was entitled to send one representative for every five conference members. The Restrictive Regulations were also adopted at this time. These rules, which were regarded as the church's constitution, prohibited the General Conference from modifying the church's doctrinal standards and episcopal government unless such amendments were approved all the annual conferences. William McKendree was elected the fourth bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the first American-born bishop to replace the deceased Whatcoat.

The 1812 General Conference was the first to convene under the new rules adopted in 1808. This conference, meeting in New York City, made local deacons eligible for ordination as elders. The Ohio and Tennessee Conferences were created to replace the Western Conference. This made nine in all, the others being the New York, New England, Genesee (including circuits in Upper and Lower Canada), South Carolina, Virginia, Baltimore and Philadelphia conferences.

General Conference of 1816
The year 1816 marked the end of an era for the MEC. Asbury and Jesse Lee died that year, and Coke had died in 1815 while conducting missionary work for the British Conference. All of these men had championed the itinerant model of ministry. Following the death of Asbury, the 1816 General Conference elected Enoch George and Robert Richford Roberts to serve as bishops along with McKendree.

The General Conference disapproved of pew rental as a means of raising funds (but this was largely ignored as more and more Methodist churches began charging pew rent). It also expressed concerns over perceived laxity in Methodist standards of discipline, doctrine, dress and sacramental practice.

There was also concern over the appearance in some places of false doctrines, such as Arianism, Socinianism and Pelagianism. In order to provide adequate preparation to candidates for the ministry, the bishops were directed to create a Course of Study featuring a prescribed reading list, the first effort to introduce a formal process for ministry preparation. The Course of Study reflected American Methodism's continued reliance on British theologians. The reading list included Wesley's Sermons and Notes, John Fletcher's four-volume Checks to Antinomianism, Joseph Benson's Sermons on Various Occasions and Coke’s six-volume Commentary on the Holy Bible. These works would guide American Methodist belief for the next century.

The General Conference placed Joshua Soule and Thomas Mason in charge of the Methodist Book Concern, the church's publishing house. The conference also ordered the publication of a monthly periodical, The Methodist Magazine. This magazine soon acquired a circulation of 10,000 at a time when popular secular periodicals had circulations between 4,000 and 5,000. The Methodist Magazine, later renamed the Methodist Quarterly Review, was published continually from 1818 until 1932 and had a longer life than any other religious publication.

The church continued to grow during this period. Sometime around 1800, Methodism expanded into the region around Cincinnati, Ohio, and by 1807, the first Methodist church had been built in the city. In 1809, William Case was sent as a missionary to Detroit in the Michigan Territory and was followed a year later by William Mitchell, who organized what is today Central United Methodist Church and the oldest Protestant congregation in Michigan.

In 1808, Matthew P. Sturdevant established a new circuit along the banks of the Tombigbee River in Alabama. In the years 1809 and 1810, John Crane established new circuits in Upper Louisiana in what is today the state of Missouri. After the War of 1812, the Canadian conferences withdrew from the American church to become the Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada.

Camp meetings

The Presbyterian-led Cane Ridge Revival of 1801 birthed the first definitive camp meeting in American history, and this multi-day revivalistic event would be enthusiastically adopted by the Methodist Episcopal Church. For Methodists, these meetings were important evangelistic tools, but they were often criticized for the emotionalism and enthusiasm displayed, such as crying, shouting, jerking and falling. Methodist leaders such as Asbury expected order to be maintained, but they were not opposed to the emotional effects often seen in these meetings.

Other Methodists, such as John Fanning Watson, disagreed. In his book Methodist Error; or, Friendly, Christian Advice: To Those Methodists Who Indulge in Extravagant Religious Emotions and Bodily Exercises, published anonymously in 1814, Watson argued that such emotional displays were not appropriate on the part of converted Christians in public worship but should be restricted to the time of conversion or, for those already converted, to private devotion at home.

While historians have emphasized the importance of camp meetings on the American frontier, camp meetings were vibrant parts of Methodist community life in the more settled areas along the East Coast as well. For example, some of the most significant meetings at the start of the 19th century occurred on the Delmarva Peninsula, a place that became known as the "Garden of Methodism". Camp meetings were often held simultaneously with Methodist quarterly meetings (circuit business meetings held four times each year). In America, quarterly meetings had already evolved into two-day religious festivals, so it became standard practice for quarterly conferences to make one of their warm-weather sessions a camp meeting. By 1811, Methodists held 400 to 500 camp meetings annually, and historian Nathan Hatch estimates that these events drew in over one million people annually.

African American Methodists

The Methodist Episcopal Church had committed itself to the antislavery cause, but it became difficult to maintain this stance as Methodism spread to slaveholding areas. To avoid alienating southerners, the 1808 General Conference allowed annual conferences to form their own policies related to buying and selling slaves. In 1816, it amended the Discipline's prohibition on officeholders owning slaves to apply only in states where emancipation was legal.

Another problem was that the MEC failed to give African American members full equality and inclusion in the church. This failure led to the development of segregated church institutions under white supervision. In 1800, the General Conference authorized bishops to ordain African American men as local deacons. Richard Allen of Philadelphia was the first to be ordained under this rule.

Earlier in 1794, Allen had led other African American members to withdraw from St. George's Church in response to racial discrimination by white church members. Under Allen's leadership and with Asbury's blessing, they founded Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Under the leadership of Allen and Daniel Coker, Bethel Church and other African American congregations left the MEC to establish the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in 1816. According to Nathan Bangs, the MEC might have lost nearly 900 African American members to the AME Church in its first year alone.

Other African American members left to form separate churches as well. A group based in Wilmington, Delaware, founded the African Union Church in 1813, and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was formed by African American Methodists in New York City. These groups left over not receiving the prerogatives and standing within the denomination that their white counterparts were given, such as ordination, representation and property ownership. Despite these losses, however, the majority of African American Methodists remained within the MEC.

Quest for respectability
In the 19th century, the Methodist Episcopal Church became the largest and most widespread denomination in the United States, boasting "the most extensive national organization other than the Federal government." In the Antebellum era, a new generation of leaders, upwardly mobile preachers and laity, would lead the Methodist Episcopal Church toward social respectability and inclusion within America's Protestant establishment. In the process, the MEC would experience what some contemporaries and later interpreters considered a "softening of discipline, embrace of the world, compromise of fundamental Wesleyan practices and precepts, abandonment of the evangelistic mission to society’s marginalized, and loss of Methodism’s prophetic nerve."

This included the transformation of the itinerant system into a more settled ministry. A second generation of Methodist preachers were unable to realize Wesley's original vision of a "celibate, self-sacrificing, and ascetic brotherhood". Increasingly, preachers were appointed for two-year terms to single-congregation charges called "stations". This allowed stationed pastors to live in the same community every day rather than making short visits every two, four or six weeks as in earlier years. Stationing was facilitated by the construction of parsonages. By 1858, the northern MEC had built 2,174 parsonages for the use of over 5,000 traveling preachers.

Stationed preachers and their wives posed problems for the system of class meetings on which Methodist societies were based, and Methodists were noting the decline of the classes by the 1820s. The functions that class meetings and class leaders traditionally provided—discipline and spiritual formation—were taken over by the preacher and his wife. Alternative small group settings were provided by the Sunday school and the local missionary and tract societies. The meetings of these organizations featured prayer, hymns, testimony and exhortation. To accommodate these educational and missional efforts, Methodists began building larger and more impressive facilities, often on main streets, in the 1830s and 1840s.

By the 1830s, loud voices had emerged against the transformation of the denomination. These voices were nostalgic and disappointed over the end of the Asbury era, which was characterized as one of greater religious enthusiasm, revivals and camp meetings. These voices were dismissed as "croakers" because it seemed they never missed an opportunity to complain, whether in the pulpit, through conference sermons or on the pages of Methodist periodicals.

New Institutions
Nathan Bangs is credited with leading the campaign for respectability. As the denomination's book agent and editor of both The Methodist Magazine and the weekly Christian Advocate, Bangs was the MEC's most visible and influential leader up until the 1860s. Under his watch, the Christian Advocate became the most widely circulated periodical in the world, and the Book Concern was transformed from merely a distributor of British reprints into a full-fledged publishing house providing literature for adults, children, and Sunday schools, as well as producing tracts for the Methodist Tract Society organized in 1817.

By the 1820s, Methodists were ready to build institutions of higher education. Citing the lack of non-Calvinist colleges and seminaries, the 1820 General Conference encouraged annual conferences to establish ones under Methodist control. Around two hundred were founded by the Civil War. These included Augusta College (1822), McKendree University (1828), Wesleyan University (1831), Emory University (1836), Emory and Henry College (1836), DePauw University (originally Indiana Asbury University in 1837), and what would become the Boston University School of Theology (1839). In addition, the Methodists became affiliated with already existing Dickinson College and Allegheny College in 1833. Methodists invested in education for women as well, founding Greensboro College in North Carolina and Wesleyan College in Georgia.

Antebellum missions
Nathan Bangs was also instrumental in the establishment of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1819 to help support foreign mission work. While missionaries were appointed and supervised by the bishops, the missionary society raised funds to support them.

In 1834, a Liberian Annual Conference was organized. While itinerating in Liberia, Bishop Levi Scott ordained the first African deacons and elders in 1853. In 1856, the General Conference created a new position, the missionary bishop, to oversee the foreign mission fields. The Liberian Conference elected Francis Burns to be its missionary bishop, and he was consecrated in 1858, becoming the Methodist Episcopal Church's first African American bishop. As a missionary bishop, Burns was not considered a general superintendent of the church, and his episcopal authority was limited to his assigned field.

Domestically, there were efforts among Native American tribes, such as the Wyandotte of Ohio; the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw in the Southeast; and the Ojibwe, Oneida and Chippewa of the Great Lakes region. In the late 1840s, separate Conferences were formed for German-speaking members of the Methodist Episcopal Church who were not members of the Evangelical Association or the United Brethren in Christ (later merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB)). Among these was the St. Louis German Conference, which in 1925 was assimilated into the surrounding English-speaking conferences, including the Illinois Conference.

Origins of the holiness movement
In 1840, Phoebe Palmer took over leadership of a prayer meeting for women in New York City begun by her sister, Sarah. Participants of what was known as the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness sought to receive the blessing of Christian perfection or entire sanctification. Christian perfection was a doctrine that had been taught by Wesley but had in the words of religion scholar Randall Balmer, "faded into the background" as Methodists gained respectability and became solidly middle class.

Palmer had experienced entire sanctification herself in 1837 when she made "an entire surrender" to God of everything in her life. Through her evangelism and writings, Palmer articulated an "altar theology" that outlined a "shorter way" to entire sanctification, achieved through placing oneself on a metaphorical altar by sacrificing worldly desires. Once this consecration was complete, the Christian could be assured that God would sanctify them. In the words of historian Jeffrey Williams, "Palmer made sanctification an instantaneous act accomplished through the exercise of faith."

Under her leadership, men began to regularly attend the meetings, including prominent Methodists such as Nathan Bangs, Bishop Leonidas Hamline, and Stephen Olin. By the 1850s, people from nearly every Protestant denomination were attending the meetings and similar meetings were started around the country, eventually numbering around 200 by 1886. These meetings formed the impetus for a new interdenominational holiness movement promoted by such publications as the Guide to Christian Perfection, which published written testimonies from those who had experienced entire sanctification. The movement was largely urban and mainly led by lay people.

Conflict over episcopal polity and abolitionism
In the 1820s, a reform movement emerged within the Methodist Episcopal Church to challenge its hierarchical structure. In particular, reformers wanted presiding elders to be chosen by conference elections rather than episcopal appointment. They also desired representation for local preachers (two-thirds of all Methodist clergy) and lay people in annual and general conferences. These proposals, particularly election of presiding elders, were interpreted as a threat to the church's episcopal polity and, therefore, a violation of the Restrictive Regulations according to Bishop McKendree and Joshua Soule, author of the restrictive rules.

In the aftermath of the 1824 General Conference, a number of "union societies" were formed to advocate for reform, while church leaders took actions to suppress any effort to alter the church's episcopal polity. Presiding elders in the Baltimore Conference began disciplinary proceedings against twenty-five laymen and eleven local preachers for advocating reform. Meanwhile, the number of union societies grew. The refusal of the 1828 General Conference to endorse democratic reforms led to a definitive division within the church and the organization of the Methodist Protestant Church.

In 1820 (the same year as the Missouri Compromise), the Methodist Episcopal Church ended its ban on preachers and leadership owning slaves. Around the same time, it became closely tied to the American Colonization Society and its own Liberian Mission, which proposed sending freedmen to evangelize Africa. According to historian Donald Mathews, "[T]here was no religious denomination more closely connected with colonization than the Methodist Episcopal Church".

In the 1830s, abolitionists within the Methodist Episcopal Church sought to recover the church's antislavery witness. Notable abolitionist activity took place within the New England Annual Conference where Orange Scott and others used camp meetings and conference structures to attack slavery and the suppression of antislavery sentiments in church publications. Despite their efforts, Nathan Bangs kept abolitionist messages out of church periodicals, and the bishops also sought to suppress abolitionists for the sake of church unity. Abolitionist clergy were censured, brought up on disciplinary charges, and appointed to difficult assignments as punishment. Southern Methodists responded by defending the morality of slavery and asserting that, as a political matter, slavery was an issue that was outside of the church's authority to adjudicate.

When pro-slavery forces prevailed at the 1840 General Conference, Scott and his allies La Roy Sunderland and Jotham Horton left the church. Condemning the MEC as "not only a slave-holding, but a slavery defending, Church," these men organized a new Methodist church on explicitly abolitionist grounds in 1843 called the Wesleyan Methodist Church (not to be confused with the British church of the same name).

Southern schism of 1844
Despite the Wesleyan Methodist secession, the anti-slavery movement among northern Methodists continued to grow, with conferences passing anti-slavery resolutions preceding the 1844 General Conference. Over the objections of southerners, General Conference created a committee on slavery that recommended the conference act to "separate slavery from the church". Most damaging to church unity, the General Conference ordered Bishop James Osgood Andrew, a slave owner, to "desist from the exercise of this office so long as this impediment remains" on the basis that his owning slaves would prevent him from effectively ministering as a bishop in the North.

A committee of nine was appointed to study the possibility of an amicable separation of the church. It proposed a Plan of Separation that would provide for determining a geographic boundary between the two churches and a peaceful division of property, such as the Book Concern and the pension resources of the Chartered Fund. Despite concerns that this proposal would cause "war and strife in the border conferences", it was approved by General Conference. As it required an amendment to the Restrictive Regulations, however, the plan had to be ratified by three-fourths of the annual conferences and was rejected by the northern conferences.

Nevertheless, the southern conferences proceeded with the Plan of Separation at the Louisville Convention of 1845 and held the first General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) in 1846. This action started a contest between northern and southern conferences to recruit as many border stations and circuits as they could, especially in the Delmarva Peninsula, western Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Missouri. Meanwhile, the 1848 MEC General Conference declared that the Plan of Separation had failed to receive the required conference votes and could not be used to legally divide the church. The dispute over the legality of separation and division of the Book Concern's property was not resolved until 1853 when the US Supreme Court rule in Smith v. Swormstedt that the creation of the MECS was legal.

Free Methodist schism of 1860
Northern anger surrounding the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 brought further turmoil to the MEC. The Genesee Conference in New York was most effected. There, reform-minded Methodists led by B. T. Roberts protested slavery as well as other signs of cultural accommodation, such as pew rents (which alienated the poor) and the decline in revivalism and holiness teaching. The conference leadership reacted to this by harassing and expelling Roberts and his colleagues who then went on to organize the Free Methodist Church in 1860.

Concerned about defections to the Free Methodists, the 1860 General Conference declared owning slaves to be "contrary to the laws of God and nature" and inconsistent with the church's rules. This sparked a wave of petitions from border conferences demanding a return to a neutral position on slavery. The Baltimore annual conference split in half, with pro-slavery members seceding from the MEC. Kentucky and Missouri would soon become religious battlegrounds as Methodists divided into pro-Union and pro-Confederate camps.

Civil War and Reconstruction (1861–1877)
The Methodist split over slavery paralleled a national split. The controversy over slavery led the Southern states to secede from the Union and form the Confederate States of America, actions that led to the American Civil War. No denomination was more active in supporting the Union than the Methodist Episcopal Church. Historian Richard Carwardine argues that for many Methodists, Abraham Lincoln's election as US president in 1860 heralded the arrival of the kingdom of God in America. They were moved into action by a vision of freedom for slaves, freedom from the terror unleashed on godly abolitionists, release from the Slave Power's evil grip on the state, and a new direction for the Union.

Methodists contributed many chaplains to the Union Army and were heavily involved in the Christian Commission, a Protestant organization that provided religious services to soldiers and contributed to revivals within the army between 1863 and 1865. The Methodist family magazine Ladies' Repository, which provided moral uplift to women and children, promoted Christian family activism. It portrayed the War as a great moral crusade against a decadent Southern civilization corrupted by slavery. It recommended activities that family members could perform in order to aid the Union cause.

While the MEC was overwhelmingly supportive of the war effort, a minority of northern Methodists disagreed with the church's political stance. In Ohio, Methodists who sympathized with the anti-war Copperheads coalesced into a new denomination, the Christian Union. After the Confederacy's defeat, Methodists formed a major element of the popular support for the Radical Republicans with their hard line toward the white South. The Methodist Ministers Association of Boston, meeting two weeks after Lincoln's assassination, called for a hard line against the Confederate leadership: "Resolved, That no terms should be made with traitors, no compromise with rebels. ... That we hold the National authority bound by the most solemn obligation to God and man to bring all the civil and military leaders of the rebellion to trial by due course of law, and when they are clearly convicted, to execute them."

In a highly controversial move, the Northern MEC used the army to seize control of Methodist churches in large Southern cities over the vehement protests of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Historian Ralph Morrow reports: "A War Department order of November, 1863, applicable to the Southwestern states of the Confederacy, authorized the Northern Methodists to occupy "all houses of worship belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church South in which a loyal minister, appointed by a loyal bishop of said church, does not officiate.""

During Reconstruction, Northern denominations all sent missionaries, teachers and activists to the South to help the Freedmen. Only the Methodists made many converts, however. Activists sponsored by the northern Methodist church played a major role in the Freedmen's Bureau, notably in such key educational roles as the Bureau's state superintendent or assistant superintendent of education for Virginia, Florida, Alabama and South Carolina.

The focus on social problems paved the way for the Social Gospel movement a few years later. Matthew Simpson, a famous bishop, played a leading role in mobilizing the Northern Methodists for the cause. His biographer calls him the "High Priest of the Radical Republicans." MEC women would use the leadership and organizational skills gained during the war to establish orphanages and old age homes. A major driver in the creation of such institutions was the Woman's Home Missionary Society, founded in 1882.

Post–Civil War divisions
In 1895, during the 19th century holiness movement, Methodist Episcopal minister Phineas F. Bresee founded the Church of the Nazarene in Los Angeles with the help of Joseph Pomeroy Widney. The Church of the Nazarene separated over a perceived need to minister further to the urban poor, the origins of its Nazarene name. Several other churches, roughly 15 holiness denominations that had also split from the Methodist Episcopal Church, joined the Church of the Nazarene in 1907 and 1908, and it became international soon thereafter. The new Church of the Nazarene retained the Methodist Episcopal tradition of education and now operates 56 educational institutions around the world, including eight liberal arts colleges in the United States, each tied to an "educational region".

Beliefs and standards
The Methodist Episcopal Church's doctrines are the Articles of Religion along with an emphasis on "Universal Redemption, the Free Agency of Man, Regeneration or the New Birth, Adoption, the Witness of the Spirit, and Entire Sanctification or Perfect Love." Probationers who sought full membership into the Methodist Episcopal Church affirmed "a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins" which was to be evidenced by "observing the General Rules" delineated the connexion's standards.

Its standards included a ban against marriages with unconverted persons; a prohibition on the buying, selling and use of spiritous liquors; abstinence from tobacco; and an injunction not to wear "gold and costly apparel". The Methodist Episcopal Church forbade the "singing of those songs, or reading those books, which do not tend to the knowledge or love of God" as well as "dancing; playing at games of chance; attending theaters, horse races, circuses, dancing parties, or patronizing dancing schools, or taking such other amusements as are obviously of misleading or questionable moral tendency."

Divisions and mergers
The following list notes divisions and mergers that occurred in Methodist Episcopal Church history.

1767: The Rev. Philip William Otterbein, (1726–1813) of Baltimore and Martin Boehm started Methodist evangelism among German-speaking immigrants to form the United Brethren in Christ. This development had to do only with language. Methodist Episcopal Bishop Francis Asbury later preached at Otterbein's 1813 funeral. In 1968 it merged to form the United Methodist Church.

1784: Historic "Christmas Conference" held at Lovely Lane Chapel in waterfront Baltimore (at Lovely Lane, off German (now Redwood) Street between South Calvert Street and South Street) and convened to organize the future Methodist Episcopal Church and also several ministers ordain Francis Asbury as bishop.

1793: The first recognized split from the Methodist Episcopal Church was led by a preacher named James O'Kelly who wanted clergy to be free to refuse to serve where the bishop appointed them. He organized the "Republican Methodists," later called simply the Christian Church or Christian Connection, that through its successors and mergers eventually became part of the future United Church of Christ in 1957.

1800: The Evangelical Association was organized by Jacob Albright to serve German-speaking Methodists.

1813: The Reformed Methodist Church was organized under the leadership of Methodist preachers Pliny Brett and Elijah Bailey. This group was concentrated in Massachusetts and Vermont. It merged into the Churches of Christ in Christian Union in 1952.

1816: The African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in Philadelphia by Richard Allen for Wesley followers/African-Americans. Bishop Francis Asbury had ordained him earlier in 1799.

1820: The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was organized in New York.

1828: The Canadians formed their own Methodist Church.

1828: The Methodist Protestant Church split off under Nicholas Snethen, who had earlier argued against the O'Kelly split, along with Asa Shinn. The issue was the role of laity in governance of the church. In 1939, it merged.

1843: The Wesleyan Methodist Church was organized. In 1968, the Wesleyan Methodist and Pilgrim Holiness denominations merged to form the Wesleyan Church.

1844: The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, split off because of the slavery controversy. Briefly, during the American Civil War, 1861–1865, it adopted the title of "The Methodist Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America". In 1939, it merged into The Methodist Church, (which endures until 1968 and a subsequent merger with the Evangelical United Brethren Church forming the current U.M.C.).

1860: The Free Methodist Church was organized by B. T. Roberts and others. The differences centered around a traditional/rural vs. modern/urban ethos.

1870: The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church was organized from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to serve African-American Methodists. Later changed its name to Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

1895: The Church of the Nazarene was organized by Phineas F. Bresee.

1895: Fire Baptized Holiness Church

1897: Pentecostal Holiness Church of North Carolina. Merged with the Fire Baptized Holiness Church in 1911 and formed what is now known as the International Pentecostal Holiness Church.

1897: The Pilgrim Holiness Church was organized.

1939: The Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church merged to form The Methodist Church.

1946: The Evangelical Church (Albright's Evangelical Association) and Otterbein's heritage in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ merged to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church.

1968: The Evangelical United Brethren Church and The Methodist Church merged to form The United Methodist Church.

title: Methodist Episcopal Church


text:
Talk:LunarStorm

Untitled
LunarStorm is a virtual community made by a company called LunarWorks from Varberg, Sweden.

Tried to remove bias
I changed the last lines of this article to remove some of the neutrality issues. I think someone with a better understanding of the english language could improve this article further though.

Englishification
I tried to make the description sound more natural in English. Not sure how successful I was. Lucielle 20:33, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

List of social networking websites on AfD
List of social networking websites is currently an AfD candidate. You are invited to partake in this discussion. Czj 18:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Lunarstorm is not Epuls
Epuls is based on idea of LunarStorm, but it's not the same website. Please, do not add interwiki link to Epuls. Visor (talk) 21:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on LunarStorm. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100730002948/http://www1.lunarstorm.se/ to http://www.lunarstorm.se/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 21:25, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on LunarStorm. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100812152721/http://www.lunarworks.se/_fil/prodblad/lunarstorm_statistik_q1.pdf to http://www.lunarworks.se/_fil/prodblad/lunarstorm_statistik_q1.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 03:18, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:LunarStorm


text:
Methodist Episcopal Church, South

The Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC, S; also Methodist Episcopal Church South) was the American Methodist denomination resulting from the 19th-century split over the issue of slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC). Disagreement on this issue had been increasing in strength for decades between churches of the Northern and Southern United States; in 1845 it resulted in a schism at the General Conference of the MEC held in Louisville, Kentucky.

This body maintained its own polity for nearly 100 years until the formation in 1939 of the Methodist Church, uniting the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with the older Methodist Episcopal Church and much of the Methodist Protestant Church, which had separated from Methodist Episcopal Church in 1828. The Methodist Church in turn merged in 1968 with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church, now one of the largest and most widely spread Christian denominations in America.

In 1940, some more theologically conservative MEC,S congregations, which dissented from the 1939 merger, formed the Southern Methodist Church, which still exists as a small, conservative denomination headquartered in South Carolina. Some dissenting congregations from the Methodist Protestant Church also objected to the 1940 merger and continue as a separate denomination, headquartered in Mississippi.

History
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was appalled by slavery in the British colonies. When the Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was founded in the United States at the "Christmas Conference" synod meeting of ministers at the Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore in December 1784, the denomination officially opposed slavery very early. Numerous Methodist missionaries toured the South in the "Great Awakening" and tried to convince slaveholders to manumit the people whom they enslaved. In the first two decades after the American Revolutionary War, a number did free people from slavery. The number of free blacks increased markedly at this time, especially in the Upper South.

During the early nineteenth century, Methodists and Baptists in the South began to modify their approach in order to gain support from common planters, and yeomen. They began to argue for better treatment of slaves, saying that the Bible acknowledged slavery but that Christianity had a paternalistic role to improve conditions.

The invention of the cotton gin had enabled profitable cultivation of cotton in new areas of the South, increasing the demand for slaves. Manumissions nearly ceased and, after slave rebellions, the states made them extremely difficult to accomplish. Northern Methodist congregations increasingly opposed slavery, and some members began to be active in the abolitionist movement. The southern church accommodated it as part of a legal system.

But, even in the South, Methodist clergy were not supposed to own slaves. In 1840, the Rev. James Osgood Andrew, a bishop living in Oxford, Georgia, bought a woman. Fearing that she would end up with an inhumane owner if sold, Andrew kept her but let her work independently. The 1840 MEC General Conference considered the matter, but did not expel Andrew. Four years later, Andrew married a woman who owned a slave inherited from her mother, making the bishop the owner of two people. As bishop, he was considered to have obligations both in the North and South and was criticized for owning slaves.

The 1844 General Conference voted to suspend Bishop Andrew from exercising his episcopal office until he was no longer a slave owner. Southern delegates to the conference disputed the authority of a General Conference to discipline bishops. The cultural differences that had divided the nation during the mid-19th century were also dividing the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 1844 dispute led Methodists in the South to break off and form a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC,S). Delegates from the southern conferences met at a Convention at the Fourth Street Church in Louisville, Kentucky, May 1–19, 1845, and organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

Civil War
The statistics for 1859 showed the MEC,S had as enrolled members some 511,601 whites and 197,000 blacks (nearly all of whom were slaves), and 4,200 Indians. In 1858 MEC,S operated 106 schools and colleges.

The American Civil War resulted in widespread destruction of property, including church buildings and institutions, but it was marked by a series of strong revivals that began in General Robert E. Lee's army and spread throughout the region. Chaplains tended the wounded after the battles. John Berry McFerrin (1807–1887) recalled: "At Chickamauga, the slaughter was tremendous on both sides, but the Confederates held the field. I remained on the battlefield eleven days, nursing the sick, ministering to the wounded, and praying for the dying. The sight was awful. Thousands of men killed and wounded. They lay thick all around, shot in every possible manner, and the wounded dying every day. Among the wounded were many Federal soldiers. To these I ministered, prayed with them, and wrote letters by flag of truce to their friends in the North."

African Americans
After the Civil War, when African American slaves gained freedom, many left the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. They joined either the independent black denominations of the African Methodist Episcopal Church founded in Philadelphia or the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church founded in New York, but some also joined the (Northern) Methodist Episcopal Church, which planted new congregations in the South. The two independent black denominations both sent missionaries to the South after the war to aid freedmen, and attracted hundreds of thousands of new members, from both Baptists and Methodists, and new converts to Christianity. Out of 200,000 African-American members in the MEC,S in 1860, by 1866 only 49,000 remained.

in 1870, most of the remaining African-American members of the MEC,S split off on friendly terms with white colleagues to form the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, now the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, taking with them $1.5 million in buildings and properties. The new denomination avoided the Republican politics of the AME and AME Zion congregations. It had more than 3,000 churches, more than 1,200 traveling preachers, 2,500 church-based preachers, about 140,000 members, and held 22 annual conferences, presided over by four bishops.

Growth in late 19th century

The MEC,S energetically tended its base: in 1880 it had 798,862 members (mostly white), and 1,066,377 in 1886. It expanded its missionary activity in Mexico. Although usually avoiding politics, MEC,S in 1886 denounced divorce and called for Prohibition, stating: "The public has awakened to the necessity of both legal and moral suasion to control the great evils stimulated and fostered by the liquor traffic. We recognize in the license system a sin against society. Its essential immorality cannot be affected by the question whether the license be high or low. The effectual prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and use of intoxicating liquors would be emancipation from the greatest curse that now afflicts our race. The total removal of the cause of intemperance is the only remedy. This is the greatest moral question now before our people.... Resolved, That the time has now come when the church, through its press and pulpit, its individual and organized agencies, should speak out in strong language and stronger action in favor of the total removal of this great evil."

After 1844 the Methodists in the South increased their emphasis on an educated clergy. Ambitious young preachers from humble, rural backgrounds attended college, and were often appointed to serve congregations in towns. There they could build larger churches that paid decent salaries; they gained social prestige in a highly visible community leadership position. These ministers turned the pulpit into a profession, thus emulating the Presbyterians and Episcopalians. They created increasingly complex denominational bureaucracies to meet a series of pressing needs: defending slavery, evangelizing soldiers during the Civil War, promoting temperance reform, contributing to foreign missions (see American Southern Methodist Episcopal Mission), and supporting local colleges. The new urban middle-class ministry increasingly left their country cousins far behind. As the historian of the transformation explains, "Denomination building—that is, the bureaucratization of religion in the late antebellum South—was an inherently innovative and forward-looking task. It was, in a word, modern."

The returns for 1892 showed:
 * Traveling preachers: 5,368
 * Local preachers: 6,481
 * White members: 1,282,750
 * Colored members: 357
 * Indian members: 10,759
 * Total:       1,305,715
 * Sunday-schools: 13,426
 * SS teachers: 95,204
 * SS students: 754,223
 * Churches: 12,856
 * Value: $20,287,112

Education
Methodist education had suffered during the Civil War, as most academies were closed. Some recovered in the late 19th century, but demand decreased as public education had been established for the first time by Reconstruction-era legislatures across the South. It was generally a segregated system, and racial segregation was established by law for public facilities under Jim Crow rules conditions in the late 19th century, after white Democrats regained control of state legislatures in the late 1870s.

The colleges were in scarcely better condition, though philanthropy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries dramatically changed their development. Most were primarily high-school level academies offering a few collegiate courses. The dramatic exception was Vanderbilt University, at Nashville, with a million-dollar campus and an endowment of $900,000, thanks to the Vanderbilt family. Much smaller and poorer were Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, with its two affiliated fitting-schools and Randolph-Macon Woman's College; Emory College, in Atlanta (as the infusion of Candler family money was far in the future); Emory & Henry, in Southwest Virginia; Wofford, with its two fitting-schools, in South Carolina; Trinity, in North Carolina—soon to be endowed by the Duke family and change its name; Central, in Missouri; Southern, in Alabama; Southwestern, in Texas; Wesleyan, in Kentucky; Millsaps, in Mississippi; Centenary, in Louisiana; Hendrix, in Arkansas; and Pacific, in California.

The growing need for a theology school west of the Mississippi River was not addressed until the founding of Southern Methodist University in Texas in 1911. The denomination also supported several women's colleges, although they were more like finishing schools or academies until the twentieth century. At that time, they were developed to meet the standards of new accrediting agencies, such as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The oldest Methodist woman's college is Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia; other Methodist colleges that were formerly women's institutions are Lagrange College and Andrew College in Georgia, Columbia College in South Carolina, and Greensboro College in North Carolina.

In March 1900, the East Columbia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church-South purchased an existing school called Milton Academy, built by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Milton, Oregon. Renamed "Columbia College", it opened September 24, 1900 under Methodist leadership. Due to declining enrollment and lack of funds, the school was closed in 1925. First year enrollment was 131 pupils, under Dean W.C. Howard. The original wood building was replaced in 1910 by a four-story stone building. It has been adapted for use as the city hall of the combined cities of Milton-Freewater, Oregon.

Women
In the 1930s, the MEC and the Methodist Protestant Church, other Methodist denominations still operating in the South, agreed to ordain women either as local elders and deacons (the MEC) or full clergy (the Methodist Protestant Church). The MEC,S did not ordain women as pastors at the time of the 1939 merger that formed the Methodist Church.

Legacy
The MEC,S was responsible for founding four of the South's top divinity schools: Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Duke Divinity School, Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Vanderbilt severed its ties with the denomination in 1914. Duke, Candler, and Perkins maintain a relationship with the United Methodist Church. All four enroll students who are primarily from mainline Protestant denominations, but religion is not a test for admittance. The denomination's publishing house, opened in 1854 in Nashville, Tennessee, eventually became the headquarters of the United Methodist Publishing House. See Abingdon Press and Cokesbury.

title: Methodist Episcopal Church, South