Birthday

After 21 years in the process, the merger between the 1,400,000-member Congregational Christian Churches and the 814,000-member Evangelical and Reformed Church hurdled its last barriers last week.

The 1,500-odd delegates to the Congregationalist General Council, meeting in Philadelphia's Bellevue Stratford, heard that a U.S. district court decision had "finally and conclusively established the legality and validity of the union."

Meeting in another part of the same hotel, Evangelical and Reformed delegates, like their Congregationalist brethren, rushed through last-minute resolutions to clear the decks for both groups to meet jointly this week as the new United Church of Christ.

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