An Episcopalian seminary outside Chicago has stopped accepting new students and has told its professors that their appointments will be terminated next year, according to the Episcopal News Service.

Officials at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, located in Evanston, Ill., said the institution was not closing, but would instead focus on distance learning and other nontraditional approaches in an attempt to keep its doors open. The move was prompted by what the seminary’s trustees called a “financial crisis that threatens the survival of the institution.”

Seabury-Western isn’t the only Episcopalian seminary in trouble. Beset by rising costs and falling enrollment, three others have also cut back their services. —Thomas Bartlett