The Editor of The Christian Science Monitor, Mark Sappenfield, will be stepping back from his role as Editor, having decided to extend his stay in Berlin, Germany, where he and his family have been living since August 2023. He will continue to work for the Monitor in a senior role.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Christa Case Bryant as the next Editor of The Christian Science Monitor. Christa brings twenty years of experience as an international bureau chief, political reporter, and editor to her new post and, most important, a deep understanding of the Monitor’s mission. Christa will take the reins from Mark in the early part of next year. 

We are very grateful for Mark’s editorial direction of the Monitor over the past eight years and his continuing commitment to the Monitor’s work. Mark has reported from the Pentagon to Afghanistan, covering seven Olympic Games and multiple NASA missions. As Editor, he has helped to develop and produce the Monitor’s “values projects,” including the Respect Project, Finding Resilience, and Rebuilding Trust. He has worked assiduously in pursuit of a deeper journalism that has been the Monitor’s hallmark, and to support and develop staff at all stages of their careers.    

Christa’s love of the Monitor and its high standards for journalism is grounded in a broad portfolio of assignments from helping to guide the CSMonitor.com website during the Monitor’s transition to a web-first publication to Jerusalem bureau chief to senior congressional correspondent. While covering Congress, Christa won two major awards for political journalism: the National Press Foundation’s Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress in 2022 and the 2023 Sigma Delta Chi award for Washington Correspondence. She is also an alumna of the Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard University. Christa will be the 17th Editor of The Christian Science Monitor.  

We are extremely grateful to Mark and Christa for their dedication to Christian Science and for their many years of service to the Monitor. We thank Mark for his work as Editor, and we will welcome Christa in the coming months as the new Editor. 

The Christian Science Board of Directors