​When Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the British Virgin Islands in 2017, it seems
that to many, the island of Virgin Gorda – home of St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church
- “got it the worst”. The hurricanes coupled with the crippling effects of the COVID
pandemic hurt the congregation’s attendance, stewardship, and outreach efforts in the
community. Its guilds and ministries either ceased to exist or they functioned at a
fraction of their former activity. With the call of the Reverend Ellis Clifton, Jr.
attendance and stewardship have improved, and the guilds of the parish – one guild in
particular - are beginning to function differently. “Focus is not solely directed at
fundraising and survival. It is more directed at thriving and the expansion of ministry.”

On October 2, 2022 – Saint Mary the Virgin’s Episcopal Church Women were
recommissioned as an active guild of the parish during their Sunday worship. New
officers were installed and a schedule of activities that included visitations of the parish’s
sick and shut-in’s and a health fair for the screening of high blood pressure and diabetes
was announced. The ladies of the ECW rededicated their lives to a renewed Christly
ministry as they took an active part in that day’s liturgy.

A highlight of the occasion was receiving congratulatory letters written by The Reverend
Jennifer Kenna, Province 2 Representative to the ECW’s National Board and The
Reverend Canon Ronald C. Byrd, Missioner for the Office of African Decent Ministries.
The Reverend Kenna offered the recommissioned fellowship a charge to grow and to
shape their ministries for the present and their future as she wrote, “On this first Sunday
in October, 2022, as the women of the parish recommit themselves to the diocese, the
parish and each other as a dedicated group of Episcopal Church Women, I believe that
God's Holy Spirit will be moving and leading you all forward in new and exciting ways.”
She continued, “St. Mary's ECW can take its lessons from the past as building blocks for
the future, seeking new and innovative ways to serve, while continuing to share their gifts and talents with this parish, and supporting each other as sisters in Christ.” Likewise, Canon Byrd, reminded the ladies of ECW’s purpose and of the important ministry they are called to offer, saying, “As you know, the stated purpose of the ECW is to unite the women of the church in a program of worship, study, service, and fellowship which will deepen their own spiritual lives and encourage them in grateful service in the parish, the community, the nation, and the world. I understand there is much ministry to offer in both, your parish, and your community.”

Trevor Bridgewater Jr, Sr. Warden of the parish, offered his reflections of this joyful
event saying, “St. Mary’s is not the same church we were before Irma and Maria hit. As
individual members of the congregation, the ladies of St. Mary’s have had an active part
in shaping the new direction of the parish to make us responsive to the new and present
needs of the community in these post-Irma and post COVID times. I am confident that
our ECW will work together with the Vestry and Fr. Clifton to make our unanimously
adopted vision plan for St. Mary’s a reality.”

This celebration of St. Mary’s women to the parish and community concluded on Sunday, October 16, 2022 with Ms Eloise Estridge, National Coordinator of the Child Evangelism Fellowship as guest preacher at the service.
​
From the Rev. Ellis Clifton, priest-in-charge of St. Mary's, Virgin Gorda, BVI, Diocese of the Virgin Islands

A toda la familia diocesana, a la amada ciudad de Matanzas y a todo el pueblo de Cuba!
En esta hora de dolor y angustia profunda, elevamos nuestra súplica a nuestro Buen Señor con las palabras del salmista: "Dios mío, ¡ven a librarnos! Señor, apresúrate a socorrernos". Salmo 70: 2
Desde las últimas horas del día de ayer, todos los cubanos, especialmente el pueblo de la ciudad de Matanzas, estamos viviendo una catástrofe sin precedentes. Mucho es ya el sufrimiento que día a día soporta nuestro pueblo, y por el que continuamente oramos al Señor por su auxilio y misericordia.
Con esta nueva situación, aumenta la angustia y el dolor de tantas familias, y especialmente de aquellos que han estado en primera línea y que han sufrido directamente el embate de este siniestro. Oramos por los heridos, cada uno en la situación particular que se encuentre; también por sus familiares y amigos que cuidan y esperan su recuperación. Oramos por las familias que viven más cerca de la zona industrial del desastre. Oramos por todo el personal de salud que los recibe en los hospitales. Oramos por los que tienen la alta responsabilidad de cuidar y proteger la vida de nuestro pueblo.
A todos los encomendamos a Cristo el Señor, que es nuestro Dios, y en el cual ponemos nuestra esperanza.
Pido y suplico a todos los miembros de la Iglesia episcopal en Cuba, y a todo cubano que cree, confía y espera en la misericordia del Señor, que aumentemos nuestra oración humilde y constante, porque solo del perdón y amor del Señor, brotará la salvación de nuestro pueblo.
Su pastora
+ María Griselda Delgado del Carpio
Obispa Diocesana

The bags are unpacked. The truly heroic weight of printed material is put away. (Okay, well, not all of it, yet. There was a lot of paper.) I am already having to think about the logistics for the next journey.

But before all that, I’m taking stock of how much my imagination has been challenged by the days just past.

• I couldn’t imagine being a bishop in a place where your communities are divided between different tribes, in a place where tribal identity is something people kill each other over. And I couldn’t imagine being the only person in that setting with the respect to collect the leaders of both of those tribes in my car, drive them to the local prison, and keep them there – so they would be safe from being killed – until they worked an agreement. But my for my brother Bishop Richard, who ministers in western South Sudan, that’s the mission of God.

• I couldn’t imagine being a bishop in a place where the language of my people would mean speaking of God with the word “Allah” – and being taken to court to deny my church the right to use the word. But for my brother Bishop Nelson of Eastern Malaysia, that’s the mission of God. (Ultimately the court in Malaysia ruled that Christians could indeed use the word – but tensions have not abated.)

• I could not imagine being a bishop in a diocese where the rate of suicides in the communities I serve is ten times higher than the national average – because of hopelessness, despair, and the inheritance oppression in indigenous communities. But for my brother Bishop Joey, who ministers in the Diocese of the Arctic in Canada, that is the mission of God.

• I could not imagine being a bishop in a place where young Muslim men are promised money if they impregnate Christian girls; but for my brother Bishop Vithalis, who cares for communities in the region of Tanzania nearest the Ugandan border, that is the mission of God.

• I couldn’t imagine being a bishop in a place where, after more than a century of service to the local community in running schools and a health clinic, a Hindu nationalist government would openly discuss taking the schools by force, refuse permission to train new teachers, or threaten to pave a road through the middle of the compound. But for my sister Bishop Pushpa, the first woman to be made a bishop in the Church of South India, that is the mission of God.

• And I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a bishop so trapped in the assumptions and expectations of the surrounding culture and its economic structures that other bishops would think tragic an inability to understand or effectively act against the damage wrought by that culture to God’s creation, and the climate that is its breath. But I learned that for so many bishops outside the West, that is exactly how they first see me.

Depending on the window you look through, the Lambeth meeting offered glimpses of outrageous hope, times of profound disagreement, moments of profound humility, and a heightened awareness – for all present – of the immense breadth and variety of the cultures, peoples, and hopes bound up in this idea called the “Anglican Communion. ” 

It was also a salutary reminder, at least for me, that when we fall into the temptation of simply wanting to jettison any further relationship with people who differ from us – when we question the value of this whole enterprise at all – all we are really doing is enacting the larger cultural narrative around us, the one that gives us nationalism, insularity, suspicion, and hatred. And that can only diminish all of us.

That tendency to fall out of community is a story as old as the scriptures and as contemporary as the newspaper. There is nothing new, and certainly nothing original, about tearing apart what is trying to stay together. Critiquing other people’s decisions is easy. Understanding the context in which those decisions get made is not. Said differently, falling out of relationship is the easy thing to do – especially when it seems without apparent cost. 

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a cost, though.

One of the most interesting and instructive conversations I had during the whole week was with another Canadian bishop who ministers in another far-northern part of the world. He explained to me why the indigenous people in his diocese simply were not ready to take aboard wholesale the Western, progressive, inclusive agenda.

“A long time ago, these communities fully understood the presence of two-spirited people amonng them,” he taught me. “Then the church came along and told them that they were wrong. We broke up their families and ran the residential schools that their kids were sent to.

“So now when we come with this new message, it isn’t that my communities oppose or don’t understand the message. It’s that they are tired of being whipsawed by the church. They will get there, or somewhere, on their own terms, rediscovering their own teachings, and reinterpreting ours.”

This same colleague offered a wonderfully corrective view of the whole communion, at least the one seen through North American eyes. After all, we think of religion as a kind of free marketplace of ideas; if you don’t like what’s on offer in the place where you started, you can just choose to move on to another church down the street that might be more to your liking.

We think the world of choice is – at least ideally – unlimited . Indeed, one of the unspoken premises of Western culture is that the more choices you have, the better off you are.

“That isn’t how the world looks from an indigenous village in the north,” my new colleague taught me. “ If you leave – just where do you think you’re gonna go? Between you and the next church is four hundred miles, and bears. So where do you think you’re going?”

If that’s the world you live in, the discipline you bring to staying in community is a great deal more developed. But – here is the real wisdom in what my friend taught me - the world you and I live in may be a lot more like the world his indigenous communities see than we know. Really, if we walk away from this Communion – just where do we think we're gonna go? To a place of people who all think like me? Where’s the growth, the challenge, the reminder of humility, in that?

I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to attend another Lambeth. I’m not even sure there will be another one; the centrifugal forces on the Communion are powerfully strong just now , and don’t really have a lot to do with the presenting issues of sexuality. There is something else happening, something about power, and a sense of exhaustion (or resentment) at being condescended to for so long, and an open questioning of the value of multiculturalism, not least (perhaps especially) within the church.

But I certainly have been changed, in good ways, by this experience. My imagination has been stretched far more than I thought it could be. From here on out, I think I'll pack less – so that I can carry some of that with me.

See you in church,

You'll note the question mark in the title of this missive. The idea of Europe—just what it is, and what it is not—is one of history’s great debates. You would think, as the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, we would have a crisp, clean idea of just what that means; but like so many other things in our church, when it comes down to cases, the answer sometimes is—it depends.

I have just made my first visit to the easternmost outpost of the Convocation, the mission church of Saint Nino in Tbilisi, Georgia. (More about Saint Nino later.) The Republic of Georgia is a small land with an immense and complex history, stretching back thousands of years; archeologists have identfied evidence of viniculture stretching back as far as six millennia before Christ. What is now Georgia was once three kingdoms all part of Byzantine Empire, the eastern part of the Roman Empire; but that fractious fact made the country easy prey for expansionist Muslim forces as early as the seventh century C.E.

Once part of the Soviet Union, Georgia's recent history has in some ways been a preview of what is now happening in Ukraine. Putin's Russia fomented separatist movements in two regions of the country, Abkhazia and South Ossetia; this led to war in 2008 and subsequent occupation by Russia of the two regions. (It now appears that was merely a rehearsal for the drama we see unfolding today to the north across the Black Sea.)

For the fourteen years since, twenty percent of Georgia has been effectively occupied by Russia—an outrage largely forgotten in the West. Needless to say, in Tbilisi there is prominent evidence of sympathy for the Ukrainian cause.
Since the re-establishment of Georgia’s independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union (a process that was, unhappily, marked by civil strife), the Church has had a concordat with the state under which its unique place in the nation’s history is acknowledged. The Georgian Orthodox Church is not an established church, in the strict sense; but it is given tremendous influence over religious affairs in the country, and considerable indirect support from the government.
​

One of the ways that support is expressed is in the burdens placed on minority religions in organizing themselves. Our mission church has encountered tremendous challenges simply in obtaining the status of formal registration—and we have been advised that, once secured, something like 20 percent of all the funds held in the bank by the mission will be demanded by the government each year. It’s not hard to imagine that at least part of these funds might be diverted to help support what must be the enormous running costs of the Patriarchate’s gargantuan cathedral in Tbilisi , begun in 1995 and consecrated in 2004—and built, at least in part, over what had been an Armenian Orthodox cemetery attached to a church of that tradition destroyed during the Soviet era. Of such things deep enmity is made.

The mission congregation is led by Thoma Lipartiani, a man in his early twenties with deep natural gifts for both the study of comparative religion and—more importantly—gathering into faithful community the marginalized, scorned, and disillusioned. He lives in a small apartment that during lockdowns became a house church; while I was there, he divided the community in half and hosted two separate receptions in his flat so that I could meet everyone (English-speakers the first night, Georgian-speakers the second evening).

As i met them and listened to their stories, I gained a deeper sense of what has attracted people from a culture very unlike our own to a church so shaped by Anglo and American ideas. True, the fact that the Episcopal Church has affirmed a full place in the life and ministry of the church for LGBTQ+ people has attracted many to this community; but that by itself cannot be the organizing principle for a community of faith.

Instead, what became clear to me is that this community of people responds deeply to the contrast between two different ideas of what should constitute the fundamental guideline of a Christian community—right belief (ortho doxy ) or right practice (ortho praxis ).
 
The central idea of the “Way of Love” —and the discipline of walking along it (which is, itself, a matter of practice-led faith)—resonates far more deeply with a community of people who find themselves excluded by the stark lines drawn by teachings of right belief that stand above question or examination.

Interestingly, perhaps, as I’ve been writing this reflection I’ve also been reading a recent blog post by Professor Scott MacDougall , theologian to the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church, who has offered to those headed to General Convention this helpful yardstick for evaluating the various resolutions that will be taken up for consideration there: “...ask how each piece of legislation, if enacted, would either enhance or inhibit the ability of the Episcopal Church, in its wholeness or in its parts, to be the body of Christ in and for the world that church is called to be.”

That emphasis on what we are supposed to be—and not quite so much on what we are expected to believe—is expressive of a focus on orthopraxis.

Of course a church guided by orthopraxis must always—at least if it is wise—live comfortably together with the discipline of humility. It must always be holding up its practice against a set of core teachings, lest it simply become the instrument of the most popular, or seemingly most “effective,” messages.

For those of us who live in this church in places where it is part of the dominant culture that discipline can be hard to remember, let alone exercise. But for our congregation in Tbilisi, that discipline comes almost as second nature.

On Sunday, we were—much to my astonishment—welcomed into the Roman Catholic co-cathedral of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin, where I had the privilege of confirming two members of the church and receiving fourteen—not fewer than three of whom are named “Nino.” Don’t be misled by that last vowel—Georgian isn’t a Latin language, and Nino was a woman, the “Equal of the Apostles and Enlightener of Georgia.” A fourth-century nun from Armenia, she played a pivotal role in spreading the Christian message among the rulers of Georgia. Many women in Georgia are still named for her.

Even more astonishing to me was the presence of our host, Bishop Giuseppe Pasotto the Roman Catholic bishop of Tbilisi, for the entire service. He warmly greeted us after the service, and even steered me toward the portrait of Saint Nino in the back of his cathedral as the place for our picture.

When I sat in Thoma’s little apartment and asked those gathered what had drawn them into the community, I didn’t hear anyone speak of LGTBQ+ issues, or the way in which our church understands the authority of scripture, or the significance of the creeds, or the number of sacraments. Instead, I heard again and again stories of what they had observed about how people in this community cared for each other, looked after each other, prayed with and for each other—how they loved each other. They had found in this gathering of believers a narrowing of the gap between proclamation and practice, and that made them want to learn more.

I’m keeping that in mind as I travel from our small community in Tblisi to the extravaganza of General Convention. I have already tired of the endless complaints about what this gathering is not, or how it isn’t what it has been before—an attitude that seems almost tragically disinterested in what it might be. But I hope that notion of a Christian community marked by how its members treat each other—and the reality that it, more than anything else, builds churches—might be at least as much on display there as it is, thanks be to God, in Saint Nino’s. 

See you in church,

​¡Pentecostés! fiesta de gozo por la Celebración de nuestra 112 Convención.
El lema de la 112 Convencion de Cuba: 

"JUNTOS EN UN MISMO ESPIRITU, OH DIOS, PROCLAMAMOS TU EVANGELIO
Y AVIZORAMOS NUEVAS TAREAS EN LA MISION".     

 Las reuniones se realizaron el sábado 4, contando entre los miembros clericales y delegados laicos con una asistencia de 78 hermanos y hermanas representando a la familia diocesana.  Es la primera reunión en mas de dos años. Hermosa oportunidad de un cálido encuentro entre todos. Como dijo la Obispa Diocesana en su Alocución, “viene a ser un re encuentro, una renovacion, una reafirmación de ser Uno en el Espíritu”. De esa manera todos han trabajado con gozo y satisfacción durante la jornada, sostenidos por el soplo del Espíritu.

El domingo 5 de junio, en la fiesta del Espíritu Santo, y en el  marco de la clausura de su 112 Convención diocesana, la Iglesia Episcopal en Cuba se vio fortalecida en su tarea misionera.  Esta es la buena noticia: contamos ya con cinco nuevos Sacerdotes para la Iglesia de Jesucristo.

  La Santa Eucaristía estuvo presidida por la Rvdma. María Griselda Delgado del Carpio, Obispa diocesana, quien, por la Oración de Consagración e Imposición de manos, signos indelebles de su ministerio episcopal, confirió la Sagrada Orden del presbiterado, a los Revdos Noel Rodríguez, Rodhin Alonso, Yordanis Acosta y Yannel Valdivia. Junto a ella, todos los presbíteros presentes, situados a su derecha y a su izquierda, impusieron sus manos en el rito de ordenación sobre los nuevos presbíteros.

   También, fue recibido como presbítero en la comunión de nuestra Iglesia, Adreano Fuentes.

   La predicación estuvo a cargo del Revdo. Gilberto Caballero Elizalde, quien exhortó a experimentar los misterios insondables de Dios a través de la fuerza y acción del Espíritu Santo. Al tiempo que enfatizó que las actitudes a seguir para los nuevos presbíteros, están claramente definidas en las actitudes del Señor Jesús, narradas en los santos Evangelios.

   De igual manera, fue esta la ocasión en la que todos juntos, la Diácona  y los Presbíteros reafirmaron sus Votos de Ordenación ante la Diocesana.

El gozo y la solemnidad que definió tan entrañable celebración de fe, estuvo animada por la música sublime  del grupo musical BLEND, miembros todos de la Iglesia episcopal de La Trinidad en Los Arabos.

¡Cuántos regalos de Dios! ¡Cuánto amor de Dios por sus hijas e hijos que vivimos nuestra fe en esta amada tradición episcopal!
A EL sea todo honor y gloria, por los siglos de los siglos ¡AMEN!

The Diocese of the Virgin Islands has elected a Bishop Provisional.  During the First Special Meeting of the 65 th Diocesan Convention, held virtually on Saturday, March 5th, clergy and lay delegates overwhelmingly elected The Rt. Rev. Scott Benhase to the position. The former Bishop of the Diocese of Georgia has agreed to serve for six months initially with a provision for extension.  He  is expected to begin his first official visit on April 6th ,  accompanied by his wife, Kelly Jones Benhase, and will spend two weeks out of every month in the diocese while being available virtually the remainder of the time.  Bp. Benhase has pledged to make every effort to visit all fourteen of the congregations in the diocese, which are spread over five islands in two different countries.

The Diocese of the Virgin Islands has been without a Bishop since May 2021 when The Rt. Rev. E. Ambrose Gumbs retired as Bishop Diocesan. 

Your prayers are requested for the Diocese and its newly-elected Bishop Provisional.

Bishop Benhase contributes to the blog Faith & Leadership >
His biography is available from that impeccable source, Wikipedia >

More information about the work of To Love a Child can be found in this news article >

On Saturday, the Rev. Roland Cooper and Good Shepherd, Irving, hosted 30 people from across the partnership dioceses, including Bishop Sean, for worship and to visit the grounds of the former Thomas Indian School. 

The school tour was led by Faith Stewart, senior warden at Good Shepherd and a local school teacher. The group also visited the mission cemetery across from the school and attended the Seneca Nation Fall Festival.

"I was moved by the stories that Fr. Roland told," Archdeacon Diana Leiker of St. James, Batavia, said. "He spoke the truth about what happened at the Thomas Indian School as it was relayed to him by the many talks he had with his grandmother, and also by what he has experienced as a Native American. His gentleness and love reflects a life led as a follower of Jesus."

The Rev. Matt Lincoln, rector of Trinity, Buffalo and chair of the Commission to Dismantle Racism and Discrimination, was encouraged to find that some of the property is now used by the tribal government for the benefit of the Seneca people. "I found it very moving to learn about the history of the Seneca Nation, especially the people of Good Shepherd Church, Fr. Cooper and his grandmother," he said.
"Since our diocesan programs on social justice matters, I've become so much more aware of the privileges I've enjoyed during my lifetime that were denied to others," the Rev. Claudia Scheda, rector of St. David's, West Seneca, said. "It was truly eye-opening to hear the stories of a group of people who lost their language, culture, and families at the hands of white oppressors. I'd known about Indian schools for a long time, but had been unaware that one was right in my backyard." 

Last winter, nearly 40 people from across the partnership dioceses gathered online for a four-week study of " The Thomas Indian School and the 'Irredeemable' Children of New York , " which tells the story of the school and the experiences of Indigenous children there, including many from the Seneca Nation in Western New York. Established by Presbyterian missionaries and later operated by the State of New York, the school housed 2,470 children, many of whom were forcibly removed from their families, from 1855-1957.

Images: the Rev. Roland Cooper speaks to visitors; visitors tour the grounds of the former Thomas Indian School.

By Canon Barbie O. Bach, Diocese of NJ

“Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt: you shall raise up the foundations of many generations: you shall be called the repairer of the breach” – Isaiah 58:12.

Approximately 30 members of the Diocese of New Jersey supported the Reparations movement on Juneteenth at a march and rally at Newark City Hall, urging the state senate and legislative assembly to vote on proposed bills to establish a task force to study reparations necessary for the lasting effects of slavery.  Two priests of the Diocese of New Jersey held a banner at the rally, and Bishop Chip Stokes spoke among the opening leaders: “After more than 400 years of brutal history and oppression it is time for us as a state and a nation to face the enduring deep and living scars of slavery and take meaningful steps toward reparative justice.”  In the fall, the diocese’s busy Reparations Task Force will host a second informative webinar and a service at Trinity Cathedral for the entire diocese to confess woeful sins of injustice and reveal hidden hurtful truths of the past.