The Church in the Province of the West Indies is one of 40 member

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

s in the worldwide

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...

. The church comprises eight

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

s spread out over much of the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

area. The present position of Archbishop and

Primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter including ...

of the West Indies is held by the current bishop of Jamaica, Howard Gregory. Gregory was elected as the thirteenth Archbishop of the Province by clergy and laity attending the 40th Synod of the CPWI at the Cascadia Hotel, in Port of Spain, Trinidad in May 2019. The position was previously held by John Holder who retired in 2018.

Drexel Gomez Drexel Wellington Gomez (born 24 January 1937) is a Bahamian Anglican bishop. Life and ministry Gomez was born on the Berry Islands in the Bahamas. He graduated from St Chad's College, Durham University, in 1959. He was enthroned and consecr ...

was the primate before Bishop Holder until 2009. The church is also part of the Global South.

History

The West Indies became a self-governing

in 1883 because of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

missions in territories that became British colonies. It is made up of two mainland dioceses and six island dioceses, including

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate) ...

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...

, Guyana,

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

, the North-Eastern Caribbean and Aruba,

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

, and the

Windward Islands french: Îles du Vent , image_name = , image_caption = ''Political'' Windward Islands. Clockwise: Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. , image_alt = , locator_map = , location = Caribbean Sea No ...

. Great emphasis is being placed on training personnel for an indigenous ministry. The island locations and scattered settlements make pastoral care difficult and costly.

Mission organisations

The Jamaica Church Missionary Society is the recognised missionary agency of the

Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands The Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands is a diocese of the Church in the Province of the West Indies. It was originally formed as the Diocese of Jamaica, within the Church of England, in 1824. At that time the diocese included the ...

in the Province of the West Indies. The society focuses on evangelisation with special relevance to daily human needs. The society was established in 1861 as a subsidiary of the church, intended to target those sections of Jamaica's "hard to reach" population. For many years the mission stations established and maintained by the society provided the only means of reaching the masses of the population with Christianity and basic education.

Theological college

The

Codrington College Codrington College is an Anglican theological college in St. John, Barbados now affiliated with the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill. It is one of the oldest Anglican theological colleges in the Americas. It was affiliated to the Un ...

, an Anglican preparatory in

Saint John, Barbados The parish of Saint John (St. John) is a parish of Barbados on the eastern side of the island. It is home to one of its secondary schools, The Lodge School. It is home to the St. John's Parish Church, which has a scenic view of the Atlantic Ocea ...

, opened in 1745.

Dioceses

Diocese of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands The Anglican Diocese of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands was originally established in 1861 as the Diocese of Nassau. Retitled the Diocese of Nassau and The Bahamas in 1942, it is now known as the Diocese of The Bahamas and the Turks an ...

* Guyana * Jamaica and the Cayman Islands * Diocese of the North East Caribbean and Aruba *

References

External links

Anglican Communion provincial websiteChurch of England history in the West IndiesAnglicanism in the West Indies and Caribbean
from Project Canterbury
Anglican Diocese of Belize Web siteAbout St. Kitts Anglican Church
— part of the Diocese of North East Caribbean and Aruba 01