The Diocese of the Southeast is a

Reformed Episcopal Church The Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) is an Anglican church of evangelical Episcopalian heritage. It was founded in 1873 in New York City by George David Cummins, a former bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The REC is a founding member of ...

diocese and as such an

Anglican Church in North America The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition in the United States and Canada. It also includes ten congregations in Mexico, two mission churches in Guatemala, and a missionary diocese in Cuba ...

founding diocese. The diocese comprises 32 parishes, 30 in

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

and 2 in

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Its headquarters are located in

Summerville, South Carolina Summerville is a town in the U.S. state of South Carolina situated mostly in Dorchester County, with small portions in Berkeley and Charleston counties. It is part of the Charleston-North Charleston-Summerville Metropolitan Statistical Area. Su ...

. The current bishop ordinary is Willie J. Hill Jr., who was installed in September 2022.

History

The Diocese of the Southeast, previously the Missionary Jurisdiction of the South, origin goes back to 1865, on the aftermath of the Civil War, with the work of Peter Fayssoux Stevens, a former Confederate colonel, a member of the

Protestant Episcopal Church The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine Ecclesiastical provinces and dioces ...

. He reunited former parishioners and many black freedmen and started working for the establishment of a new church for the coloured people, that would be Immanuel Church, in

Berkeley County, South Carolina Berkeley County is a county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 229,861. Its county seat is Moncks Corner. After two previous incarnations of Berkeley County, the current county was created in 1882. Be ...

. Four years later, he already had organized three large congregations of freedmen. In December 1874, in a convention held in Pinopolis, with members of four parishes, after the rejection of four black men from the ministry by the Protestant Episcopal Church, it was decided to leave the Diocese of South Carolina and to seek membership with the newly created

. In the same convention, Frank Crawford Ferguson was elected President and wrote to the Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, George Cummins. In June 1875, he received a letter by Benjamin Johnson, explaining that he had been sent by the General Council of the REC to receive all the black people willing to join the denomination.The Diocese of the Southeast of the Reformed Episcopal Church: A Brief History
/ref> The new body would be the Missionary Jurisdiction of the South, named Diocese of the Southeast when the division into dioceses was adopted in 1984. The diocese was a founding jurisdiction of the

, as part of the

, in 2009. The Diocese of the Southeast is the home of the Cummins Theological Seminary, in Summerville, South Carolina.

List of bishops ordinary

Bishops prior to 1984 were bishops of the Missionary Jurisdiction of the South; bishops from 1984 to the present were bishops of the Diocese of the Southeast. # Peter Fayssoux Stevens (1879–1909) # Arthur L. Pengelley (1909–1922) # Joseph E. Kearney (1922–1958) # William H. S. Jerdan Jr. (1958–1986) # Sanco K. Rembert (1986–1998) # James C. West (1998–2006) # Alphonza Gadsden Sr (2007–2019) # William J. White (2020–2022) # Willie J. Hill Jr. (2022–present)

References

External links

Diocese of the Southeast Official Website
Dioceses of the Anglican Church in North America Religion in the Southern United States Dioceses of the Reformed Episcopal Church {{anglican-diocese-stub