The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego is the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, 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 Roman province, pro ...

of the

Episcopal Church in the United States of America 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 provinces. The presiding bishop o ...

with jurisdiction over

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...

Imperial County Imperial Count (german: Reichsgraf) was a title in the Holy Roman Empire. In the medieval era, it was used exclusively to designate the holder of an imperial county, that is, a fief held directly ( immediately) from the emperor, rather than from ...

and part of

Riverside County Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the Unit ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

plus all of Yuma County in

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. It is in Province 8 and encompasses some 50 congregations. It was created in 1973 by splitting off from the

Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles is a community of 48,874 Episcopalians in 147 congregations, 40 schools, and 18 major institutions, spanning all of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties, and part of Rive ...

. Its

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

St. Paul's Cathedral St Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in London and is the seat of the Bishop of London. The cathedral serves as the mother church of the Diocese of London. It is on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Gr ...

, is in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

. The diocesan offices are located in Ocean Beach at 2083 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., San Diego, CA 92107.

List of bishops

The bishops of San Diego have been: # Robert M. Wolterstorff, (elected December 7, 1973, consecrated March 30, 1974, retired 1982) # C. Brinkley Morton, (1982–1992) # Gethin Benwil Hughes, (1992–2005) # James Robert Mathes, (2005–2017) #

Katharine Jefferts Schori Katharine Jefferts Schori (born March 26, 1954) is the former Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church of the United States. Previously elected as the 9th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada, she was the first woman elected ...

(Assisting), (2017-2019) # Susan Brown Snook (2019–present)

History

The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego was founded in 1974, over 100 years after the first Episcopal service took place in the region. The area which makes up the Diocese stretches from Sun City to the Mexican border, from the Pacific Ocean to Yuma, Arizona. Until 1975, it was part of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. After Episcopal bishop William Ingraham Kip, a New Englander, was shipwrecked with his wife off the coast of Point Loma, he celebrated his first Eucharist in California at the courthouse in Old Town on Sunday, January 22, 1854. A separate diocese was formed from the Diocese of Los Angeles and Robert Wolterstorff, formerly rector of St. James by-the-Sea in La Jolla, was consecrated as the first bishop of the Diocese of San Diego in 1974, ending his tenure in 1982. When formed the diocese then had 37 congregations and nearly 20,000 members. In 1985 St. Paul's was named a cathedral. In 1983,

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

and her husband

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from El ...

visited St. Paul's. The Episcopal Diocese of San Diego today consists of 46 churches and over 20,000 members across San Diego County, Imperial County, southern Riverside County and Yuma County, Arizona. The San Diego diocese is a part of the greater Episcopal Church which has 110 dioceses in 16 nations and is a member province of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Departures of Members

Since 2003 nine churches experienced the departure of large numbers of their congregation over growing discontent with the theological liberalism of the Episcopal Church. Women's ordination and the ordination of openly gay, partnered bishops have been the lightning rod issues that encouraged these members to leave. Some dissident groups attempted to retain control of their church buildings and property, but in 2008, the California Court of Appeal ruled for the Diocese and upheld the authority of Mathes to dismiss parish vestry members and clergy who sought to take a parish out of The Episcopal Church.

Same-Sex Marriages

The Episcopal Church provides "wide pastoral latitude" to individual bishops on the subject of blessing same sex couples. In 2010, Mathes approved a policy by which individual parishes could, after a self study period, choose to recognize

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

couples in a blessing service.

References

External links

Episcopal Diocese of San Diego websiteOfficial Web site of the Episcopal Church
{{DEFAULTSORT:San Diego