The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland forms part of Province 3 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 ...

. Having been divided twice, it no longer includes all of Maryland and now consists of the central, northern, and western

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

of Allegany,

Anne Arundel Anne Calvert, Baroness Baltimore (née Hon. Anne Arundell; c. 1615/1616G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, G ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, Calvert, Carroll,

Frederick Frederick may refer to: People * Frederick (given name), the name Nobility Anhalt-Harzgerode *Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Harzgerode (1613–1670) Austria * Frederick I, Duke of Austria (Babenberg), Duke of Austria from 1195 to 1198 * Frederick ...

, Garrett, Harford, Howard, and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, as well as the independent city of

History

The Diocese of Maryland is one of the nine original dioceses of the Episcopal Church and traces its roots to 1608 when

Captain John Smith John Smith (baptized 6 January 1580 – 21 June 1631) was an English soldier, explorer, colonial governor, Admiral of New England, and author. He played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first pe ...

oversaw the first Christian worship in the upper

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / ...

. In 1692, a law passed by the province's general assembly established 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 ...

and the colony, which was divided into ten counties, was divided into 30 parishes (See List of the original 30 Anglican parishes in the Province of Maryland). Sometimes the parish church was centrally located; other times multiple churches or chapels served distant population centers within the parish. In 1780, a meeting in Chestertown, Maryland, in Kent County at

Washington College Washington College is a private liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland. Maryland granted Washington College its charter in 1782. George Washington supported the founding of the college by consenting to have the "College at Chester" name ...

of Anglican

clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the ter ...

and laity led to the formation of the Diocese of Maryland. By 1783, at the end of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, the developing diocese had 47 parishes and about 38 clergy (See

List of post 1692 Anglican parishes in the Province of Maryland The Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church, became the State church, established church of the Province of Maryland through an Act of the General Assembly in 1692. Ten counties had been established in the colony at the time, and thos ...

). In 1789, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America was founded. The diocese's first bishop,

Thomas John Claggett Thomas John Claggett (October 2, 1743 – August 2, 1816) was the first bishop of the newly formed American Episcopal Church, U.S.A. (also known as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.) to be consecrated on American soil and the first ...

(1743-1816), was the first American bishop of the Episcopal Church consecrated in the country, in 1792 at Trinity Church facing historic Wall Street in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Among notable historical events in the diocese is the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

Episcopal congregations in the South, St. James' Church, at Lafayette Square, in west

. Another first among Maryland's bishops was the election of John Gardner Murray as Presiding Bishop. He was the first elected primate of the Episcopal Church; for his predecessors, the senior member of the

House of Bishops The House of Bishops is the third House in a General Synod of some Anglican churches and the second house in the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

, automatically assumed the position. The diocese has been divided twice. First in 1868, the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland became the Diocese of Easton, causing the Diocese of Maryland to no longer have all of Maryland. Then in 1895, the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

and adjacent (and increasingly suburban) Montgomery and Prince George's, along with southern Maryland's Charles and St. Mary's counties became the Diocese of Washington. On March 29, 2008, Eugene Taylor Sutton was elected as the 14th bishop of the diocese; the first African-American to serve in that capacity was consecrated June 28, 2008. In 2014,

Heather Cook Heather Elizabeth Cook (born September 21, 1956) is a deposed bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. She was a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of Maryland until her resignation from the position in 2015. In September 2015, she plea ...

was the first woman elected to become a bishop in the diocese and she was consecrated as suffragan to Sutton. However, she was placed on administrative leave at the end of 2014 after involvement in a traffic fatality in north Baltimore. Cook was charged with drunk driving, texting while driving, and leaving the scene of the crime, in addition to vehicular manslaughter. On January 22, 2015, the

standing committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

of the diocese requested that Cook resign her position. This was followed by the Presiding Bishop,

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 ...

, placing formal restrictions on Cook preventing her from presenting herself as an ordained minister of the Episcopal Church. On May 1, 2015, Jefferts Schori announced that both she and the Diocese of Maryland had accepted Cook's resignation as a bishop and as an employee of the diocese. Moreover, both parties reached an accord where Cook received a "Sentence of Disposition" which stripped Cook of her ordained status. The Diocese of Maryland currently has 117 congregations (12 are missions, 10 are parishes and the rest are separate congregations), and membership of more than 44,200. The bishop's seat is at the Cathedral of the Incarnation on University Parkway, between North Charles Street and St. Paul Street in north

, near the neighborhoods of

Roland Park Roland Park is a community located in Baltimore, Maryland. It was developed between 1890 and 1920 as an upper-class streetcar suburb. The early phases of the neighborhood were designed by Edward Bouton and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. History J ...

, Guilford and Charles Village.

Bishops

Cathedral of the Incarnation (Baltimore, Maryland) 05

*1.

(1792-1816) *2. James Kemp (1816-1827) *3.

William Murray Stone William Murray Stone, D.D. (June 1, 1779–February 26, 1838) was an American Episcopal clergyman from Maryland. He was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland at Baltimore from 1830 until his death. Early life William was born in Somer ...

(1830-1838) *4. William Rollinson Whittingham (1840-1879) *5. William Pinkney (1879-1883) *6.

William Paret William Paret (September 23, 1826 – January 18, 1911) was the 137th bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America and was a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Early life and education William Paret was born in New Y ...

(1885-1911) *7. John Gardner Murray (1911-1929) *8. Edward Trail Helfenstein (1929-1943) *9. Noble Cilley Powell (1943-1963) *10. Harry Lee Doll (1963-1971) *11. David Keller Leighton, Sr. (1972-1985) *12. A. Theodore Eastman (1986-1994) *13. Robert W. Ihloff (1995-2007) *14. Eugene Taylor Sutton (2008–present)

Notes

External links

* *
Journal of the Annual Convention, Diocese of Maryland
' {{DEFAULTSORT:Maryland

Diocese of Maryland Religious organizations established in 1780 Anglican dioceses established in the 18th century 1780 establishments in Maryland Province 3 of the Episcopal Church (United States)