Colored Episcopal Mission is an obsolete Anglican term used by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The term was coined in the 19th century. [1]
The Episcopal Church supported a separate African-American religious life during the 19th century and early 20th century. [2] Parishes established by Black communicants during this period of time were chartered as Colored Episcopal Missions. The duality of the Church encouraged a separate cultivation of Black religious life through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It encouraged the separate parishes while depriving African Americans a voice or representation in church governance. Parish status was awarded when the mission became financially independent from the diocese. It was common for these missions to have a long duration as a mission before reaching parish status.
The first established Colored Episcopal Mission is St. Thomas Episcopal in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was established in 1794.[ citation needed ]
Established in 2003, the Virginia Theological Seminary Archives and the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church jointly manage the African American Episcopal Historical Collection. The collection contains the personal papers, institutional records, oral histories and photographs of many historically black missions. [3]
The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Formally founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares, but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or more curates, and who operates from a parish church. Historically, a parish often covered the same geographical area as a manor. Its association with the parish church remains paramount.
A parish church in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, often allowing its premises to be used for non-religious community events. The church building reflects this status, and there is considerable variety in the size and style of parish churches. Many villages in Europe have churches that date back to the Middle Ages, but all periods of architecture are represented.
Wilberforce University is a private historically black university in Wilberforce, Ohio. Affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), it was the first college to be owned and operated by African Americans. Central State University, also in Wilberforce, Ohio, began as a department of Wilberforce University. The college was founded in 1856 to provide classical education and teacher training for black youth. It was named for the English statesman William Wilberforce, who achieved the end of the slave trade in the British Empire.
Richard Allen was a minister, educator, writer, and one of the United States' most active and influential black leaders. In 1794, he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a Methodist denomination based in the United States. It adheres to Wesleyan–Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. It cooperates with other Methodist bodies through the World Methodist Council and Wesleyan Holiness Connection.
Broad church is latitudinarian churchmanship in the Church of England in particular and Anglicanism in general, meaning that the church permits a broad range of opinion on various issues of Anglican doctrine.
Black churches primarily arose in the 19th century, during a time when race-based slavery and racial segregation were both commonly practiced in the United States. Blacks generally searched for an area where they could independently express their faith, find leadership, and escape from inferior treatment in White dominated churches. The Black Church is the faith and body of Christian denominations and congregations in the United States that predominantly minister to, and are also led by African Americans, as well as these churches' collective traditions and members. The term "black church" may also refer to individual congregations, including congregations in traditionally white-led denominations.
Religion of Black Americans refers to the religious and spiritual practices of African Americans. Historians generally agree that the religious life of Black Americans "forms the foundation of their community life". Before 1775 there was scattered evidence of organized religion among Black people in the Thirteen Colonies. The Methodist and Baptist churches became much more active in the 1780s. Their growth was quite rapid for the next 150 years, until their membership included the majority of Black Americans.
The Episcopal Church (TEC), also officially the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA), is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is Michael Bruce Curry, the first African American bishop to serve in that position. He will be succeeded by Sean Rowe in November 2024.
Robert Josias "Raphael" Morgan was a Jamaican-American who is believed to be the first Black Eastern Orthodox priest in the United States. After being active in other denominations, including the AME Church, Church of England, and the Episcopal Church, Morgan converted to Orthodoxy. He was ordained as an Orthodox priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. He was designated as "Missionary to America and the West Indies." He claimed to have founded the "Order of Golgotha", but the Orthodox Church is not organized into orders.
The civil rights movement (1865–1896) aimed to eliminate racial discrimination against African Americans, improve their educational and employment opportunities, and establish their electoral power, just after the abolition of slavery in the United States. The period from 1865 to 1895 saw a tremendous change in the fortunes of the Black community following the elimination of slavery in the South.
St. Benedict the Moor Church was a Black Catholic parish church in the Archdiocese of New York, located at 342 West 53rd Street, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan (Clinton), New York City. The property was sold to a developer in 2023.
Henry McNeal Turner was an American minister, politician, and the 12th elected and consecrated bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME). After the American Civil War, he worked to establish new A.M.E. congregations among African Americans in Georgia. Born free in South Carolina, Turner learned to read and write and became a Methodist preacher. He joined the AME Church in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1858, where he became a minister. Founded by free blacks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the early 19th century, the A.M.E. Church was the first independent black denomination in the United States. Later Turner had pastorates in Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, DC.
St. Augustine's Episcopal Church in Gary, Indiana, is a historically black congregation and building in the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana. The congregation was chartered in 1927, and the building, constructed in 1958, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 after being nominated for listing by parishioner Paula M. DeBois.
Robert Wellington Bagnall Jr. (1883–1943) was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1883. He was a minister for the St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in 1911 and continued various careers connected to church leadership. He is most known for his civil rights activism during the 1920s. He worked for the NAACP in several positions for over 20 years.
Saint Joseph Catholic Church is a predominantly Black Catholic church located at 711 N. Columbus St in historic Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. It was founded in 1916 to provide African-American parishioners of the local St. Mary's Roman Catholic Parish with their own church, freed from the customary restrictions that segregation imposed on them.
Meade Memorial Episcopal Church is a predominantly Black Episcopal Church in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Founded in 1870, the church today is supported by a congregation that includes descendants of the original founders of this parish. Meade Memorial belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, whose members continue to serve the community and the Episcopal Church by participating in regional and Diocesan activities.
Saint Andrew's Mission is a church in the West Ashley area of Charleston, South Carolina, that is affiliated with the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina and the Anglican Church in North America.