St. Pierre's Episcopal Church Gautier, MS

[Episcopal News Service] Calvary Episcopal Church in Charleston, the oldest historically Black parish in the Diocese of South Carolina, on Oct. 10 will unveil and dedicate an icon altarpiece signifying the church’s ongoing work of racial reconciliation, restorative justice and inclusion in a city that once was central to the transatlantic slave trade. The large icon, designed and created by British Jamaican artist Graeme Mortimer Evelyn, will permanently hang with two of the church’s original stained-glass windows indenting into the top center. Looking up, Jesus stands with his arms raised as stripes of different colors fan out like a sunrise from the middle of his body. “Jesus is making sure that all are welcome, which is symbolized by the various colors, and it shows the availability of everybody to be in communion with hospitality and welcoming,” the Rev. Ricardo Bailey, Calvary’s rector, told Episcopal News Service. “And in the theology of the church, everything leads to the altar. So, by this icon being an altarpiece, it … represents the fact that we sacramentally meet Jesus in the celebration of the Eucharist at the altar, and then we’re also sent forth by the altar to be a blessing.” More than 160 people are expected to attend the worship service dedicating the icon. The service will include readings from Revelation 7:2-4 and 9-14, 1 John 3:1-3 and Matthew 5:1-12a. South Carolina Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley will preside. “To me, this icon signifies both the resurrection of our Lord and the resurrection, the rising of a people who follow Jesus amid such hardship and are not turned around,” Woodliff-Stanley told ENS. “Instead, they are pushing forward and they are moving outward.” Discussions on creating the icon for Calvary began in 2023, when Evelyn gave a presentation on iconography at South Carolina’s diocesan convention. Grace Wingfield, a Calvary parishioner, left the presentation inspired to start a project for her parish. Wingfield served as project coordinator throughout the multi-year process. Reflecting Calvary’s congregation, the icon’s development process symbolically incorporated elements of oral history, which is a crucial pillar of preserving Black history. Parishioners were invited to participate in painting the icon, making it a community project instead of the artist’s sole work. View this post on Instagram It was “a lot of thorough work,” according to Bailey. “As a community working with the parish, the diocese and the local artistic community, we decided to do some research – oral histories and deep dives into the parish’s historical records. From there, we were able to supply the narrative, and the whole idea of this icon came to fruition,” Bailey said. “The end result is expressing the Christian narrative of salvation.” The Calvary icon is the second of Evelyn’s planned series of icons housed in key geographic places in the transatlantic slave trade, which lasted from the early 16th to the late 19th centuries. The first icon was installed in 2011 at St. Stephen’s Church in Bristol, England. The other icons are planned to be installed in Ghana and Barbados. Calvary was chosen as the second site because Charleston, founded as a “slave society,” was the largest slave-trading and auction city in the United States, and it had the highest number of enslaved people in the country. Gadsen’s Wharf was the largest single point of entry for enslaved Africans. Calvary was founded in 1847 as a church for many of those enslaved people, as well as for freed people. “This [icon] image is of moving out into the world with this force of love and resilience and courage and joy and not naively moving out in the face of really unjust systems to nevertheless bring the love of the resurrected Christ into the world,” Woodliff-Stanley said. “That’s a very personal message for the people of Calvary because they … have raised up generations in strength. You can really see it today. Calvary is thriving now, and it has a great future.” Woodliff-Stanley and Bailey work closely with the rectors of Charleston’s two other historically Black Episcopal churches, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. As a coalition called the Three Churches United, Calvary, St. Mark’s and St. Stephen’s have hosted and participated in several events as part of the diocese’s commitment to racial reconciliation and justice work through its Diocesan Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission. Part of those efforts include regularly hosting “learning day” events to teach the history of the Diocese of South Carolina. “Sharing with our local community, the whole church and the world our story helps ensure that the stories of The Episcopal Church and Calvary are not erased,” Bailey said. “So much has happened here, and we look forward to seeing what God will do in the near and far future.” –Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

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[World Council of Churches] A new publication from the World Council of Churches Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation brings together the voices and theological reflections of young ecumenists from around the world who attended the 2025 WCC Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI). It brings fresh inputs to the pressing question for the churches today: Where now for visible unity? “GETI 2025: Voices and Visions of Transformative Unity,” edited by Ani Ghazaryan Drissi and the Rev. Teddy Chalwe Sakupapa, was published Oct. 8 during the Ecumenical Education and Formation Commission’s biannual meeting. “The fruits of ecumenical dialogue must take root in the lives of our churches,” Ghazaryan said. “The GETI 2025 message brought this bold challenge to the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order and the wider ecumenical movement: let the unity we confess become the life we share.” Read the full article here.

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[Episcopal News Service] A central component of the liturgy for baptisms in The Episcopal Church is the Book of Common Prayer’s Baptismal Covenant, in which congregations make five theological promises to act in Christian ways “with God’s help.” Some congregations are adding a sixth promise to the Baptismal Covenant, acknowledging their responsibility to care for God’s earthly creation. “The church is moving more and more toward allowing experimentation in many areas, including this one,” Terry DeLisio, a lay leader in the Diocese of Chicago, told Episcopal News Service. She is helping to coordinate the northern Illinois diocese’s implementation of an expanded Baptismal Covenant in congregations that wish to try it. This experimentation is not unique to Chicago. The Episcopal Church’s General Convention for more than a decade has considered incorporation of the language of creation care into the Baptismal Covenant. In 2024, bishops and deputies passed a resolution directing church leaders “to develop additional language for the Baptismal Covenant that expresses our baptismal responsibility to care for creation,” and it invited congregations to experiment, with the bishop’s permission. Dioceses from California to Connecticut have taken up that mission, and the Diocese of Chicago announced recently that Bishop Paula Clark has granted all of the diocese’s congregations permission to begin adding a sixth baptismal promise starting next month on All Saints’ Day. Congregations were offered two texts to choose from and were asked to report back to DeLisio or the bishop’s office after testing the new language. The following are the additional questions offered as options for use in the Diocese of Chicago: “Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth?” “Will you cherish the wondrous works of God, and protect [or protect and restore] the beauty and integrity of all creation?” DeLisio, a retired Bexley Seabury dean and liturgy professor, said the diocese’s approach to this liturgical experimentation is partly modeled after the Diocese of Vermont, where congregations likewise were empowered to try out the additional language without needing further approval from the bishop. Vermont congregations also can develop their own alternative language and submit it for diocesan approval. Under the Baptismal Covenant’s existing language, the five promises are affirmed by the congregation in response to the celebrant’s prompts. The first two commit members to following Christian teachings and practices, resisting evil and staying faithful to God. The third calls for proclaiming the Christian faith in the world, and the final two promises relate to Christian interactions with other people. The addition of a sixth promise aligns with The Episcopal Church’s broader ongoing emphasis on creation care as one of its top priorities, as regularly affirmed by General Convention. The text of Chicago’s first option for an additional promise is based on the Anglican Communion’s Marks of Mission, a theological framework shared by Episcopalians and Anglicans around the world. The Fifth Mark of Mission says: “Strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Chicago’s second option draws on language first proposed by Connecticut Episcopalians in 2015 at the 78th General Convention and introduced again three years later at the 79th meeting. Neither of those conventions gave clear permission to experiment with such liturgical additions the way the 81st General Convention now has. “The challenge has always been that the Baptismal Covenant is so central to the whole structure and theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer that people don’t want to mess with it willy-nilly,” DeLisio said. “At the same time, the church has come to the recognition that ministry and mission is not all about social justice. It includes justice for creation as well, and creation care.” Although congregations in the Diocese of Chicago do not need to seek further permission, their feedback on the use of the new baptismal promises could help the church decide whether to approve official revisions to the liturgy, DeLisio said. The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music was given the task of researching this topic and reporting back to General Convention. The commission will submit its report soon and could propose an additional creation-themed baptismal promise for churchwide trial use. Its proposals will be considered by bishops and deputies when the 82nd General Convention convenes in July 2027 in Phoenix, Arizona. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

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[Anglican Journal] Worship at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, a historic Anglo-Catholic parish in downtown Toronto, Ontario, invariably provokes one of a few strong reactions from newcomers, according to the parish’s rector, the Rev. Nathan Humphrey. Some people, Humphrey told Anglican Journal, ask him, “Wow, where has this been all my life?” Others who come from Protestant or evangelical backgrounds can have a strong knee-jerk reaction against worship that seems to them “too Catholic,” even “weird” or “idolatrous.” “I don’t think anybody ever comes to the service at St. Thomas’s and has the attitude of ‘meh,’” Humphrey said. “A good Anglo-Catholic parish worth its salt won’t ever result in a ‘meh’ reaction from somebody who comes through the doors, because there’s always a particular identity that it’s conveying.” Read the full article here.

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[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally issued the following statement on Oct. 7, the third anniversary of the 2023 attacks. Three years on from the horrific Hamas-led terror attacks of 7 October 2023 in Israel, I pray for all who continue to grieve those who were killed, for those who survived, and for all who still carry the trauma of that terrible day. I pray especially for Jewish people here in Britain and around the world, for whom this anniversary brings grief, trauma and renewed anxiety, and I reaffirm my solidarity with all who have been affected by antisemitism and hatred. Earlier this year I visited the Nova Exhibition in London, and I was profoundly impacted by meeting relatives of people who died or were taken hostage, and hearing the testimonies of those who survived and the life story of each precious person who was killed that day. In the name of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace, let us pray too for all the peoples of the region. May every person – Israeli and Palestinian; Jewish, Muslim and Christian – enjoy the peace, freedom, justice, security and dignity that belong to them as equally beloved children of God. The immense suffering and loss in the Middle East have also been acutely felt by many in this country who are connected to Israel and Palestine by faith, family or heritage. Let us pray for a renewal of trust, solidarity and understanding between Britain’s faith communities, the rejection of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, and a fresh commitment to loving our neighbours as ourselves.

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The Grapevine, the monthly newsletter of the parish of St. John, Ocean Springs, is available online.

The Grapevine in available online.

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Yoga classes will start back on Wednesday, September 10

• Chair yoga - 10:30 a.m.
• Gentle mat yoga - 12:00 noon

Wednesday afternoons from 4:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  Children (K – 3) are invited to participate.  For more information contact Mary Chaffe Brooks or Jonathan Mitchell.  Cherubs sing about once every 6 weeks, usually at the beginning of the 9:00 a.m. service.