Consecration of a Resident Bishop Represents New Beginning for Diocese of El Salvador
Episcopal News Service. April 10, 1992 [92084]
Robert Melville
Church workers say that the consecration of a resident bishop who is a Salvadoran will be a turning point in the life of the Episcopal diocese.
The Rt. Rev. Martin Barahona is the seventh bishop to assume responsibility in El Salvador, but the first one to reside in the diocese since Bishop Edward Haynsworth's yearlong stay in 1979.
"The Episcopal Church is not a church unless it has a bishop," said Ana Emilia Gomez, diocesan treasurer in El Salvador. Christian Alberto, a 16-year-old acolyte at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in San Salvador, agreed. "This consecration will unite us and help us to understand the church," he said.
Anglican Church work began in El Salvador in the 1950s with services in the suburban Los Planos home of British diplomat William Chippendale. Oversight was transferred from the Church of England to the Episcopal Church in 1956. A $100,000 United Thank Offering grant led to the 1968 consecration of a modern and spacious Church of St. John the Evangelist.
The Rev. Jess Petty, priest-in-charge at St. John's from 1963 to 1972, said that disaffected Roman Catholics and people attracted to the social ministry programs quickly changed the church from a largely expatriate congregation into a Salvadoran one. Work soon expanded into the Salvadoran countryside.
Diocesan life was disrupted many times during the 12-year Salvadoran civil war that began in 1980. One of the worst incidents occurred in November 1989 when Salvadoran National Guard troops seized church property and arrested church workers. Many priests continue to endure death threats, despite the promise of peace ushered in by a United Nations-mediated peace accord that was instituted on February 1.
Archdeacon Victoriano Jimeno said that the consecration of Barahona "was a culmination of a long process that began in the 1980s. We have tried three times to elect a bishop. Once there were no candidates; there was always the war; and the devastating 1986 earthquake stopped everything."
Barahona was elected bishop on September 7, 1991. In an interview following his consecration, he said that his first priority "will be to establish a community among the priests and lay leaders. We need that before we go out into the country."
"What we need to do then," Barahona added, "is work to construct peoples' lives anew. We need construction -- not reconstruction. We are talking about a new life, a new vision. It will be no good to go back to the way things were before the war," he said.
The Diocese of El Salvador currently has approximately 2,000 communicants in 10 congregations, one bishop, eight priests, one deacon, and unlimited work in interior communities settled by hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
"It is one of the smallest dioceses in the Anglican Communion, but the numbers are not important," said Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning following Barahona's consecration. "Faithfulness to the Gospel is the important thing -- and that is what I see here," he said.