Archbishop of Canterbury's Wit and Wisdom Help Diocese of Maryland Celebrate 300 Years
Episcopal News Service. September 16, 1992 [92186]
Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning, bishops from the Diocese of Maryland and the archbishop of Canterbury joined more than 800 Episcopalians on September 11 for a celebration marking 300 years of Anglican presence in Maryland and the 200th anniversary of the consecration of Bishop Thomas John Claggett as bishop of Maryland.
Lines formed outside Baltimore's Church of the Redeemer more than an hour and a half before the service. The expected arrival of Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey -- spiritual leader of 70 million Anglicans worldwide -- added a note of excitement to the slight chill in the morning air as the expectant chatted, read newspapers and drank coffee from thermoses to pass the time.
Once inside, the service began with a spectacle of banners, choirs, crosses and bishops in cope and miter in procession. Drums, cymbal, bell choir, organ and brass ensemble filled the nave of the modern church building with a feast of sounds throughout the two-hour celebration.
The tercentenary celebration marked a 1692 Act of the Maryland Assembly establishing the Church of England, ordering the division of the counties into parishes and taxing the populace for "the building of churches and support of the clergy."
After 84 years of establishment, the American Revolution ended the Anglican Church's special status in Maryland. A chaotic period of painfully divided loyalties and financial ruin followed, but in 1780 the Protestant Episcopal Church was formed. For years Maryland had no bishop to serve a church desolated by war, identification with the British cause and disestablishment. Finally, at the diocesan convention in May 1792, Claggett was unanimously elected first bishop.
In consecrating Claggett, the Maryland church seized an opportunity to unite in him both lines of apostolic secession by inviting the four Episcopal bishops in the United States to participate, all of them consecrated in Scotland or England. The first consecration on American soil took place in New York's Trinity Church on September 17, 1792, during a session of the General Convention.
In a sermon that drew heavily on the example of Claggett's ministry, Carey encouraged Maryland Episcopalians to follow in Claggett's footsteps as "one whose apostolic ministry, and dedicated life led to the vigorous building and growth of the church."
"We need to constantly to be an outward-looking church, confident that our Gospel has a word to say to the perennial questions and daily predicaments of human life," Carey said.
Drawing from the Scripture lessons, Carey charged the congregation to press forward with a missionary zeal comparable to the love that a shepherd has for the sheepfold. "Take seriously the weak and oppressed," he said. "We are, in Ezekiel's words, 'to bandage the hurt and strengthen the sick.' We are to shepherd the flock with justice."
"People hunger and thirst for righteousness, for justice," Carey continued, "but they also hunger for a faith that will feed their minds as well as their hearts." He said that the Episcopal Church must continue "to present our faith in ways that do justice to the wonderful variety of human knowledge -- scientific, ethical and cultural."
"We must not offer people the spurious evangelism of pure emotion, or false promises of pie in the sky," Carey added. "True evangelism... will always stretch the minds, as well as satisfy the hearts and souls of those who seek the bread of life."
Carey concluded that the mission of the church must be about reconciliation. "The church has never been free of storms -- both internal and external. But its resources for riding the storms are inexhaustible" if the church centers its life on the reconciling ministry of Christ, Carey said.
Despite the seriousness of the occasion, Carey spoke to the congregation with an easygoing style and quick wit that drew laughter and applause.
Contrasting the example of Claggett as exemplar with a self-deprecating note about English bishops, Carey remarked that "200 years ago bishops were not regarded as a totally unmixed blessing. American Christians were not that impressed by what they had heard of the English episcopacy -- and with good reason. My home at Lambeth Palace is decorated with some fine portraits of some fairly unmemorable eighteenth-century bishops, not the kind of men who might set the Thames on fire." The congregation erupted in laughter.
An exchange of gifts between Carey and Maryland Bishop Ted Eastman was a moment of intimacy, humor and warmth. Eastman presented Carey and his wife, Eileen, with a pair of teal, hand-carved and hand-painted duck decoys fashioned by a local Baltimore artisan. Eastman told the congregation that in England the word duck or duckie was a slang term of endearment, and hence the gift was a symbol of the diocese's affection for the Careys.
In a quick retort, Carey said of the decoys, "Archbishops are used to being shot at." He added that he appreciated the gifts and saw them as a symbol of the Christian ministry. "When you see a duck gliding along on the water so smoothly, with no apparent effort, underneath it is paddling along like mad to stay afloat. Ministry is like that sometimes," he said.
After the service, several members of the congregation remarked that Carey fit his sermon's description of Claggett: "friendly, open, frank and engaging." A tercentenary marked and celebrated, throngs of Maryland Episcopalians brimming with smiles headed out of the church into bright noonday sun and took their first steps into the next century.
![[thumbnail: Carey Celebrates Maryland...]](/e-archives/ENS/photographs/thumbnails/92186_thb.jpg) |