 An Overview
The
marvel of it all is that a few score Christian priests and their
families would brave the dangers of the great deep in frail
sailing
craft, that they would leave a settled land where the Church
was so firmly established, that they would remain faithful
with so
little encouragement or episcopal supervision, and venture into
a new world to minister to the scattered flock of Christ. They
endured hardship and disease; they were slandered and poorly
provided
for; they knew frustration and disillusionment…
It was doubtful that their work could survive. Yet survive it
did, for it was founded upon the strong rock. Cut off from English
supplies of men and money by the American Revolution, small groups
of faithful laymen, ministered to as little as once a year
in some instances, kept the faith through the dark years from
1785 to 1841 when the first resident Bishop was elected.
from
The Anglican Church in Delaware by the Rev. Nelson W. Rightmyer,
1947.
The history of the Episcopal Church in Delaware has appeared in two well-researched and highly readable volumes. The Anglican
Church in Delaware, by the Rev. Nelson W. Rightmyer, published
in 1947, covered the colonial period, and Charles A. Silliman's
The Episcopal Church in Delaware, 1785-1954, brings us closer
to the present.
 The Earliest Days
We do not know the exact details of the beginning of the Anglican
Church in Delaware or of the formation of the earliest parishes.
In one sense, the Church can date its beginnings to the transfer
of Delaware to the British in 1664, for the arrival of
the English established the presence of an Anglican laity.
In 1677,
the Rev. John Yeo came to Delaware from Maryland. He preached
and conducted services in New Castle County. By 1682, he had
moved
to Calvert County, Maryland.
Until
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
sent out its first missionaries to Delaware, the attempts to establish
the Anglican Church in Delaware did not have much support. That
began to change in 1703, when the Society sent the Rev. George
Ross to New Castle. In 1708, St. Peter's in Lewes became the ninth
church in Delaware established with the help of the Society. By
the time support from the S.P.G. ended with American independence,
six more churches had been started. Five of Delaware's colonial
Anglican churches have closed, including St. Matthew's Cedar Creek,
at one time the largest of the Sussex County churches. The closing
of all five of the churches reflects the shifts of population.
 Revolutionary War
The
Revolution left the Church in a weakened state. Gone was the support
of the S.P.G. that had sustained the Church for 80 years. Gone,
too, were most of the Anglican clergy. Only the Rev. Sydenham
Thorne, Rector of Christ Church, Mispillion, remained. The Rev.
Aeneas Ross at New Castle and the Rev. Philip Reading at Appoquinimy
had died. The other clergy had left. The Roman Catholic priest,
the Rev. Charles H. Wharton, converted to the Episcopal Church
and became Rector of Immanuel Church in New Castle in 1784. When
Thorne and Wharton attended a preliminary meeting of the emerging
Episcopal Church in the United States in October, 1784, Delaware's
only two Episcopal priests were outside the state.
The
Revolution also altered the status of the Episcopal Church. Prior
to the Revolution, the churches in Delaware were under the authority
of the Bishop of London and the S.P.G. The treaty of 1783 that
recognized America's independence effectively severed the ties
between the American churches and episcopal authority in England.
Consequently, the churches in this country did not belong to any
diocese, nor was there a general church in America to which individual
dioceses could belong. The October 1784 meeting in New York attempted
to remedy these problems.
Formation of the Diocese - 1785
The
formation of the Diocese of Delaware -- a three-year period --
began on September 3, 1783, with the signing of the peace treaty
with England. The October 1784 preliminary meeting of the General
Church called for a General Convention to meet in 1785. The
Diocese
of Delaware was represented at this convention, a formality which
forms the basis for claiming 1785 as the founding date of this
Diocese. The Delaware delegation to the General Convention
of
1784 was headed by Charles Wharton; the other members were laymen
drawn almost entirely from Immanuel, New Castle, and St. James,
Mill Creek Hundred. The final step in the formation of the
Diocese
took place the next year. On September 18, 1786, Charles Wharton
wrote the Rev. William White, soon to be the first Bishop of
Pennsylvania, "We meet in Dover the 26th Inst. and must organize our little
Church as well as we can. We must belong to some Diocese, and
I suppose the matter will be between Maryland and Pennsylvania."
Charles Wharton presided at this convention and an independent
Diocese of Delaware was set up without a bishop of its own. Until
the election of Alfred Lee in 1841, episcopal supervision was
entrusted to the Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania. The convention
that met in Dover on September 26, 1786, completed the three-year
birth of the Diocese of Delaware.
The
first convention whose record has survived took place in 1791
at Christ Church, Dover. In 1793, despite two attempts, no convention
was held since illness made it impossible to have a quorum. Conventions
did not take place in 1811 or 1812. In 1812, there was only one
priest, the Rev. Robert Clay of Immanuel, in the entire Diocese.
Despite this fragile existence, only three churches closed in
the period from the formation of the Diocese to the election of
Bishop Lee, and six new churches were established. During the
46 years that Bishop Lee led the Diocese, at least 18 churches
came into existence. The number of parishes has continued to grow
in the years since Bishop Lee's death. Between World War II and
the bicentennial in 1985, six more congregations joined the Diocese.
In 1995, St. Andrew's and St. Matthew's Churches in Wilmington
merged to form the Episcopal Church of Sts. Andrews and Matthew,
a racially integrated congregation. In 1998, the Episcopal Community
of Bear/Glasgow, a Church Without Walls, was formed.
 Thirty-eight Parishes
The
38 parishes of the Diocese of Delaware are listed below, with
dates of their formation when possible. The order in which they
came into the Diocese is not always easy to determine. Old Swedes
and Trinity Church, for example, are part of the larger Trinity
Parish, which started as Holy Trinity Old Swedes Lutheran church,
established near Fort Christina by the descendants of the settlers
who arrived aboard the Kalmar Nyckel from Sweden in 1638. Old
Swedes is said to be the oldest church building in continuous
operation in the United States. Because Trinity Parish was admitted
to the Episcopal Diocese in 1791, however, its placement among
Diocesan churches reflects the later date.
St.
Philip's Laurel claims 1843 as the date of its founding, but the
journals of the Diocese interchange the names St. Philip's and
Christ Church for a number of years after that date. The relationship
between the two churches is historically so close that St. Philip's
would be justified in claiming 1771, the founding date of Christ
Church Broad Creek as its founding date.
St.
Thomas's Newark claims as its founding date 1842, but it could
with merit claim an earlier date. The Rev. Richard S. Mason,
President
of Newark College, and the Rev. George Allen, one of his professors,
conducted Episcopal services in Newark for a number of years
prior
to 1842. In fact, in his report to the 1837 convention, Bishop
Onderdonk states that he made a visitation to Newark on May
14
and that "the services of our church are performed there
on Sundays."
Photo above: Clerical Brotherhood of Delaware at Bishopstead, Decemer 10, 1895. Picture was framed and presented to Bishop Coleman on Christmas Day, 1895. Standing, left to right: (1) H. Ashton Henry, (2) unidentified, (3) Kensey J. Hammond, (4) Enoch K. Miller, (5) George C. Hall, (6) unidentified, (7) Martin B. Dunlap, (8) Bishop Coleman, (9) unidentified, (10) Charles E. Murray, (11-12) unidentified, (13) William J. Wilkie, and (14-15) unidentified. Seated, left to right, (16) unidentified, (17) Hamilton M. Bartlett, and (18) unidentified. The unidentified clergymen are: J. Harry Chesley, George S. Gassner, A. H. Miller, Jacob Miller, F.M. Muson, R.A. Sawyer, Charles G. Snepp, Albert R. Walker, and William Schouler (Diocese of Easton).
Diocese is its People
It
would be wrong to view the Diocese as a list of parishes, however.
The Diocese is the people who live and worship and minister
from
those parishes, a people whose history in Delaware goes back
nearly 300 years. The courage of the early settlers is reflected
in many
of today's leaders, both lay and clergy. Ministries begun many
decades ago continue in new forms today. The Rev. John Crosby's
work among migrant farm workers in the 1930s continues today
through
the growing network of the Sussex County Mission. Bishop Leighton
Coleman's attacks on racism are sustained through the work
of
the Pilot Congregation, the people of the Episcopal Church of
Sts. Andrew and Matthew and all who work tirelessly for inclusivity
and diversity in the life of the Diocese. Absalom Jones, a
Sussex
County slave, became Rector of St. Thomas's Church in Philadelphia
and was known to many as "the Black Bishop of the Episcopal
Church." In the late 20th Century, the work of the
Rt. Rev. Quintin Primo, Interim Bishop of Delaware from 1985-86,
continued that brave crusade for justice and equality.
This
brief history of the Diocese of Delaware is based on a sketch
prepared by the Rev. Christopher Agnew for the Bicentennial Yearbook
in 1985.
Our Congregations in the order of their Consecration:
 Immanuel
Church, New Castle, 1689- Christ Church, Dover, 1703
- Christ Church, Milford, 1704
- St. Anne's Church, Middletown, 1705
- St. Peter's Church, Lewes, 1708
- St. James Church, Mill Creek, 1714
- St. George's Chapel, Indian River, 1719
- St. John the Baptist Church, Milton, 1732
- St. Peter's Church, Smyrna, 1740
- St. Philip's Church, Laurel, 1771? 1843?
- Holy Trinity Church (Old Swede's), 1791
- St. Andrew's Church, Wilmington, 1829
(consolidated with St. Matthew's in 1996)
- Trinity Parish, Wilmington, 1830
- St. Luke's Church, Seaford, 1835
- Grace Church, Brandywine Hundred, 1836
- St. Thomas's Parish, Newark, 1842
- St.Matthew's Church, Wilmington, 1846
(consolidated with St. Andrew's in 1996)
- Christ Church, Delaware City, 1848
- St. Mark's Church, Millsboro, 1848
- Christ Church, Christiana Hundred, 1848
- The Church of the Ascension, Claymont, 1851
- Calvary Church, Hillcrest, 1855
- Cathedral Church of St. John, Wilmington, 1855
- St. James Church, Newport, 1855
- St. Paul's Church, Camden, 1868
- St. Paul's Church, Georgetown, 1868
- St. Stephen's Church, Harrington, 1868
- Immanuel Church, Wilmington, 1884
- All Saints Church, Delmar, 1886
- St. Mary's Church, Bridgeville, 1889
- St. Barnabas Church, Mill Creek, 1890
- All Saints Church, Rehoboth, 1892
- St. Martha's Church, Bethany Beach, 1940
- St. Martin's in the Field Church, Selbyville, 1947
- Church of the Nativity, Manor Park, 1952
- St. David's Church, Brandywine Hundred, 1954
- St. Alban's Church, Brandywine Hundred, 1958
- St. Nicholas Church, White Clay Creek Hundred, 1964
- Episcopal Church of Sts. Andrew and Matthew, Wilmington, 1996
Photos are from Charles A. Silliman's book, The Episcopal Church in Delaware, 1785-1954.
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