[Episcopal News Service] A concert opera honoring Bishop John Henry Hobart will make its world debut May 31 at Trinity Church in New York.  The church’s Trinity Choir and Downtown Voices choral ensembles will perform the piece with its new music chamber ensemble, NOVUS. Melissa Attebury, Trinity’s music director, will conduct the 50-minute work, which features two soloists depicting Hobart and a narrator, and organ and piano. Trinity commissioned David Hurd, music director at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Manhattan, to compose the choral work, “Great Awakenings: John Henry Hobart and America,” in celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary. A concert opera is a full-length opera production presented on a stage without theatrical sets, costumes or acting. “Everybody knows about [Founding Father] Alexander Hamilton, who’s buried at Trinity Churchyard, from history books and, of course, the Broadway musical … but very few people know that buried nearby is Hobart, another historical figure,” Hurd, a cradle Episcopalian who previously served as an organist and sexton at Trinity, told Episcopal News Service. Hobart, whose Episcopal feast day is celebrated on Sept. 12, was Trinity’s seventh rector from 1816 to 1830 and a co-founder of the General Theological Seminary. He served as the third diocesan bishop of New York, when the diocese covered the entire state, from 1816 until his death in 1830 at 54. He is buried beneath the chancel inside Trinity. Hobart also was instrumental in founding the college that now bears his name, Hobart College, in Geneva, now within the Diocese of Central New York. Additionally, he’s the namesake of Hobart, New York. He founded parishes throughout New York state during his episcopate – including St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, the first Black Episcopal church in New York City – and is remembered in the church’s Lesser Feasts and Fasts as “one of the leaders who revived The Episcopal Church, following the first two decades of its independent life after the American Revolution.” The church had fewer than 10,000 members by the end of the war because it was still a part of the Church of England, which was loyal to King George III. “Hobart tried to bring all types of people into The Episcopal Church,” Long Island Assisting Bishop William Franklin, former bishop of Western New York, told ENS in an email. “We know that he was a wonderful preacher … and he made people leave church feeling joyful and happy.” Franklin is also a church historian who taught at the General Theological Seminary at the same time as Hurd. He pitched the idea of a musical work on Hobart’s life and legacy ahead of the United States’s 250th anniversary to Trinity in 2024. Hurd, a renowned composer and organist, colleague and friend, was the natural commissioning choice. The libretto, which was written by Christopher Dylan Herbert, a former Trinity Choir member, includes quotes from Hobart’s sermons, Scripture and hymns. It divides “Great Awakenings” into four separate but interconnected movements: Hobart’s vision and flaws; his hopes to create a more democratic church; preaching the Gospel in Hobart’s own words; and Hobart’s heritage. Although “Great Awakenings” is meant to honor and highlight Hobart’s accomplishments and radical views for his time, Franklin and Hurd both stressed the importance of acknowledging his shortcomings early in the piece. For example, Hobart commissioned an Oneida translation of the Book of Common Prayer. He also engaged in missionary work with the Oneida Native Americans and helped them relocate to Wisconsin after they were forced to leave New York. However, he never advocated for preventing or stopping their relocation. He also ordained the Rev. Peter Williams Jr., the second Black Episcopal priest, but he never publicly denounced slavery, even though he was personally against it. These contrasting ideas are highlighted in the first movement in a sung dialogue, with the mezzo soprano narrator listing some of Hobart’s accomplishments and the chorus responding by listing his shortcomings. The tenor soloist depicting Hobart doesn’t sing until the second movement. “Slavery was normal in Hobart’s time. It wasn’t good; it wasn’t righteous, and we know now what a horrible thing this common practice was, but only the most courageous people were speaking out against it at the time,” Hurd said. “His work needs to be regarded in its own context as having been in the right direction.” In the third movement, the choir quotes Psalm 137. During the fourth moment, Attebury will invite the audience to join the chorus in singing part of a hymn that was sung at Hobart’s funeral. Throughout the piece, a clarinet solo will accompany the tenor as he sings Hobart’s lines. While listening to “Great Awakenings,” Hurd said he hopes the audience and performers will be “present in the moment” while they reflect on Hobart’s legacy. In his own reflection, Hurd said he thinks Hobart would feel “embarrassed that all this fuss is being made over him.” “Somehow, I don’t imagine Hobart as being a self-absorbed person who would be comfortable with a lot of praise,” Hurd said. “I think he’d tell us to read the Gospel and answer our callings. He wore all the vestments, but at the bottom level, I think he was more interested in getting out and fulfilling God’s mission than basking in glory.” -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

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[Religion News Service] On Ash Wednesday this year, about a dozen people attended a noon service at Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1723. Two days later, a handful of worshippers took part in a Shabbat service at Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, dedicated in 1763.  Congregations participating in sacred rituals — it is something both houses of worship have been doing longer than the United States has existed. Such places of worship are rare. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research estimates that of the 370,000 religious congregations in the U.S. today, only about 1% existed at the country’s founding. When the country declared independence in 1776,  there were 3,228 houses of worship across the Colonies. The United States was already religiously diverse. Congregationalists led the pack with about 670 congregations, or just over 20% of the total. Presbyterians weren’t far behind (18%), followed by Baptists and Episcopalians (each about 15%), and Quakers at nearly 10%. Methodists had a following at 2%, Catholics were just under 2%, and there were a handful of synagogues and more than a dozen Mennonite congregations, according to sociologists Rodney Stark and Roger Finke. Most of them dissolved due to internal conflicts, financial strains, aging membership and/or the impact of war. Many of the places that survived, like Old North Church and Touro, did so by continuing to gather, whether in ornate or simple buildings, or when pews were full or had just a few worshippers. “I think that’s how faith, church and faith, is perpetuated — it’s not, in a way, by big, splashy events,” said the Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, vicar of Old North Church. “It’s by people who really want to take the time to reflect on what it means to be human and what it means to be a person of God in a complicated world.” Below are portraits of four that have endured. Old North Church, Boston, Massachusetts Founded: 1723 Affiliation: Episcopal Church Famous for: Lanterns in steeple marked start of Revolutionary War  BOSTON — Cadwell welcomed just about a dozen people to this year’s noon Ash Wednesday service. Knowing there could be some tourists in the pews, Cadwell, the church’s leader since 2020, was careful to offer guidance after the first hymn for those unfamiliar with the standing, sitting and kneeling practices of The Episcopal Church. “There are kneelers in the pews — they’re exceptionally uncomfortable, and so you will feel penitent, for sure, if you use them,” he said. “I’ll be kneeling in the front on behalf of all of us, if that works, but kneeling yourselves, if you like, or stand — whichever, works for you.” Old North started as something of an outlier — a Church of England congregation in a city dominated by Puritan-rooted Congregationalists. Today it offers a spiritual space to Boston-area residents and tourists from around the world, including people from the country that once opposed colonists in the Revolutionary War. “We’re honoring our neighbors,” Cadwell said. Jenifer Miller, a native of Rochester, England, joined Old North Church a couple of years ago. Stepping into the box pews that date to 1723, Miller said she thinks of those who worshipped in the same place centuries ago. “You imagine all the people that have sat there before and all that, and we all have the worries, we all have the wants, we all have the loves and the sadness all through life,” she said. “So I enjoyed the thought that this is not new. It’s been around for a long time.” The church’s revolutionary history is undoubtedly a draw for tourists as well as locals. It was from Old North’s steeple that two lanterns were hung in 1775, signaling that British forces were advancing by sea — the moment Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized as “one if by land, two if by sea.”  Cadwell, who has a Ph.D. in Anglican history and theology, said the church’s understanding of that night has evolved: It’s now believed that sexton Robert Newman was joined by Capt. John Pulling Jr., a vestry member and friend of Paul Revere, to climb the stairs and ladders and hang the lights from what was then the tallest structure in the city. After the service, Carol Ball, a vestry member in charge of ensuring Old North’s brass chandeliers are kept shining, said the church embraces all visitors, whether they come for a tour or choose to become members. “It’s usually 50-50, I’d say, between congregation and tourists,” she said. “It’s a very nice mix.” First Baptist Church in America, Providence, Rhode Island Founded: 1638 Famous for: Nation’s oldest Baptist congregation Denomination: American Baptist Churches USA PROVIDENCE — “Whether you’re sober or you wish you were, whether you’re straight or gay or cis or trans, or whether you are a citizen of this nation or not, in this place, you are a citizen in the realm of God.” That is how the Rev. Jamie Washam begins the Communion service at First Baptist Church in America. Her words, she explains, are intentional: “We all have the same beeline to the divine.” The sentiment is baked into the DNA of the church. Roger Williams, a Puritan pastor in Salem, Massachusetts, was excommunicated for his views on church-state separation and then gathered a group of worshippers to start a new church in Providence. At a time when Massachusetts had a state religion, the Congregational Church, Williams concluded that “the only proper form of baptism was believer’s baptism, and so he baptized his congregation, about 20 people all together,” said J. Stanley Lemons, author of “First: The First Baptist Church in America.” (Due to Williams’ influence, Rhode Island never decreed a state religion.) Williams left the Rhode Island church after a few months (though he continued to preach). But it endured, surviving internal divisions and opening its “meetinghouse” doors regularly, including for historic gatherings. Standing just a half mile away from the Rhode Island State House, First Baptist occupies a tall, […]

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[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of South Carolina is using seed money from The Episcopal Church to launch its first capital campaign since resolving a property lawsuit with a breakaway group in 2022. The new fundraising is seen both as a way to invest in the Charleston-based diocese’s own priorities, like congregational revitalization and racial reconciliation, and as a pilot program for supporting other dioceses’ capital campaigns. “There’s a lot of energy right now in the diocese around finally being in resurrection,” South Carolina Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley said in an interview with Episcopal News Service. Woodliff-Stanley was consecrated as the diocese’s bishop in October 2021. Six months later, a state Supreme Court issued a split decision in the legal battle between the diocese and the breakaway group now affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America. The ruling ordered the return of some church properties to the Episcopal diocese while allowing ACNA to keep other properties that formerly had been occupied by Episcopal congregations. Since then, the Episcopal diocese has developed a strategic plan with three parts: re-establish Episcopal congregations at the properties that were returned, plant and grow new congregations in communities where properties were not returned and support historically African American congregations that have long been disenfranchised because of the diocese’s past complicity with racist systems dating back to the transatlantic slave trade. While the diocese was considering ways to fund its strategic vision, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe took office in November 2024 and began promoting greater churchwide support for dioceses and congregations. At a House of Bishops’ meeting, Rowe mentioned to Woodliff-Stanley he was interested in reviving a late 1970s and 1980s fundraising model. Started by then-Presiding Bishop John Allin, it was called Venture in Mission and entailed churchwide staff coordinating more closely with diocesan leaders to meet local ministry needs. Woodliff-Stanley volunteered South Carolina as a kind of pilot program, and the Rev. Charles Robertson, senior adviser to the presiding bishop, was assigned to help. Under the new program, The Episcopal Church has provided the seed money for the Diocese of South Carolina to hire a consulting firm to work with the diocese in developing its capital campaign, from discerning a realistic goal, conducting a feasibility study and then rolling out the campaign in deliberate stages. A church spokesperson declined to specify the amount of the seed money but confirmed that the church’s up-front investment covers the consulting firm’s fee, which is likely to vary by local needs as dioceses engage with this new program. Right now, South Carolina is making direct appeals to potential large-gift donors based on a $3.3 million campaign goal. The public phase, when all members of the diocese will be asked to contribute, is scheduled to run from Aug. 29 through the end of the year. If the campaign is successful, the diocese has agreed to return 15% of its proceeds back to The Episcopal Church, which then will use the money to invest in other dioceses’ capital campaigns following the same approach. “We are helping support this on the front end, and then they, in turn, are agreeing to do a pay-it-forward model,” Robertson told ENS. “We’re able to help dioceses who have a clear vision of where they want to go but don’t have those up-front resources” to launch an effective capital campaign. Robertson added that he is working with other dioceses interested in receiving churchwide fundraising support, including one that likely will be ready to announce its participation in the coming months. For the South Carolina campaign, the diocese started with several months of engagement with church members, who were overwhelmingly supportive of the idea, Woodliff-Stanley said. That encouragement partly reflected South Carolina’s focus on recovering from the yearslong effects of schism. The diocese once counted as many as 78 worshipping communities across the southeastern half of the state, including along the Atlantic Coast. Parochial report data show that the diocese’s baptized membership topped 29,000 in 2011, the year before the diocese was upended by theological and doctrinal disputes, especially related to full LGBTQ+ inclusion in the church. In November 2012, led by their bishop, a majority of attendees at a special diocesan convention voted to effectively leave The Episcopal Church. After they departed, Episcopal membership in the diocese dropped below 6,400. The remaining diocese counted 22 continuing parishes and missions. Over the following decade, Episcopalians in South Carolina found ways to worship and serve their communities amid a series of legal victories and setbacks in the church property lawsuit. Then, in April 2022, the state Supreme Court ordered ACNA to return 14 church properties to the Episcopal diocese, as well as St. Christopher Camp and Conference Center on Seabrook Island. ACNA was allowed to keep 15 other properties. That ruling was later revised to allow ACNA to keep several additional properties. As the Diocese of South Carolina began planning for the future of the returned properties and supporting Episcopalians still experiencing loss in other communities, “we recognized that we had an opportunity to set that story inside a larger narrative of disenfranchisement,” Woodliff-Stanley told ENS. Some of the challenges now faced by predominantly white congregations, she said, were quite familiar to the diocese’s historically Black congregations, which still struggle financially from longtime disparities in diocesan resource allocation. After identifying the need to address those racial disparities as part of its strategic vision, the diocese sought projects that aligned with that goal and its other top priorities when developing its capital campaign. The diocese settled on four projects to fund, one of which will pay for facilities improvements for Three Churches United, a coalition of three historically Black churches in Charleston. Two of those churches require significant repairs and upgrades. Calvary Episcopal Church is expected to receive $500,000, and the campaign has budgeted $400,000 for St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. The third church in the coalition, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, has fewer facilities’ needs but would receive $100,000 for […]

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Three years on from the outbreak of conflict in Sudan, millions are in crisis. Anglican leaders are calling for renewed prayer, the protection of civilians and urgent humanitarian access. 

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Bishop Robert will work closely with the National Safeguarding Team, which provides specialist expertise on casework, policy development, training, evaluation and survivor participation.

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A textile installation exploring life in Britain during the Second World War will be on display at Lichfield Cathedral throughout May 2026.

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As a two-week ceasefire is agreed between Iran and the US, Anglican News shares updates on how different churches across the Middle East and beyond have been dealing with the impacts of war, and working to share hope in their setting.

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