wfn.org | ACNS: Cuban Anglicans Seek Return to Episcopal Church of the USA

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ACNS 2989 - ENS - 23 May 2002

Cuban Anglicans seek return to ECUSA

by Jan Nunley

[ENS] While former president Jimmy Carter visits Cuba in hopes of improving
diplomatic relations between the island nation and the US, Anglicans in Cuba
are quietly seeking to rejoin the Episcopal Church of the United States
(ECUSA) after a 35-year separation.

The Anglican Church of Canada's Anglican Journal reported in its April 2002
issue that a Cuban diocesan synod voted unanimously in February to seek
re-admission to ECUSA as a constituent diocese. But the decision, said staff
writer Jane Davidson, was "hotly debated" and "fraught with ambiguity" among
delegates, some who insisted that the departure of their church from ECUSA
in 1967 was "immoral" and an "expulsion."

The ongoing need for a clergy pension fund apparently motivated the Cuban
attempt at reconciliation. Even so, it is seen as a temporary measure until
Caribbean Anglican churches achieve a long-term goal: the formation of an
autonomous Episcopal Province of the Caribbean, composed of the
Anglican/Episcopal churches of Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and
Puerto Rico.

Origins in US
The American church's involvement in Cuba dates from 1871, when Bishop
Francis Whittle of Virginia persuaded ECUSA to send missionaries to Cuba.
During Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain from 1868-1878, many
involved in the Cuban liberation movement fled to the United States. Some
became Episcopalians, and on their return to Cuba established Episcopal
congregations.

The oldest Episcopal congregation in Cuba, "Fieles a Jesus" in Matanzas, was
founded in 1883 by the Revd Pedro Duarte. Duarte's letter to the Queen of
Spain protesting his imprisonment for "unauthorised preaching of the Gospel"
was influential in the extension of religious toleration to Cuba. Cuba's
first missionary bishop from the US, Albion Knight, arrived in 1905. The
first Cuban citizen to become bishop was Romualdo Gonzalez, who served until
the first Cuban-born bishop, Jose A Gonzalez, was consecrated in 1967.

Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959, and the two countries severed full
diplomatic relations in 1961. A US blockade was imposed in 1963.

Agreement or expulsion?
But La Iglesia Episcopal de Cuba (IEC) remained a missionary district of
ECUSA until 1967, when it became an independent member of the Anglican
Communion. According to the Cuban church's web site, the split came because
of the "deterioration of political relationship" between the USA and Cuba,
when "it became increasingly difficult for ECUSA and IEC to maintain a
meaningful relationship."

That's not how some Cubans apparently remember things. According to the
Anglican Journal, at the February synod Cuban Bishop Jorge Perera Hurtado
referred to "the unjust decision of the House of Bishops of the US church to
expel us from its membership."

The Revd Patrick Mauney, director of the Episcopal Church's Office of
Anglican and Global Relations, says the IEC's departure from ECUSA wasn't an
"expulsion" at all, but an agreement made "in consultation with the Bishop
of Cuba" to give some "political space" to the Cuban church in its relations
with the Castro government. "All pensions for clergy ordained in the Cuban
church at that time have been paid in full," Mauney said.

Transitional measure
According to the Anglican Journal, the movement to reunite the Cuban church
with ECUSA stems from a meeting held in October 2001 at Camp Washington,
Connecticut to discuss the formation of an Episcopal Province of the
Caribbean. The Episcopal Church in Puerto Rico also wants re-admission to
ECUSA, but has agreed to decline if the Cuban church is not also welcome.

The IEC currently receives oversight from the Metropolitan Council of Cuba,
which consists of the Archbishop of the West Indies, the senior bishop in
ECUSA's Province IX, and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, who
serves as its president. There are 35 parishes, 11 unorganised missions, 35
organised missions, and 33 "prayer stations" in a church with more than
10,000 members - served by only 25 clergy. The Diocese of Florida has had an
active companion partnership with Cuba since 1984.

The current bishop of the IEC, appointed by the Council in 1994, also
presides over the Episcopal Province of the Caribbean (Anglican) in
Formation.

No barriers
The Anglican Journal report said there are no political barriers to the
reconciliation. "Neither the government (of Cuba) nor the (Communist) party
will try to intervene (in the process of rejoining ECUSA)," said the Revd
Oden Marichal Rodriguez, vicar-general of the diocese, a member of the Cuban
parliament and a leading candidate for Bishop coadjutor in Cuba.

ECUSA has been friendly to the idea of reconciliation between the two
countries. The 2000 Denver General Convention passed a resolution (C045)
asking Congress and the President to "restore full diplomatic relations
between the United States and Cuba" while at the same time taking "issues of
human rights, freedom of speech and movement" into consideration along with
"freedom of political prisoners."

Mauney said Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold is "delighted" at the prospect
of reunion with Cuba and that it would be "generally welcomed" by General
Convention. Such a proposal would come before the Standing Commission on
World Mission and the Standing Commission on the Structure of the Church
before it could be considered at General Convention in 2003.

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