Episcopal News Service January 29, 2007
Cuba's Episcopal Church to convene Synod, Metropolitan Council meeting
Participating Anglican Primates will include Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
[ENS] Local leadership of the Episcopal Church of Cuba will welcome Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to take her seat on its Metropolitan Council February 1 in Havana, and to address its annual Synod meeting February 2-4 in Cardenas.
"I very much look forward to meeting sister and brother Episcopalians in Cuba," said Jefferts Schori, who will also visit the ecumenical seminary, Seminario Evangelico de Teologico, in Matanzas on February 3. "I am eager to learn firsthand about the mission and ministry that is carried out so faithfully in local contexts, notably with excellence in literacy and social services."
Matanzas is the site of Cuba's oldest Episcopal church, Fieles a Jesus, founded in 1883 after U.S. missionary work that dates from 1871 in Havana. Some 3,500 Episcopalians in 40 congregations comprise the Cuban church today, which is based at Havana's Holy Trinity Cathedral and led since 2004 by Interim Bishop Miguel Tamayo, who is also bishop of Uruguay.
After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, and the subsequent deterioration of relations with the United States, the Metropolitan Council was formed in 1967. In the same year, the Cuban church became an extra-provincial diocese unaffiliated with the U.S.-based Episcopal Church or any other province of the Anglican Communion.
Active members of the Metropolitan Council have included the Archbishop of Canada, the Archbishop of the West Indies, and the Presiding Bishop of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church, who in previous years has also been represented by a bishop of the Episcopal Church's Province 9, which includes other Caribbean and Latin American dioceses. Considerable leadership of the Council has been provided over time by the Canadian Primate.
Attending the Council's February 1 meeting -- and marking its 40th year -- will be Canada's Archbishop Andrew Hutchison and Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, together with Jefferts Schori.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_81777_ENG_HTM.htm
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