wfn.org | Cuban Anglicans seek return to ECUSA

[ENS@ecunet.org]

2002-119

Cuban Anglicans seek return to ECUSA

by Jan Nunley
jnunley@episcopalchurch.org

(ENS) While former president Jimmy Carter visits Cuba
in hopes of improving diplomatic relations between the
island nation and the U.S., 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 a 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 Rev.
Pedro Duarte. Duarte's letter to the Queen of Spain
protesting his imprisonment for "unauthorized preaching of
the Gospel" was influential in the extension of religious
toleration to Cuba. Cuba's first missionary bishop from
the U.S., 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 U.S.
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 U.S. church to expel us from its membership." 

The Rev. 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 unorganized missions, 35 organized
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 Rev. 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. 

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of
Episcopal News Service.