Presiding Bishop mentions All Saints Wichita Falls in sermon in Liberia

On January 6, the presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, was an official guest of the Episcopal Church of Liberia. The presiding bishop preached and celebrated Epiphany Mass at St. Thomas Church in Monrovia, a service attended by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. About 250 people attended the Mass at St. Thomas.

The presiding bishop’s sermon, emphasizing the light of the season, made lengthy mention of All Saints Episcopal Church in Wichita Falls. All Saints Episcopal Church is a displaced parish that is currently worshipping holding services at the ARC, 3115 Buchanan, Wichita Falls, TX. The presiding bishop described about the extraordinary ministries this small group of Episcopalians has been able to accomplish in spite of being displaced from their buildings when former leaders of the Fort Worth diocese left the Episcopal Church while still claiming Episcopal Church property. Owanah Anderson is the senior warden at All Saints.

The presiding bishop spent a week in Liberia, witnessing and learning about the mission of the Liberian Episcopal Church. Liberia was deeply affected by that nation’s recent civil war. Under the leadership of Johnson Sirleaf, that nation has started to rebuild.

The Liberian Episcopal Church, with the help of Episcopalians at home and abroad, also has begun to rebuild. The visit marked the first time Jefferts Schori had been the official guest of an African church.

The Episcopal News Service reported:

Jefferts Schori preached and celebrated solemn high mass for more than 1,500 people on the second Sunday after Christmas, Jan. 3, at the cathedral in central Monrovia.

Founded by the U.S.-based Episcopal Church in 1836, the Episcopal Church of Liberia was a diocese in the Episcopal Church until 1980, when it became part of the Anglican Province of West Africa. As part of that change of affiliation, the Episcopal Church and the Liberia diocese established a covenant partnership, which pledges each entity to mutual ministry and interdependence and calls for financial subsidies with an eventual goal of self sufficiency and sustainability for the Church of Liberia.

From 1983 through 2007, the Liberian church received close to $6.6 million from the Episcopal Church.

The most recent version of the covenant was adopted by the Episcopal Church's Executive Council in April 2009. Information about the Episcopal Church's four other covenant partnerships with Anglican provinces is available here. Liberia, first founded as an American colony in the 1820s as a homeland for freed slaves, became an independent republic in 1847, but kept close ties with the United States. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Liberia was crushed by civil war, with more than 250,000 people killed and more than one million people displaced. Read more about the presiding bishop’s Liberian trip at http://www.episcopal-life.org/79901_118109_ENG_HTM.htm.