That We All May Be One

As far back as 1875, the Episcopal Church has had a history with the Cuban people, beginning with pastoral care provided to a Cuban exile community in Key West, to missionaries to Cuba in the 1880s, to the opening of three churches and one school in Havana in 1888.

However, the real establishment of the Episcopal Church in Cuba did not occur until 1902 following the 1898 War of Liberation when other Protestant churches got started as well. By 1904 our church had begun establishing co-ed schools and bilingual education providing a revolutionary step forward from the Roman Catholic parochial schools then in existence. The Episcopal Church grew rapidly because of these efforts.

Throughout the decades the church flourished in the cities and among ex-patriots as well as among the Cuban people themselves. “From 1939 to 1961, under the episcopacy of the Rt. Rev. Alexander H. Blankenship, partnerships developed new trends in ecumenical activity in the Evangelical Council of Churches and participation in theological education with other churches in the Union Evangelical Seminary.” (Historical Reflection of Partnership in Mission by The Ven. Juan Ramon de la Paz Cerezo)

Progress was halted in 1961 when all church property (all property generally!) was nationalized and Bishop Blankenship was kicked out of Cuba. And in 1966 The Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. shamefully ruptured relationship with the church in Cuba as we were played like political pawns in the anti-Communist hysteria and reaction against Fidel Castro’s Cuba. This act of betrayal was not rectified until 2018 when the General Convention of the Episcopal Church voted unanimously to accept the Cuban church back into the fold of the Episcopal Church. I’m surprised (but happy) that they even wanted to be part of us again!

From 1966 until 2018 the Anglican Church in Canada played a heroic role in maintaining contact with the church in Cuba and a Metropolitan Council, consisting of the Archbishop of the West Indies, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and the Primate of Canada provided oversight and council. Strangely, no minutes were ever kept of these Council meetings, so we will never know what some of those discussions and actions were!

A test of the Episcopal Church’s commitment to the Cuban church will be the necessity of raising some 800 million dollars to pay back pensions to clergy who are barred from being in the Cuban social security system (another example of the “soft persecution” endured by Christians in Cuba) and are at the mercy of family and friends in retirement. By canon law, all Episcopal clergy must be provided with pensions, so we will need to guarantee that for this reunited diocese as well.

Our delegation visited the Episcopal Cathedral in Havana on Sunday January 20, 2019. The presider at the Eucharist was The Rt. Reverend Griselda Delgado del Carpo, the first woman in the Cuban episcopate. She spoke only in Spanish, but it is obvious that this is a strong leader with a vision and commitment which will serve her and her people well! The liturgy was in Spanish except that the Gospel was also translated into English and the preacher preached a fine, bilingual sermon all by himself!

A number of us were invited to bring greetings during the time of announcements and we were welcomed with love and enthusiasm both in the Eucharist and in a festive coffee hour which followed the liturgy. In my next blog post, I will have some concluding thoughts, including how one can join and participate in the Friends of the Episcopal Church in Cuba. See http://www.friendsofeccuba.org

This entry was posted on January 30, 2019 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Blogroll, Church Life, Ecumenical, Emergent Church, Interfaith, Justice and Peace, Politics, Politics, Religion, Scripture, The Episcopal Church, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.