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Uncovering the Hidden History of Enslaved People at St. Paul’s Parish, Baltimore
—The Rev. Mary Luck Stanley
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland invited me to research the history of St. Paul’s Church in relationship to chattel slavery, and to present at the Trail of Souls Pilgrimage. I am grateful to Audry Gagnon, a former intern with the Episcopal Service Corps, for her research at the Maryland Historical Society. Thanks also to John Henderson, civil rights attorney and former Sr. Warden, for his research into the story of Reverdy Johnson.
Tobacco
When the Diocese of London founded St. Paul’s Parish in 1692 as an established member of the Church of England, people living within the parish boundaries were taxed forty pounds of tobacco per year, paid to the Church. For the first hundred years of this congregation’s life, tobacco income was the main source of support. The clergy of St. Paul’s were granted “glebe land” to grow tobacco, thus providing for their income. Typically, enslaved people farmed the tobacco. St. Paul’s Church was built on the labor of enslaved people.
Baptisms and Marriages
Beginning in the 1790s, and for the following hundred years, more than one hundred people of African descent were recorded in the parish register as being baptized by the clergy of St. Paul’s. A slave balcony was included in the third church that seated 1700 people, before it burned down in 1854. The parish register lists “slave, mulatto, negro, and free black” names both for baptisms and marriages up until the 1830’s. Presumably, the opening of St. James’ Parish for African Americans, founded in 1824, caused the drop off in baptisms.
Clergy Responsibilities
“Under the wing of St. Paul’s: In 1873, when St. James’ Church had been greatly weakened by withdrawals and other causes, the vestry requested the Rev. Dr. Hodges, rector of St. Paul’s Parish, to assume charge of the spiritualities of the parish. Hence, from then until the end of 1888, the priests in charge of the parish were assistants of the Rev. Dr. Hodges. The last priest furnished by St. Paul’s was a colored clergyman, Father B. W. Timothy.” —St. James Church: History 1824-1949, Anniversary Pamphlet from 1849, page 5.
As part of a diocesan ministry, at the request of the bishop of Maryland, the clergy from St. Paul’s also took on some of the pastoral ministry for the Johns Hopkins Colored Orphan Asylum. There are almost fifty names of girls at the Colored Orphan Asylum who were listed in the register as being baptized in the twenty years that St. Paul’s was in charge of their care.
Abolition
“In 1789, leaders of St. Paul’s Church organized the founding of The Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and Others Unlawfully held in Bondage. This was the fourth anti-slavery society in the United States and the sixth in the world. Founding members included Judge Samuel Chase, Attorney General Luther Martin, and Dr. George Buchanan, all from St. Paul’s.” —St. Paul’s Parish Baltimore: a chronicle of the Mother Church, by Francis F. Beirne, page 47.
“The manumission of slaves, which a decade before had received stimulus from Dr. George Buchanan and the anti-slavery society, was creating a problem. The freed men found much difficulty adjusting to their new condition for they had virtually nowhere to go. A possible solution which attracted many people was the proposal to establish a nation for them in Africa. Again some members of St. Paul’s took an active interest in the plan. John Eager Howard was vice president of the Colonization Society which was organized on a national scale with headquarters in Washington.” —St. Paul’s Parish Baltimore, page 84.
Reverdy Johnson
In 1931, the children and grandchildren of vestryman Reverdy Johnson (1796-1876) had a brass memorial mounted on a wall in the nave of St Paul’s. Inscribed on the plaque are the words, “lover of the Anglo-Saxon Race, of North and South, of Justice and of Peace.” The life of Reverdy Johnson reflects the fact that Baltimore was caught in the crosshairs of issues swirling around slavery and the Civil War. Johnson epitomizes these complexities, arguing, as an attorney, a pro-slavery position in the ruinous Dred Scott case, but also advocating for the 13th Amendment (ending slavery) a decade later. He favored the Union, and called the Confederates traitors, while also advocating for state autonomy. He condemned slavery and gave up the slaves he inherited, though he campaigned against extending citizenship, equal protection of the law, and voting rights to the freedmen, opposing both the 14th and 15th Amendments. Johnson regularly opposed Lincoln, but also became an ally in the war, ending up as a pallbearer at Lincoln’s funeral.
Call No One Father
—The Rev. Mark Stanley
Isn’t it time that we stopped using the title “Father” for priests? Even though Jesus said, “Call no one Father” (Matthew 23:9), I don’t think we need to use the literal sense of that text as the foundation for this change.
I would start with the baptismal theology of our 1979 Book of Common Prayer. One of the great thrusts of our current Prayer Book is honoring the ministry of the laity. What is most important is that we are all baptized. As baptized members of Christ’s body, we have ministries either as lay or ordained people. So why should priests get a special (and seemingly superior) title? What is meant as a sign of respect towards the clergy seems to reinforce an outmoded hierarchy.
I know a priest who likes to be called Father because “I have worked so hard for this role and I want the respect this vocation deserves.” This is certainly a valid concern in a societal context where all authority figures are getting less respect. My response is that authentic respect flows from who we are and not what we are called. Our pastoral leadership and spiritual presence, and not any special title, will be the real source of a congregation giving us authority.
In addition, with the ordination of women in 1976 we have changed who can be in the priesthood. Is there an equivalent title to “Father” for women? Some women clergy like being called “Mother.” Others can’t stand it. It doesn’t help that “Mother” is also a title used by Roman Catholic nuns. In the Episcopal Church we have both genders ordained. This decision has consequences. We just can’t have one gender with a standard title that does not work for all. This seems like a simple issue of justice. Are men who like the title “Father” willing to let this title go for the sake of our clergy sisters?
Is “Father” really even the best title to describe what a priest does? I remember being a newly ordained 25 year old priest and having an elderly woman in our parish continually calling me “Father.” Do I really function like a father to her? This puts me in the parent role and her in the child position. It can actually be harming the spiritual development of parishioners to be putting them in this infantilizing position.
Furthermore, using the title Father creates the potential for theological confusion. Imagine a priest about to lead the Lord’s Prayer. It is then announced “Father Smith will now lead us in the ‘Our Father.’” Here is a situation where you are calling God “Father” in close connection with calling the priest “Father.” Is this ordained human being really in the same role as the Divine? Unfortunately some people already fall into that misunderstanding. Having a spiritual leader with the same title as the first person of the Trinity is just not a good set up for anyone.
In general I think people should be able to be called whatever they want. However when a title has the potential of getting in the way of the mission of the church, I would hope that people would be willing to make a change. Even if that change requires the sacrifice of a beloved title.
I don’t have the answer to what priests should be called. I do know that whatever we are called it should be the same title for both men and women. I find that it feels great to be a pastoral leader who is on a mutual first name basis with the people in my parish. They seem to like it too. So I propose we stick with the most meaningful names we have, our baptismal names—the names with which we are marked as Christ’s own forever.
Origen: Heretic or Saint?
By The Rev. Mark Stanley
For the first time in my life, I am presenting a resolution to the Diocesan Convention–a resolution on the topic of the early church theologian, Origen of Alexandria. I realize that it is pretty nerdy, but it has been bothering me that such a brilliant man was never canonized as a saint. Many early church scholars, including Henri Crouzel, SJ (Professor of Patristics at the Catholic Institute of Toulouse and the Gregorian University in Rome), have asserted that Origen has been “unjustly branded a heretic” (Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, pg 503). Trying to correct this wrong, I am presenting a Resolution at the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland’s Convention on May 13, 2016 for Origen of Alexandria to be included in the Episcopal Church’s calendar of “saints.”
Born to Christian parents in 185 AD, Origen spent the first part of his career as a teacher in Alexandria, Egypt. During the persecution of Christians by the Roman Emperor Septimius Serverus in Alexandria in 202, in which his father was killed, teenage Origen desired martyrdom but his mother prevented him from leaving the house by hiding his clothes. Because of his Christian faith, Origen chose to lead a strict ascetic life of fasting, prayer, and voluntary poverty. According to the historian Eusebius, Origen supposedly even castrated himself because of his misinterpretation of Matthew 19:12. (Recent scholars have questioned the truth of this story, however, speculating that this may have been just a rumor circulated by his detractors.) In 250 AD, during a later persecution, Origen was imprisoned for being a Christian and cruelly tortured, after which he survived only a few years.
Refusing to deny his beliefs, Origen’s willingness to undergo personal suffering gave witness to his dedication to Christ. Origen, who was renowned for the breadth and depth of his scholarship, wrote influential works in the fields of theology, textual criticism, biblical commentary, preaching, and spirituality.
Hundred of years after the death of Origen, the Emperor Justinian instigated Origen’s condemnation and had many of his works burned. In 553 AD, the Fifth Ecumenical Council at Constantinople seems to have condemned Origin as a heretic. That this council actually condemned him is both “enigmatic and problematic” (Philip Esler, The Early Christian World, Volume 2, pg 262). The Catholic Encyclopedia (volume 11, pg 308) even states that Origen “does not deserve to be ranked among the promoters of heresy.”
Scholars today call Origen “the church’s first systematic theologian” and “the foremost biblical scholar of the early church.” Saint Jerome proclaimed Origen the “greatest teacher of wisdom and knowledge after the apostles.” Yet many of Origen’s works did not survive due to his condemnation several centuries after his death. This needs to be corrected. Some of this later criticism comes from Origen’s wide ranging philosophical speculation at a time when Christian orthodoxy was still forming. It is problematic to label as heresy Origen’s theories about the pre-existence of souls or the Son being inferior to the Father (which he may not have actually claimed) since the church at that time did not yet have official teachings on these matters.
Unfortunately some of the accusations against Origen were actually due to misunderstandings of his writings as well as the attribution of later speculations by his followers to him. Another point of controversy is Origen’s concept of Apokatastasis, that all creatures (even the Devil) could ultimately be reconciled with God. While scholars today debate whether Origen truly taught a version of Universal Salvation, Origen’s emphasis on the patience and enduring mercy of God, rather than on Divine punishment, might be seen in our own day as not heresy but as Good News. The great Anglican historian Henry Chadwick puts it this way, “If orthodoxy were a matter of intention, no theologian could be more orthodox than Origen, none more devoted to the cause of Christian faith.”
Origen is deserving of a place on our liturgical calendar with his rare combination of scholarly genius and a saintly life dedicated to Christ. The next step is a Resolution recommending Origen be included in the next edition of A Great Cloud of Witnesses: A Calendar of Commemorations. Then, on to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 2018 to work for final approval from the national church.
Origen scholar, The Rev. Dr. Rebecca Lyman, states, “if anyone represented Anglican rationality, love of scripture, and holiness of life, it is Origen.”
All Hallows’ Eve: A Time for Remembering
—Katherine Mead-Brewer
I’ve been thinking a great deal about death lately. Not only is it the week of Halloween, but I’ve also recently had more than a few friends suffer through major surgeries, vehicle collisions, and severe illness. And so maybe it’s because of these events and meditations that I’ve also been feeling especially grateful to have such a life- and living-centered faith. For although many focus on the torment and violent death of Christ, it is important to also constantly remind oneself of what it was he was dying for. To my mind, Christ was not simply a sacrifice, but a man who died for his dedication to the love, life, and eternity of the world. The legacy of Jesus then, for me, has always been a life-centered faith. A faith where the mysterious God empowers us to conquer death, where all things are interconnected and eternal rather than isolated, linear, and full of endings.
Despite this legacy, however, the Christian Church, like many religions, has left in its wake a tremendously bloody history thanks to the failings, fears, and prejudices of its practitioners over the centuries: persecution of countless men and women as witches, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and many other instances of war, terrorism, conquest, and “cleansing.”
As Halloween is nearly upon us, it strikes me as a strangely ideal time to pause and give a moment of remembrance to those who have suffered and to those who continue to suffer at the hands of people who claim to be acting in the name and service of God.
To aid you in this, I leave you with a prayer from Michel Quoist’s classic meditation, Prayers:
Grant me, Lord, to spread true love in the world.
Grant that by me and by your children it may penetrate a little
into all circles, all societies, all economic and political
systems, all laws, all contracts, all rulings;
Grant that it may penetrate into offices, factories, apartment
buildings, movie houses, dance halls;
Grant that it may penetrate the hearts of men and that I may
never forget that the battle for a better world is a battle of
love, in the service of love.
(Quoist, pg 103)
Christ Church Cemetery, Alexandria, VA
Photo by Jessica Sexton, OSP Youth Minister
Rite III: Spontaneity & Creativity in Worship
–Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, 1979, pg. 400
This past Sunday, The Rev. Mark Stanley focused Forum on the history and use of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (BCP). But what I thought would be a more purely historical lecture quickly surprised me by transforming into a lesson in Episcopal spontaneity and openness. To many, Episcopalians aren’t exactly known for their art, dance, spontaneity, or creativity. Our dedication and focus on the calendar and contents of the BCP is at once what binds us as a denomination, helping laypeople participate more easily and giving us firm ties to our historical foundations, as well as what often labels us in many eyes as staid, deeply ritualistic, and even unwelcoming of change.
This Sunday, however, I learned about a new face of the Episcopal Church and of our Prayer Book—I learned of possibilities like (what’s commonly known as) Rite III, The Order for Celebrating the Holy Eucharist, a guide to holding an exceptionally more free-form, creative, and spontaneous service than our typical fare. As you may have noticed in my epigraph, our Prayer Book outlines a style of service that not only allows for the possibility of having the congregation respond to the Word of God through dance, but through “other art forms” as well, through any respectful, reverent, and heartfelt art we choose! We could, theoretically, paint our response to the Word. We could (mindfully, lovingly) jazz-scat our response or line dance or write poetry, using our freedom and unique gifts to better pursue and strengthen our relationship with God.
If kids get to worship by putting on pageants in church, then why can’t adults?
In 1549, Thomas Cranmer came out with the first Prayer Book to help make worship more inclusive and participatory for the laypeople (helping translate services into English and welcoming laypeople to join the priest in things like saying the Lord ’s Prayer). Since then, the Episcopal Church has updated the Prayer Book four times (we now currently use the 1979 version; though, in the overall Anglican history, the BCP has been revised many times), working to make our services as welcoming, participatory, loving, open, and true to ourselves as possible. And while Cranmer may not have imagined a world where his idea for the Prayer Book allowed for dance, poetry, song, and art as responses to the Word of God, I think it’s safe to say that he would be glad to know the Episcopal Church has kept firmly to its tradition of inclusivity—working to welcome and encourage worship in its congregants that meets them where they are on their faith journeys, that helps them connect to their Creator through the talents and blessings said Creator has bestowed upon them.
I often feel funny in church, because I’m one for whom writing is the best meditation; it’s what helps me think more clearly and creatively about my day, my thoughts, and the world around me. I was the kid in class who was always taking notes, and now in Old St. Paul’s Forums and worship services, I’m that layperson who seems to always be filling up a notebook in between hymns. For me, writing is a way to better connect with not only what I learn in Forum, but what I feel after listening to the choir perform, what occurs to me as I listen to the sermon, and even helps clarify my thinking when it comes time to pray.
While we may not take up the wildness of the Rite III every Sunday as a congregation, know that this doesn’t mean you’re barred from taking it up for yourself whenever you need it. Try bringing a notebook or sketchpad to church with you one Sunday and see how that changes (or doesn’t change) your experience. Don’t ever be afraid or embarrassed to approach worship and responding to the Word as best fits and feels right to you.
–Katherine Mead-Brewer
Living Our Faith: St. Paul's Episcopal Church 