About the Episcopal Church
Christ Church is more than the people who worship
at the corner of St. Emanuel and Church Streets.
One of the distinctive things about being an Episcopalian is the sense of connection
and fellowship one has with other Anglicans and Episcopalians throughout the world.
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Letter from Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe on Military Strike on Iran
Dear people of God in The Episcopal Church,
Here in the United States, we awoke this morning with alarm to the news that the United States and Israel have launched a large military strike on Iran. This violent attack comes despite weeks of negotiations that many of us had hoped would prevent armed conflict in this fragile region, which is home to so many religious traditions and faithful people.
Bishop Jeffrey Mello of Connecticut and a group of pilgrims from that diocese are in the Holy Land now, and when we spoke this morning, he let me know that they are safe at St. George’s College in Jerusalem. I ask you to pray fervently for them and their safe return.
Pray, too, for all the people of the Holy Land, and especially for the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East and its leader, Archbishop Hosam Naoum. I had planned to be with Hosam today and tomorrow when he made a long-planned visit to our church. Many Episcopalians who had hoped to see him and assure him of our support will feel his absence keenly in the coming days. I commend to you the letter that he has sent to the people of his diocese this morning.
As news reports tell us of fear and panic in Iran, I ask you to pray especially for the people of the Diocese of Iran and for all of the Iranian people. In recent weeks, we have mourned as the regime in Iran has killed peaceful protesters, and watched with alarm at both its increasing repression of the Iranian people and the escalating response of the U.S. government. As Christians who follow a Prince of Peace, we mourn that today’s attacks will surely mean further hardship for the most vulnerable Iranians and, as retaliation inevitably follows, suffering that will spread across the entire region.
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The Most Rev. Sean Rowe
Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church
Saturday, February 28, 2026
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Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
Ash Wednesday 2026
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Dear people of God in The Episcopal Church:
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When God told Moses to lead the ancient Israelites out of slavery in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh stood in his way. Pharaoh wanted power and control over God’s people, and Exodus tells us that the more serious the situation got, the more hardened his heart became. Despite locusts and frogs and all manner of chaos in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh remained trapped by his view of the world, which had himself and his power at the center. He could not see that God’s imagination was far bigger and more expansive than his. He could not imagine liberation for God’s people—or for himself.
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Today, in the opening collect of our Ash Wednesday service, we ask God to “create and make in us new and contrite hearts.” I think of Pharaoh’s hard heart, and sometimes my own, when I say that prayer, and never more so than this year.
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These days, it can seem as if we are living in a wasteland of Pharaoh’s imagination. We see the principalities and powers promulgating violence, dehumanization, and injustice on our streets, and it seems nearly impossible not to react along the lines of the divisions and polarization that our political leaders have championed. It is easy to have a hardened heart. It is tempting to get angry and be governed by outrage, or to grow cold and indifferent.
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If we turn from Pharoah’s imagination toward God’s imagination, however, we find a different path. Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. With that great commandment, he is teaching us that we are all one, all part of God’s chosen people, and when we hate and revile each other, we are actually destroying ourselves. Theologian Howard Thurman, whose thinking helped shape the Civil Rights movement, put it like this in “Jesus and the Disinherited”: “The logic of the development of hatred is death to the spirit and disintegration of ethical and moral values.”
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It is not easy to leave behind Pharoah’s imagination and its toxic drip of polarization that hardens our hearts and minds. The liberation we seek requires the conversion—the turning—of our hearts. We can begin that process anytime, but Lent gives us an opportunity to undertake the work together.
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In the old 1928 Book of Common Prayer Ash Wednesday service, we called on the book of Lamentations: “Turn thou us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned.” I believe that as we Episcopalians turn, as we fast and pray for the conversion of our hearts, we can make a great witness to a world that has been brought to its knees by the power of hatred and division.
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On Monday of Holy Week, a number of my bishop colleagues will hold public liturgies or prayer services to lament the violence and hatred that have come to define our common life and to witness to our conviction that Christians must come together across our unholy divisions. I hope that if you can attend a service nearby, you will.
I will also host a service on Zoom on Palm Sunday, March 29, at 8 p.m. Eastern so that we can pray together for God’s blessing on our witness. Look for more information coming soon.
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Like the apostle Paul, the conversion of the heart that we must undertake may start with a blinding light, but the ongoing change it requires is the work of a lifetime, and may require everything we have. This Lent, I pray that God might create and make in us new and contrite hearts that will sustain us as we make our witness to the world.
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Faithfully,
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The Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe
Presiding Bishop
28th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
The Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe, bishop of Northwest Pennsylvania and bishop provisional of Western New York, was elected June 26 by the House of Bishops to serve as the 28th presiding bishop, and his election was confirmed by the House of Deputies at the 81st General Convention. The bishops elected Rowe on their first ballot in a closed session at Christ Christ Episcopal Church in
downtown Louisville. The result later was announced publicly in the House of Deputies’ afternoon session by House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris. The announcement was greeted by cheers from the standing-room-only crowd on the floor of the convention hall at the Kentucky International Convention Center. Click here to read all about GC81.
OTHER RESOURCES
There are a number of sources of more in-depth information about the Episcopal Church and what it means to be an Episcopalian, including:
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The Inquirers Class at Christ Church Cathedral, offered annually during Lent
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The Episcopal Church web site
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The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast web site
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The Book of Common Prayer (the prayer book we use in church)
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The Anglican Communion web site
Or these books are available for purchase by contacting the Cathedral office:
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The Episcopal Handbook
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Those Episkopols by Dennis Maynard
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A People Called Episcopalians by John Westerhoff
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A New Dictionary for Episcopalians by John N. Wall
OUR DIOCESE
Christ Church is the cathedral church of the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. Our diocese includes 18,000 people who worship God and reach out to others in 61 parishes in the southern part of Alabama and the western panhandle of Florida. It is one of two Episcopal dioceses in the state of Alabama and one of five in Florida. Our bishop is the Right Reverend J. Russell Kendrick.
The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast web site.
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THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
The Episcopal Church is a fellowship of 2.2 million Christians in 108 dioceses throughout the United States as well as Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, the Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Micronesia, Taiwan, and the Convocation of American Churches in Europe. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is the Most Reverend Michael B. Curry. Bishop Curry, previously the Bishop of North Carolina, was elected during the 78th General Convention in June 2015. He took office in November 2015.
The Episcopal Church web site
THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION
The Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, a global fellowship of 73 million Christians in 38 self-governing provinces. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the Most Reverend and Right Honorable Justin Welby. While he is sometimes compared to a pope, a more accurate description of his role is that he is "first among equals" with his brother and sister bishops from throughout the Anglican Communion.
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The world-wide Anglican Communion web site