The Anglican Church of Bermuda (as the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

in the

British Overseas Territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Br ...

Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = "Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , es ...

was retitled in 1978) is a single

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associ ...

consisting of nine

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

es and is part of the

Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other ...

, though not a part of an

ecclesiastical province An ecclesiastical province is one of the basic forms of jurisdiction in Christian Churches with traditional hierarchical structure, including Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. In general, an ecclesiastical province consists of sev ...

. The current

Bishop of Bermuda The Bishop of Bermuda is an episcopal title given to the ordinary of the Anglican Church of Bermuda, one of six extra-provincial Anglican churches within the Church of England overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The present Bishop is Nick ...

, seated at the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity in the City of Hamilton, is Nicholas Dill who was installed on 29 May 2013. As an extra-provincial diocese, both

metropolitan Metropolitan may refer to: * Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories * Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England * Metropolitan county, a typ ...

and primatial authority come directly from the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Just ...

. Among its parish churches is St. Peter's Church in the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

of St. George's Town. St. George's is the oldest English town in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

and St. Peter's is the oldest non-Roman Catholic church in the New World.

History

Trinity Church chapel-of-ease in City of Hamilton, Bermuda 1879

The first Church of England services in Bermuda were celebrated by the Reverend Richard Buck, one of the survivors of the 1609 wreck of the

Sea Venture ''Sea Venture'' was a seventeenth-century English sailing ship, part of the Third Supply mission to the Jamestown Colony, that was wrecked in Bermuda in 1609. She was the 300 ton purpose-built flagship of the London Company and a highly unusual ...

who began Bermuda's permanent settlement. Nine parishes, each with its own church and glebe land, were created when colonisation became official in 1612, but there was rarely more than a pair of clergy to share between them over the following two centuries. From 1825 to 1839, Bermuda was attached to the See of Nova Scotia. Bermuda then became part of the Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda from its creation in 1839 until 1919. In 1879, the synod of the Church of England in Bermuda was formed and a Diocese of Bermuda became separate from the Diocese of Newfoundland, but continued to be grouped under the Bishop of Newfoundland and Bermuda until 1919 when Newfoundland and Bermuda each received its own bishop. Bermuda's first resident Bishop, the Rt. Reverend

Arthur Heber Browne Arthur Heber Browne (186410 June 1951) was the inaugural Bishop of Bermuda. Born in 1864 and educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he was ordained in 1887. After a curacy at Berkeley, Gloucestershire he was appointed the Vicar of Northleach in 1890. ...

who served from 1925 to 1948. In 1896, Black Anglican congregants in the Pembroke Parish organized The Guild of the Good Shepherd, indicating a specific mission to, "improve the social and intellectual standard of its members." This society has remained active for more than 125 years.

Parish structure

In the

, the nine Church of England (since 1978, renamed the Anglican Church of Bermuda as an extraprovincial diocese of the

) parishes are identical with the civil parishes established following official settlement in 1612. Whereas in England the ecclesiastic parishes generally bear the name of the parish church, in Bermuda the parishes are named for shareholders of the

London Company The London Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of London, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N. History Origins The territo ...

or its successor, the Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles, with most of the parish churches named for

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Or ...

s, starting with St. Peter's Church, established in 1612 in St. George's Parish (the only parish named for a saint) as the first Protestant church in the New World.St. Peter's Church
/ref>

Cathedral

The Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda, before a separate

was created in 1919, maintained both the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at St. John's, Newfoundland, and a chapel-of-ease named Trinity Church in the City of Hamilton in Pembroke Parish, Bermuda (which was not to be confused with the much smaller St. John's Church, the parish church for Pembroke Parish). Trinity Church was destroyed by arson and replaced with a similar structure by 1905, which became the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity when the Bishop of Bermuda was established as separate from the Bishop of Newfoundland in 1919.

Notes

Extra-provincial Anglican churches

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