The Church in the Province of the West Indies is one of 40 member

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

s in the worldwide

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 ...

. The church comprises eight

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 ...

s spread out over much of the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

area. The present position of

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdio ...

and

Primate Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter includin ...

of the West Indies is held by the current bishop of Jamaica, Howard Gregory. Gregory was elected as the thirteenth Archbishop of the Province by clergy and laity attending the 40th Synod of the CPWI at the Cascadia Hotel, in Port of Spain, Trinidad in May 2019. The position was previously held by John Holder who retired in 2018.

Drexel Gomez Drexel Wellington Gomez (born 24 January 1937) is a Bahamian Anglican bishop. Life and ministry Gomez was born on the Berry Islands in the Bahamas. He graduated from St Chad's College, Durham University, in 1959. He was enthroned and consecrate ...

was the primate before Bishop Holder until 2009. The church is also part of the

Global South The concept of Global North and Global South (or North–South divide in a global context) is used to describe a grouping of countries along socio-economic and political characteristics. The Global South is a term often used to identify region ...

History

The West Indies became a self-governing

in 1883 because of 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 ...

missions in territories that became British colonies. It is made up of two mainland dioceses and six island dioceses, including

Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estima ...

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wa ...

Guyana Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...

, the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the a ...

, the North-Eastern Caribbean and Aruba,

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

, and the

Windward Islands french: Îles du Vent , image_name = , image_caption = ''Political'' Windward Islands. Clockwise: Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada. , image_alt = , locator_map = , location = Caribbean Sea No ...

. Great emphasis is being placed on training personnel for an indigenous ministry. The island locations and scattered settlements make pastoral care difficult and costly.

Mission organisations

The Jamaica Church Missionary Society is the recognised missionary agency of the

Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands The Anglican Diocese of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands is a diocese of the Church in the Province of the West Indies. It was originally formed as the Diocese of Jamaica, within the Church of England, in 1824. At that time the diocese included the ...

in the Province of the West Indies. The society focuses on evangelisation with special relevance to daily human needs. The society was established in 1861 as a subsidiary of the church, intended to target those sections of Jamaica's "hard to reach" population. For many years the mission stations established and maintained by the society provided the only means of reaching the masses of the population with Christianity and basic education.

Theological college

The

Codrington College Codrington College is an Anglican theological college in St. John, Barbados now affiliated with the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill. It is one of the oldest Anglican theological colleges in the Americas. It was affiliated to the Un ...

, an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

preparatory in

Saint John, Barbados The parish of Saint John (St. John) is a parish of Barbados on the eastern side of the island. It is home to one of its secondary schools, The Lodge School. It is home to the St. John's Parish Church, which has a scenic view of the Atlantic Ocea ...

, opened in 1745.

Dioceses

* Diocese of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands *

* Jamaica and the Cayman Islands *

Diocese of the North East Caribbean and Aruba The Anglican Diocese of North East Caribbean and Aruba was originally established in 1842 as the Diocese of Antigua and the Leeward Islands when the Anglican Diocese of Barbados, then with the Diocese of Jamaica, one of the two dioceses covering th ...

References

External links

Anglican Communion provincial websiteChurch of England history in the West IndiesAnglicanism in the West Indies and Caribbean
from

Project Canterbury Project Canterbury (sometimes abbreviated as PC) is an online archive of material related to the history of Anglicanism. It was founded by Richard Mammana, Jr. in 1999 with a grant from Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, and is ho ...

Anglican Diocese of Belize Web siteAbout St. Kitts Anglican Church
— part of the Diocese of North East Caribbean and Aruba 01