The Diocesan Dialogue
Current Issue
November 2007

Episcopal Church to Celebrate 400th Anniversary at Jamestown

Native Americans and other Episcopalians from around the country will gather in Jamestown, Virginia for a celebration on Nov. 1.

Included in the gathering participants will be representatives of St. Elizabeth's, Whiterock, and Holy Spirit, Randlett.

The ceremony on All Saints Day will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown Colony and the start of the Episcopal Church there.

It will also be a time of reaffirming the 1997 Jamestown Covenant and inaugurating a second Decade of Remembrance, Recognition and Reconciliation with indigenous peoples in the Episcopal Church.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori will preside at the Eucharist for the commemoration.

Bishop Steven Charleston, preacher at the Utah diocesan convention, is also participating in the Jamestown celebration.

Janine Tinsley-Roe, Native American missioner for the Episcopal Church, noted that the General Convention resolution which calls for the renewal of the Decade of Remembrance was sponsored by the Diocese of Utah.

It is from Jamestown that the Episcopal Church traces its history
in the United States.

It was also from there that Native Americans could trace the impact of the European invasion as it swept from the East and Gulf Coasts to Alaska and Hawaii.

Utah Bishop Carolyn Tanner Irish cited the Jamestown Covenant in calling together this year's diocesan convention under the theme, "Those who were before us."

The convention featured Eucharist in the manner of the Ute people and signing the renewal of the Jamestown Covenant by convention delegates and guests to the convention.

The annual meetings of Paths Crossing and Mountains and Deserts will be held in conjunction
with the ceremony as well.

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