Episcopal Diocese of Alabama
in Birmingham, United StatesCategory: Attraction
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Regions Center, 505 20th St N #825, Birmingham, AL 35203, USA Print route »
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The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama is located in Province IV of the Episcopal Church and serves the state of Alabama with the exception of the extreme southern region, including Mobile, which forms part of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast.Currently, the Right Reverend John McKee "Kee" Sloan serves as diocesan bishop. Sloan was elected by the diocese to serve as its 11th bishop on July 16, 2011, and was installed into that office on January 7, 2012, having previously served from 2008 to 2012 as bishop suffragan. The Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham serves as its cathedral. The Bishops' Offices are located at Carpenter House in Birmingham alongside the Church of the Advent, a pre-existing parish that the diocese designated as its cathedral in 1982.
The diocese currently includes 92 parishes, including college campus ministries and Camp McDowell, the diocesan camp and conference center, located in Nauvoo, Alabama.
The total membership of the diocese is estimated at over 30,000 persons. Alabama is the only diocese in the Episcopal Church where there are no mission congregations; that is, all churches are expected to be self-supporting and self-governing parishes, with diocesan subsidies reserved for new church starts only. The policy was instituted by Bishop Furman C. Stough in the 1970s.
Like most of its southern neighbors, the diocese's churchmanship heritage is predominantly of the low variety, reflecting the influence of the founders' origins in places like Virginia and South Carolina. In colonial times, those southern colonies were bastions of evangelical, even Calvinist sentiment among the Anglican clergy and gentry. And like the ECUSA in general, the diocese's members are mostly affluent professionals and businesspeople, often among the wealthiest residents of their respective communities, some of whom have maintained Episcopalian affiliation for several generations. However, these people have largely co-existed peacefully with more liberal parishioners who look upon the Episcopal Church as an alternative to fundamentalist options within Southern Protestantism. The Anglican realignment movement among conservatives in protest against the consecration of the openly homosexual bishop Gene Robinson in the 2000s had only a minor, but lasting, impact in Alabama. Two congregations in Montgomery experienced significant rifts. The Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham has also been outspoken in its opposition to the direction of the Episcopal Church.
