Nominations Open for the Cathedral
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Following Bishop Mark Lawrence’s consecration in January, Dean William McKeachie requested that the Bishop work with the Cathedral to develop a schedule for the Dean’s long-delayed sabbatical, as well as his transition to retirement, originally envisaged to take place within eighteen months of Bishop Salmon’s own retirement. Bishop Lawrence has enthusiastically agreed to work closely with the Cathedral Vestry and Chapter in seeking God’s vision for the Cathedral during his episcopate as well as the most vocationally qualified person to become Sixth Dean of South Carolina and next Rector of the Cathedral Parish.
Cathedral parishioners will be submitting to Bishop Lawrence approximately twenty names of potential candidates for Dean and Rector, and now members of congregations throughout the Diocese are invited to submit names also. Please include a nominee’s complete name, his or her present position with as much contact information as possible, and submit in writing to Bishop Lawrence’s secretary by September 19th.
There will be no delay in developing a vision and strategy for the Cathedral Parish’s renewal and growth. A Parish Profile will be available to nominees as part of the discernment process for Dean McKeachie’s successor. There will be no hiatus in leadership but a seamless transition, directly overseen by Bishop Lawrence, with the Reverend J. Robert Horn, IV, serving as Senior Pastoral Assistant during the Dean’s sabbatical. Both Dean McKeachie’s retirement and his successor’s institution are scheduled to take place during Eastertide, 2009.
About the Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul is the second oldest church building – consecrated in 1816 – currently serving as an Episcopal (Anglican) Cathedral in the United States. It was designated as Cathedral of the Diocese in 1963 by act of Diocesan Convention. Its Diocesan status is embodied in a Cathedral Chapter (comprised of elected and ex officio members, the Bishop of South Carolina serving as president) and its parochial governance is embodied in a Vestry comprised of fifteen members elected in rotation by the Annual Parish Meeting. The Rector of the Cathedral Parish customarily serves as Dean of the Diocese.
As the seat of the Bishop of South Carolina, the Cathedral is committed to mission, witness, and worship in the Anglican tradition of biblical, classical, and credal Christianity, and to serve the Diocese, the civic community of Charleston, and, through its wider outreach, various mission fields both locally and globally. (The designation of this parish as the Diocesan Cathedral reflected in part the willingness of its Vestry in1963 to host the first racially integrated Convention of the Diocese.)
The Cathedral’s local evangelism, outreach, and social ministries are currently expressed through the Harriott Pinckney Mission to Seafarers (conducted by the Reverend Lenwood Williams and the Reverend Edward Davis, deacon); through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at the College of Charleston; and through active ecumenical and inter-parish outreach, especially to the arts community of Charleston. The Cathedral’s global mission is expressed primarily through the Diocese of South Carolina’s companion Diocese of the Dominican Republic, and in particular through the ministry of the Rev’d Miguelina Espinal whose training for ordination was sponsored by the Cathedral, as well as through growing relationships with dioceses of the Global South.
The Cathedral is a center of theological education through the Society for the Advancement of Christianity, oldest domestic missionary society in the United States, of which the present Dean is president, and in particular through a new international initiative called “Mere Anglicanism” (www.mereanglicanism.com).
Cathedral worship embraces both formal traditional Anglican liturgy and music and also more informal expressions of Prayer and Praise (incorporating contemporary music of Christian renewal). The Cathedral’s Organist and its Choirmaster fulfill diocesan, parochial, and civic roles as both performers and consultants. The Order of St. Vincent, oldest national liturgical fraternity for laity, is based at the Cathedral.
As the Cathedral prepares to celebrate its congregational bicentennial in 2010, it is currently engaged in a major parochial and community-wide capital campaign which has enabled the correction of decades’ old but long-hidden structural problems which reached crisis propositions in 2002.
To learn more about the Cathedral, visit www.stlukeandstpaul.org.
Nominations should be sent to:
Mrs. Randall McPhail
Administrative Assistant to the Bishop
The Diocese of South Carolina
126 Coming Street
Charleston, SC 29403
rmcphail@dioceseofsc.org
