The Episcopal Church in eastern Massachusetts invites you to come and see what makes our faith communities meaningful to the people who call them home.
Along the spiritual road to her groundbreaking role in the Episcopal Church, Barbara Clementine Harris was a volunteer prison chaplain who spent so much time praying with those behind bars that she could have tallied a two-year jail sentence of her own.
It wasn’t enough for her, though. “I was…
This page collects Diocese of Massachusetts updates and information regarding ongoing COVID-19 response.
Guidance and messages from our bishops & leadership
The most recent updates and guidelines are linked below. Find a complete list of …
March 14, 2020
Dear People of the Diocese of Massachusetts,
Yesterday I looked out at the city park beneath my window. The usual Friday afternoon bustle was nowhere in evidence. A surreal and eerie quiet had descended there, as it has on so much of our lives. Two lonely…
"Bishop Harris was not large of physical stature. In fact, the opposite. But she was larger than life. She was larger than life because she lived it fully with her God and with us. She did it by actually living the love of God that Jesus taught us about. She did it walking the lonesome valley of…
It has been said that God's time and ours met on Feb. 11, 1989, when Barbara C. Harris became the first woman to be ordained a bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion. On that day, while the world watched, a woman donned the symbolic regalia of the church's highest order for the first time…
Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts Photo: David Zadig
The Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris, at her historic consecration service on Feb. 11, 1989.
The Rt. Rev. Alan M. Gates, Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, announced on March 13,…
Bishop Alan M. Gates issued the following pastoral guidance on March 12, 2020, which supplements directives issued on March 11, posted here. A Spanish-language version is attached as a PDF below. See a growing list of congregations live-streaming and podcasting services here.
March 12,…
Bishop Alan M. Gates and Bishop Gayle E. Harris issued the following directive on March 11, 2020, effective immediately and until further notice. It replaces previously issued guidelines. A Spanish-language version is attached below. See a growing list of congregations live…
In our own backyard, across the country and around the world, faith communities are working together to help curb climate change.
On Cape Cod, the Faith Communities Environmental Network is actively working together to take action. They now number over 25 faith communities strong. Currently co-led…
Amory Houghton Jr. made a habit of welcoming new challenges at ages when many people think their life’s most significant work is in the past. Elected to Congress at 60, he served for 18 years and for a while counted among his interns one with an unusual resume: the Right Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, the…
