Community

Archbishop to dedicate Church

Rt. Rev.A.Donald Davies

St. Alban's Church of England is pleasedto announce the Dedication of their Church facilities on the Sunday,6th May 2001, when The Most Reverend A. Donald Davies, S.T.B.,S.T.M., D.D. will conduct a Service of Dedication and Consecrationat 3 p.m. at the Church, 461 Shedden Road, George Town.

The Church has enjoyed an association withArchbishop Davies since 1993, when he first began his oversightof the Church of England in the Cayman Islands and confirmed severalmembers. Archbishop Davies has been an Anglican Bishop since 1970when he was consecrated Bishop of Dallas in the Episcopal Churchof the U.S.A.

Following an episcopate there, distinguishedby the initiation and strengthening of notable diocesan ministriesin vital areas of concern such as Renewal Ministries, EducationalMinistries, Urban Ministries, Lay Ministries and Pastoral Ministriesthe Diocese was in 1982 divided into two Jurisdictions, the Dioceseof Dallas and the Diocese of Fort Worth.

Bishop Davies chose to become the Bishopof Fort Worth. At the time that he would be expected to retireBishop Davies was asked to oversee the Convocation of AmericanChurches in Europe, where he worked closely with the Church ofEngland's Diocese of Europe.

In 1992 Bishop Davies, having retired fromactive service in the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A., respondedto the needs of Episcopalian Anglicans in the United States foran oversight that would be firm on matters of faith and order,and began to preside over a number of congregations with theirpriests that became known as the Episcopal Missionary Church.After some reorganisation, he currently presides as Archbishopover what is now known as the Christian Episcopal Church, whichhas congregations in the United States and Canada.

It was in 1993 that, having heard aboutthe work of the Church of England in the Cayman Islands and recognisingits need for episcopal oversight at that time, Bishop Davies graciouslyoffered the Cayman Church his oversight for as long as this wasneeded.

History of the Church of England in theCayman Islands

The Church lays claim to a continuous ecclesiasticaljurisdiction in the Cayman Islands that goes back to the timeof the official first settlement of the Islands, occurring probablyin 1734.

Since that time, there have been a numberof periods in which the Church was in congregational existence:the earliest known historical record of this is 1802 when "Governor"William Bodden made available for it a place of worship in BoddenTown.

The Church seems from that time to havebeen in a somewhat tentative existence and governed by local inhabitantsuntil 1831, when the Church of England's Bishop of Jamaica undertookto oversee the Church and supply a clergyman.

This period of oversight lasted until 1839.During this period the record shows that two clergymen held thepost of "Island Curate" consecutively: the Rev'd ThomasSharpe, from December 1831 to December 1834 and the Rev'd DavidWilson, from June 1836 to early 1839. In 1834 the Bishop consecratedthe first church in George Town, which was the original churchon what is now the site of the United Church's Elmslie Memorialchurch.

A second church was also in use for a time,often thought to have been in Bodden Town, but which further researchhas shown to have more likely been in Prospect.

After 1839, when the Island Curate returnedto the Colony of Jamaica, local pastoral care passed under thehands first of Wesleyans and then from 1846 of Presbyterians,and the Church of England site in George Town was ceded to theChurch of Scotland.

In the 1960s Anglicanism again began tobe organised locally with a "Church of England Committee",and once more an episcopal oversight from Jamaica of this workbegan to be formally exercised in 1970, though it was no longera ministry of the Church of England.

The Church of England, Cayman Islands hasbeen in current and continuous congregational existence since1983, when a congregation of the Church was re-organised, andfrom 1989 has had its two congregations of St. Alban's in GrandCayman and St. Mary's in Cayman Brac.

With the oversight of Archbishop Daviesthe Church of England, Cayman Islands seeks to uphold by the Grace,the Love and the Spirit of God not only the local legal rightof worshipping as part of the Church of England, but also theChurch's biblical and catholic Faith, her Ethics and her Ordersin the unsullied condition in which they have been divinely impartedto the Flock of Jesus Christ.

In the summer of 1999 ,after several yearsof prayer and then a telephone call from the owner of what isnow our property at 461 Shedden Road, we were led quickly to anagreement to purchase it. The purchase was concluded after considerablefinancial effort and with the help of generous giving and a bankloan.

These, together, have also enabled the churchto remodel the existing building with the graciously donated architecturalhelp of B.G. Serrant & Associates, the cooperation of thePlanning Department, the congregation's own offering of theirefforts and the work of Paul Alberga's company Circle Square.

Eventually, the St. Alban's congregationstopped using the South Sound Community Centre (after 17 years)and began to use their own Church building on Advent Sunday 2000- a true Millennium marker. The use of the existing building representsthe first phase of a project to develop the whole site, the furtherphases of which will follow when finances are available.

Now seven years and seven months after theprovision of Archbishop Davies' oversight of the Church of England,Cayman Islands, we will be greatly blessed by the Lord once moreas the Archbishop dedicates and consecrates St. Alban's Church,461 Shedden Road, George Town, Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.

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