Episcopal Diocese of Long Island turns to 'We the People' to select its next bishop

The Episcopal Diocese of Long Island is selecting a new bishop, but instead of a top-down decision, it will be an exercise in democracy, complete with candidates, town halls where they will be grilled by the faithful and a convention where delegates, including laypeople, will vote.

The convention will feature two chambers somewhat like the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, with a two-thirds majority in each required for approval.

The diocese even ran an ad announcing the opening and soliciting candidates.

"It’s a very democratic way of selecting your leader," said Jason Moskal, a deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island who is helping to lead the search for a new bishop. The Episcopal Church is "set up very similar to the United States government."

It all goes back to the creation of the Episcopal Church in the 1780s and the Founding Fathers, who wanted democracy not only in their government but in their religion, too.

Like the American Revolution, the Episcopal Church was a reaction against monarchy, according to church historians. George Washington and other Founding Fathers became Episcopalians as they broke away from the Church of England around the same time they broke away from England itself.

"We the People" became the inspiration and rallying cry not just of the U.S. Constitution and the new United States of America, but of the Episcopal Church as well.

Centuries later, that is playing out on Long Island. The election is taking place because Bishop Lawrence Provenzano, 70, who took over as head of the diocese in 2009, is stepping down as he nears the mandatory retirement age of 72. Applications are being accepted through Oct. 31. A search committee will narrow the list to between three and five candidates.

'Meet and greets'

Then, in early spring, the candidates will participate in "meet and greets" throughout the diocese that are like political town halls: parishioners and clergy can ask them anything.

Finally, on April 18, priests, deacons and scores of laypeople representing their parishes will gather at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City to vote. It could be a daylong affair with multiple ballots until a winner is declared.

The new bishop is to be installed in late September.

It’s distinct from the Roman Catholic Church, which sometimes makes nominal efforts to obtain input from local parishioners and priests on issues such as a new bishop but ultimately relies on the pope, church experts said.

The Catholic Church is "much more similar to a monarchy," said John Thavis, a longtime Vatican correspondent and author of "The Vatican Diaries." "The pope has the ultimate power and decision making ... when it comes not only to selecting bishops, but many, many other things."

The Episcopal Church took another route, almost by necessity, said the Right Rev. R. William Franklin, an expert in the history of the Episcopal Church and an adjunct professor at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan.

When the British settled at Jamestown in 1607, they brought with them their religion — the Anglican Church, also known as the Church of England. It was in the Anglican Church there that Pocahontas, a newly converted Christian, renamed Lady Rebecca, married John Rolfe in 1614.

But by the time the American Revolution erupted a century and a half later, the rebels had a problem: Members of the Church of England pledged their loyalty to England's monarchy. That wouldn’t work, since the revolutionaries were specifically fighting for their independence from the British monarchy.

"When the revolution came, the Anglicans of the Church of England were on the wrong side of the revolution," Franklin said.

Came from Anglican Church

So by the 1780s, after the revolution had triumphed and the Founding Fathers were working on the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia, a new form of the Anglican Church was emerging — the Episcopal Church. It took over Church of England parishes and kept most of the practices and beliefs of the Anglican Church, except the way it was governed.

The idea was to create a church based on democracy instead of monarchy.

"Somebody once said the Episcopal Church structure is like taking the dome of the U.S. Capitol, referencing democracy, and putting it together with the dome of St. Peter's in Rome, representing Catholicism," Franklin said.

"We would have disappeared if we'd kept that name, Church of England," he added. "We could not have been under the control of the English king."

The Episcopal Church has had a big impact on U.S. history, he said.

Many of the Founding Fathers, formerly members and even local leaders of the Anglican Church, became Episcopalians. They included Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.

Eleven presidents were Episcopalians, including Washington, Madison, James Monroe and George H.W. Bush. No other denomination has had more.

Trinity Church in lower Manhattan was founded in 1697 as an Anglican Church but later became Episcopalian. Hamilton rented a pew and is buried there, along with his wife, Eliza Hamilton. Washington was a regular Trinity parishioner, too, when New York City was the first capital of the United States. He prayed at nearby St. Paul’s Chapel, an outgrowth of Trinity, after his inauguration as president in 1789.

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the "mother church" of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, which is near Columbia University, is the largest cathedral in the Western Hemisphere.

Today, the founders’ dream of democracy in religion is still felt on Long Island.

The Diocese of Long Island on Sept. 24 sent out a job qualification page soliciting candidates and listing the bishop’s duties. Priests and bishops, including women, are eligible.

Vote on April 18

Candidates send in their resumes, answer five essay questions and undergo screening interviews. Anyone in the diocese can view the materials.

The voting on April 18 will include two groups — one made up of ordained priests and deacons (something akin to the Senate) and the other made up of laypeople (the House of Representatives).

The Episcopal Diocese of Long Island has 128 parishes and about 21,000 members. It is dwarfed by the Catholic Church, which has 1.2 million baptized Catholics in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

Janice Commentz, 81, a parishioner at the Church of St. Jude in Wantagh, said she converted to the Episcopal Church from the Presbyterian Church when she was 21 because of its liturgies, music and openness to the laity.

She will be at the convention in April to elect the Episcopal Diocese's next bishop. She has already attended four general conventions of the church, where clergy and laity made decisions for the entire Episcopal Church.

"That’s the wonderful part about being an Episcopalian," she said. "The laity has a role in a lot of different things that go on in the church."