Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia
| Diocese of Southwestern Virginia | |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Ecclesiastical province | Province III |
| Statistics | |
| Congregations | 56 (2014) |
| Members | 10,593 (2014) |
| Information | |
| Rite | Episcopal |
| Current leadership | |
| Bishop | Mark Allen Bourlakas |
| Map | |
 Location of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia |
|
| Website | |
| www.dioswva.org | |
Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America located in the southwest area of Virginia. It is in Province III (for the Middle Atlantic region). The diocese includes 56 parishes in the state's southwestern region, including the cities of Lynchburg and Roanoke, with offices in the latter city.
The Diocese of Southwestern Virginia was created from two separate diocesan splits. The Diocese of Virginia split to form the Diocese of Southern Virginia in 1892. The Diocese of Southwestern Virginia split off from the Diocese of Southern Virginia in 1919. The Bishop of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia is a member ex officio of the Board of Trustees for Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg.
There has been an Anglican presence in the area that now comprises the Episcopal Diocese of Southwestern Virginia since 1738, when Anthony Gavin, rector of Goochland Parish, travelled to new settlers in more than a dozen preaching places in the Blue Ridge foothills and Shenandoah Valley, where members of the established church from eastern Virginia had settled among the Scotch-Irish and Germans who flooded into the area. In spite of negative stereotypes of the colonial Virginia clergy, all fifteen who served in this area conducted themselves honorably and most supported the patriots in the Revolution. Nonetheless, the established church lost its privileged position in the Revolutionary settlement, particularly with Thomas Jefferson's landmark religious freedom statute. The Church lost its glebe farms, and often even its church buildings.
In the postwar anti-British mood, and with the rapid growth of Methodists and Baptists, the Episcopal Church in its new disestablished status nearly died out in Virginia. The rebirth of the church in Virginia began about 1820 in the work of a handful of evangelical clergy, with a faithful remnant of old Virginia families devoted to the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer, and two evangelical bishops, Richard Channing Moore and William Meade. Meade, a Shenandoah Valley native, worked indefatigably to establish new congregations in western Virginia.
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