Society of the Atonement

The Society of the Atonement, also known as the Friars and Sisters of the Atonement or Graymoor Friars and Sisters is a Franciscan religious congregation in the Latin Rite branch of the Catholic Church. The friars and sisters were founded in 1898 as a religious community in the Episcopal Church. The religious order is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the Marian title of Our Lady of Atonement.

In late 1895, Lurana White, then a novice in a religious community of women known as The Episcopal Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, made contact with the Rev. Lewis Wattson, the superior of a small community of Episcopal priests. Both were part of the Anglo-Catholic Movement, also known as the Oxford Movement, which had developed in the Church of England in the early 19th century. Miss White asked Father Wattson's help in finding an Episcopal community of religious which practised corporate poverty in the Catholic Franciscan tradition. Father Wattson was unaware of any such community, but began corresponding with her regarding his desire to see the Anglican and Catholic Churches reunited under the leadership of the Bishop of Rome.

In October 1898, White and Wattson met and made a spiritual covenant to form a new religious community with the aim of re-establishing Franciscan life in the Anglican Communion. The name of the new community was inspired by a passage in the Epistle to the Romans (Romans 5:11), which, in the King James Version of the Bible, speaks of the atonement Christians have received through Jesus. Wattson chose to interpret the word "atonement" in the literal sense of "at-one-ment," out of his vision that his new community should have the aim of leading all Christians to unity (oneness) with one another.

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