Episcopal Diocese of Maryland

The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland forms part of Province 3 of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. It includes the city of Baltimore and the counties of northern and central Maryland: Allegany, Anne Arundel, Calvert, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, and Washington. It is one of the nine original Dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States and refers to a story that began with the first Christian church in the upper Chesapeake Bay under the leadership of Captain John Smith.

1780 led a meeting of Anglican clergy and laity in Chestertown (Maryland ) to form the Diocese of Maryland that already existed at the founding of the U.S. Episcopal Church in 1789. The first bishop of the diocese, the Right Reverend Thomas John Claggett, was the first Anglican bishop who was ordained in the United States. The belonging to the bishopric church of St. James in Baltimore was the first African-American community in the South. A later bishop, John Gardner Murray was elected as the first to the office of Presiding Bishop, instead of as usual until then, come as a senior member of the episcopal college to the office.

The diocese has hived off twice already new bishoprics on its original territory: the first time in 1868 as the Eastern Shore counties were the Diocese of Easton and then again in 1895 as St. from the District of Columbia and Montgomery, Prince George's, Charles and Mary's County, the Diocese of Washington was born.

The Diocese of Maryland has 117 parishes ( of which only 12 have the status of parishes, while the rest are considered as missions) with a total of over 44,200 members. Bishop's seat is the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Baltimore. On 28 March 2008 the Rev. Canon Eugene Taylor Sutton was elected the 14th Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland and was ordained on June 28, 2008.