The first Church of England services in Bermuda were celebrated by the Reverend Richard Buck, one of the survivors of the 1609 wreck of the
Sea Venture who began Bermuda's permanent settlement. Nine parishes, each with its own church and
glebe land, were created when colonisation became official in 1612, but there was rarely more than a pair of clergy to share between them over the following two centuries. From 1825 to 1839, Bermuda was attached to the
See of Nova Scotia. Bermuda then became part of the Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda from its creation in 1839 until 1919. In 1879, the synod of the Church of England in Bermuda was formed and a Diocese of Bermuda became separate from the
Diocese of Newfoundland, but continued to be grouped under the Bishop of Newfoundland and Bermuda until 1919 when Newfoundland and Bermuda each received its own bishop. Bermuda's first resident bishop, the Rt. Reverend
Arthur Heber Browne who served from 1925 to 1948. In 1896, Black Anglican congregants in the Pembroke Parish organized The Guild of the Good Shepherd, indicating a specific mission to, "improve the social and intellectual standard of its members." This society has remained active for more than 125 years. In 1994, the Synod of the Anglican Church of Bermuda voted to support the decriminalization of homosexuality. In 2008, the then-bishop elect confirmed that gay and lesbian priests may serve in the church as long as they remain
celibate. In 2022, Lorita Packwood and Jennie Foster Skelton were ordained as the first female deacons in the Anglican Church of Bermuda. This was the first time the Anglican Church of Bermuda ordained women for ministry. In 2024, Rachel Marszalek became the first woman licensed as a priest-in-charge in the Anglican Church of Bermuda. On the Diocesan website, speaking of some congregations, the Diocese says that "all are welcome, no matter what gender, sexuality, race, age, or social standing."
Parish structure In the
British Overseas Territory of
Bermuda, the nine Church of England (since 1978, renamed the Anglican Church of Bermuda as an extra provincial diocese of the
Archbishop of Canterbury) parishes are identical with the civil parishes established following official settlement in 1612. Whereas in England the ecclesiastic parishes generally bear the name of the parish church, in Bermuda the parishes are named for shareholders of the
London Company or its successor, the
Company of the City of London for the Plantacion of The Somers Isles, with most of the parish churches named for
saints, starting with
St. Peter's Church, established in 1612 in
St. George's Parish (the only parish named for a saint) as the first Protestant church in the New World.
Cathedral The
Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda, before a separate
Bishop of Bermuda was created in 1919, maintained both the
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist at
St. John's, Newfoundland, and a
chapel-of-ease named Trinity Church in the
City of Hamilton in
Pembroke Parish, Bermuda (which was not to be confused with the much smaller St. John's Church, the parish church for Pembroke Parish). Trinity Church was destroyed by arson and replaced with a similar structure by 1905, which became the
Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity when the Bishop of Bermuda was established as separate from the Bishop of Newfoundland in 1919. ==Notes==