As settlers and missionaries moved westward after the
Revolutionary War, they brought their faith traditions with them, including those of the newly formed Episcopal Church. In the Ohio Territory, three clergyman served as early missionaries. Efforts in the Ohio Valley were led by Deacon
James Kilbourne and
Joseph Doddridge, while Roger Searle led efforts in the
Western Reserve. Shortly after Ohio was admitted to the Union, the first Episcopal church was established in the state at
Worthington, near present-day
Columbus in 1804. After years of fruitless petitions and through the hard work of missionaries and others, the
General Convention of the Episcopal Church finally granted Ohio a separate diocese in 1818.
Philander Chase was elected first Bishop of Ohio in 1818 and consecrated as such in 1819. Chase returned from a fund raising trip to England in 1823 and established the diocesan headquarters and a new Episcopal college,
Kenyon College, in
Gambier. Kenyon College and Gambier were named for
Lord Kenyon and
Lord Gambier, the largest benefactors of the college and new diocese. Bishop Chase resigned after a leadership dispute in 1832 and soon moved to Illinois where he was elected first bishop of the Diocese of Illinois
Illinois.
Charles Pettit McIlvaine succeeded him as Ohio's bishop and Kenyon College's president. The Rt. Rev. Charles McIlvaine was an ardent abolishionist and a leading advocate of the Evangelical movement, which called upon the Episcopal Church to turn from the more
Anglo-catholic reforms of the
Oxford Movement and return to a purer
Protestant expression in the church. In December 1861 Bishop MacIlvaine was part of delegation sent to England by President Abraham Lincoln to assist in counteracting a hostile negative opinion which had arisen following "the Trent Affair." Upon Bishop McIlvaine's death in 1873,
Gregory Thurston Bedell became the Third Bishop of Ohio, having been consecrated as
assistant bishop in 1859. Bishop Bedell had staunchly supported the Union in the
Civil War, and, like McIlvaine, has been credited with keeping the Episcopal Church unified during this time, unlike many other denominations. In 1875, the
General Convention, at the request of the Convention of the Diocese of Ohio, split the diocese into two separate dioceses. The Diocese of Ohio favored more evangelical expression of worship and theology, and Bishop Bedell moved its headquarters to
Cleveland at its northeast corner, in the growing urban areas along
Lake Erie.
Thomas Augustus Jaggar was then consecrated the first bishop of the new
Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio, which had some parishes favoring more Anglo-catholic styles and established its headquarters in
Cincinnati in the state's southwestern corner.
William Andrew Leonard was consecrated as the Fourth Bishop of Ohio in 1889 and was responsible, with financial backing from
William G. Mather, for constructing
Trinity Cathedral, completed in 1907.
Charles F. Schweinfurth designed the structure in English Perpendicular
Gothic form from
Indiana limestone. Diocesan offices were located in the adjoining church house, where they remain. In 2024, the diocese reported average Sunday attendance (ASA) of 3,986 persons. ==Bishops==