Sean Rowe is the 28th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church. He followed Michael Curry in November 2024. Ordained as a priest in 2000, he has served as rector for St. John’s Episcopal Church in Franklin, Pennsylvania, as the 8th Bishop of Northwestern Pennsylvania, and the Provisional Bishop for both the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem and the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York.

Bishop Rowe received his undergraduate degree from Grove City College. He received the Master of Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary and his PhD from Gannon University. He was introduced to the Episcopal Church by the chair of the history department who was an Episcopal priest. Born on February 16, 1975, he is the youngest Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. Rowe is married to Carly Rowe and has one daughter. The bishop is not afraid to venture into the political fray of American politics. On the day after the 2024 United States presidential election, Rowe sent a letter to the members of the Episcopal Church, stating “We are Christians who support the dignity, safety, and equality of women and LGBTQ+ people as an expression of our faith.” He added “I pray that President Trump and his administration will do the same.” On July 3, 2025, Rowe wrote in the Religion News Service that “the Episcopal Church must now be an engine of resistance and stop “intermingling” with the American federal government. He advocated for continued resistance against the second Trump administration’s “overreach and recklessness.”​

​Across the pond, Sarah Mullally is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the senior bishop and the principal leader of the Church of England. She is one of the 26 Church of England bishops who sit in the House of Lords of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The archbishop was confirmed on January 28, 2026, and is the first woman to hold the office.

Archbishop Mullally was born March 26, 1962. She is married with two children. She received her undergraduate degree and master’s degree from London South Bank University. She received her theological education at the South East Institute, her DipTh at the University of Kent, and a master’s at Heythrop College. While she studied for the priesthood, she served as the Chief Nursing Officer for England.

Pope Gregory sent the first archbishop, Augustine of Canterbury, to England in 597. The Archbishops of Canterbury were in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church until the English Reformation when King Henry VIII broke communion with Rome and proclaimed himself the head of the Church of England. In 1533, Thomas Cranmer became the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the most important leaders in the development of Anglicanism. 

Technically, Mullally was appointed by King Charles on the advice of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. She was actually chosen by the Crown Nominations Commission, a Church of England body which advises the prime minister. Since the 20th century, the appointment of archbishops of Canterbury conventionally alternates between Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Anglicans. Mullally is regarded as a theological liberal or part of the “Central Tradition” within the Church of England rather than representing the traditional Anglo-Catholic or conservative Evangelical factions.

Mullally serves four main roles: Bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury; Metropolitan Archbishop of the Province of Canterbury which covers the southern two-thirds of England; the Senior Primate and chief religious figure of the Church of England; spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion. In these last two roles the archbishop has important ecumenical and interfaith role speaking of behalf of Anglicans in England and worldwide. Unlike Pope Leo XIV Mullally can lead through persuasion only.

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In the midst of so many disturbing global events that seem to dominate both the national media and social media, it seems the only viable (and indisputably the superior) tool available to us as Christians is to focus on what we can control within our own community through love, mercy, generosity that is passed on from Jesus Christ to all of those that we encounter.

This cut was written by Mac Powell and performed by Third Day soon after the series of devastating floods, earthquakes, and civil disorder in Haiti. The petition then seems appropriate to us now.​

​Cut: “Arise”
Artist: Third Day
CD/Album: Lead Us Back

The original organizers of the movement were mostly associated with the University of Oxford, hence the name, the Oxford Movement. ​The movement, known as Anglo-Catholicism, called for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into the Anglican liturgy and theology. They argued that Anglicanism was one of the three branches (Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodox) of the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” Christian Church.

The movement sprang from serious unrest in England and was formally known as Tractarianism, named after a series of publications, called Tracts for the Times written from approximately 1833-1841. The tracts were written to promote the philosophy of the movement. Many in the Church of England, particularly those in high office, were liberal. However, most of the clergy in the parishes were conservative evangelicals being led by John Wesley (1703-1791). The universities of England became the breeding ground for the movement to restore liturgical and devotional customs before the English Reformation. The movement also wanted to restore some traditions from contemporary Roman Catholicism.

Apparently, the movement arose when a secular court overruled an ecclesiastical court decision over a priest with unorthodox views on the efficacy of infant baptism. In response to this ruling, high ranking members of the Church of England, John Keble, Edward Pusey, John Henry Newman, and others published in the Tracts for the Times a series that argued that the Church of England needed to affirm that its authority did not come from the state, but from God. The Tractarians claimed that the Church of England could claim the loyalty of Englishmen because the Church rested on divine authority and the principle of apostolic succession. The tracts had a wide distribution and cost very little and succeeded in drawing attention to its doctrine and overall approach.

The Tractarians advocated the “Branch Theory”: Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism were the three branches of the historic pre-schism Catholic Church. They argued for the inclusions of the traditional aspects of liturgy found in medieval religious practice. In other words, the Tractarians maintained the Church of England had become too “plain.” Newman maintained that the Council of Trent (1545-1563) doctrines, known as the Counter-Reformation, were compatible with the Thirty-Nine Articles of the 1563 Church of England. The council validated the seven sacraments, established the canon of scripture, and addressed the issues on the sale of indulgences, affirmed the Nicene Creed, and revoked many of the abuses that motivated the Protestant Reformation. Newman was basically correct in that the Thirty-Nine Articles, compiled by
Thomas Cranmer and Joseph Ridley, served as a bridge between the Roman Catholic traditions and the Protestant Reformation doctrine.

The Oxford Movement was heavily criticized as too “Romanizing.” Its critics charged it with being secretive and collusive. Nevertheless, the movement influenced the theory and practice of Anglicanism and helped spread its doctrine to all the major cities in England. Like other Christian churches, the Church of England was influenced by the liturgical movement in the Roman Catholic Church which sought to promote informed lay participation, reordering church architecture, recovering elements of early Christian liturgy, and clarifying the structure and language of worship. The movement was so widespread that the eucharist gradually became more central to worship in the Anglican churches.

Many Tractarian priests began working in the slums of England partly because bishops refused to provide living wages and partly due to concern for the poor. The ministries of the Tractarians fostered British social policy both locally and nationally. This movement continues today and the Episcopal Church is part of it. A number of bishops joined the Christian Social Union to address issues such as a just wage, renting property, infant mortality and industrial conditions.

The Oxford Movement moved to the United States and influenced the Episcopal Church in Wisconsin where the Nashotah House Theological Seminary was founded in 1842 by three young deacons under the patronage of Missionary Bishop Jackson Kemper, who were followers of the Oxford Movement. Nashotah would become a center for Anglo-Catholic theology and America’s first monastic-style Anglican community.

So how did the Oxford Movement affect Grace Memorial? Vestments, candles, singing with choirs, and the practice of all sacraments were Oxford Movement features. It reintroduced the restoration of devotion by encouraging the use of a Marian devotion like the “Angelus” which had been largely neglected after the Reformation. The Angelus is to be recited at morning, noon, and evening prayer:

As one can see, the Angelus sounds like parts of the Roman Catholic rosary. Since I am the only officiant for Morning and Evening prayer at Grace, I pray the Angelus before each service. I must admit that in the past, one of my fellow officiants refused to use the Angelus because “it was too Catholic.” Knowing the roots of the Angelus from the Oxford Movement, Father Paul Bailey, our previous rector, brought the Angelus from his association with the Society of St. John the Evangelist, which was one of the monastic orders derived from the Oxford Movement. This has been one of the “high church” features at Grace for for over 20 years.

One other liturgical practice from the Oxford Movement was the rare use of burning incense. According to Father Paul, we do not have a thurible to burn incense. So, on a few occasions, Father Paul would put incense in a small bowl and burn it for compline or Choral Evensong as a sign of our prayers ascending to God.

You might ask how did the Oxford Movement affected Hammond. Well, one of the Tractarians, John Henry Newman and many other Anglican priests, left the Church of England to become Roman Catholic. In 1879, Pope Leo XIII appointed him a cardinal. In the 1960s, the New Orleans Archdiocese built a Roman Catholic Center at Southeastern Louisiana University and named the dormitory Cardinal Newman Hall. I doubt if anyone in Hammond knew that Cardinal Newman was a former Anglican priest and a major leader of the Oxford Movement.

The Oxford Movement affected the historical terms of “High Church” versus “Low Church.” This is a highly debated issue within Anglicanism, and I am not going down that “rabbit hole” with this issue of the blog. I will save it for another time.

It was first adopted by the First Council of Nicaea in 325, and it was amended in 381 by the First Council of Constantinople.  In liturgical churches of Western Christianity, like Grace Memorial Episcopal Church, the affirmation of faith is usually said immediately after the sermon on Sunday and major festivals.

It is the only authoritative ecumenical statement of faith accepted by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, Church of the East, Anglican Communion and most Protestant Churches.  I find it comforting that Christians the world over are reciting the Nicene Prayer on Sunday.

Many parts of it were the result of refuting many heresy beliefs of certain Christian groups.  In other words, our beliefs are based on a conciliatory document.  For example, the Nicene council rejected Arianism, which disputed the existence of the Holy Trinity.  Scholars and church officials still quibble over certain forms of the creed, and it is not the intent of this blog to go down that “rabbit hole.”  If you are interested in the differences between the First Council of Nicaea (325) and First Council of Constantinople (381), I recommend that you consult the internet and the hundreds of books written on this subject.​