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.[2][3] 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."[4] This society has remained active for more than 125 years.
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.[5]
In 2024 Rachel Marszalek became the first woman licensed as a priest-in-charge in the Anglican Church of Bermuda.[6]
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.[7]
^"Our History". Anglican East NL. Anglican Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
^Piper, Liza (2000). "The Church of England". Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
^Simmons, W. Michelle (2020). The Guild of the Good Shepherd and Bermuda's Forgotten Anglican Missionaries. Independently Published. p. 7. ISBN979-8650180227.