Episcopal Diocese

The Rev. Martin G. Townsend, who was chosen this summer to be the ninth bishop of the 124-year-old Episcopal Diocese of Easton, will be consecrated Nov. 21 in a noon ceremony at Asbury United Methodist Church in Salisbury.Father Townsend, the 48-year-old rector of Christ Church in Blacksburg, Va., will take over leadership of the Episcopal parishes in the nine counties of the Eastern Shore at the retirement of the Right Rev. Elliott L. Sorge, 63. Clergy and laity from 41 Shore parishes participated in the July election at Trinity Cathedral in Easton.

Arthur W. Machen Jr., a retired attorney who was also the chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and a legal advocate for the poor, died of congestive heart failure Wednesday at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The former Ruxton resident was 92. A well-respected corporate lawyer, he helped 1950s Baltimore Colts players Gino Marchetti and Alan Ameche incorporate their food businesses, and he often espoused liberal causes. "His range was enormous," said a legal colleague, Alan Yarbro of Ruxton.

A shortage of money has forced the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland to sell a group of Tiffany stained-glass windows removed from its vacated brownstone headquarters at 105 W. Monument St.Diocesan financial advisers said yesterday that they hoped to raise $230,000 from the sale of the windows at an auction scheduled Saturday in New York. The proceeds will be applied to the church's Cross-Roads fund-raising campaign, which has fallen roughly $2 million behind its goal. The objective is to raise a little more than $9 million by the end of this year for a variety of purposes, including the recently completed building of a diocesan headquarters in North Baltimore.

Easter's message of hope and new life is a universal and much-needed one throughout the world, but particularly for Marylanders this year as we celebrate the passage of the offshore wind bill by the Maryland General Assembly. I'm filled with thanks to The Sun's reporter Tim Wheeler for covering the story over the past three years and to all of our leaders who made this hopeful decision in 2013. My thanks to Gov. Martin O'Malley, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, House Speaker Michael E. Busch, original co-sponsors Sen. Paul Pinsky and Del. Thomas Hucker as well as the Senate Finance Committee (including Baltimore City Sen. Catherine Pugh)

The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, which put its vacant West Monument Street headquarters on the market in 1990, has sold the property for $350,000 -- less than a third of the original asking price of $1.25 million.But while the four-story brownstone mansion near Mount Vernon Place took longer to sell and brought far less than had been expected, the separate sale of its Tiffany stained-glass windows in 1991 for a surprising $517,000 means that, after payment of fees and commissions, the diocese has netted $771,038.

To expand the quality and variety of its ministries, and to encourage individual congregations to look beyond parish boundaries, the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland embarks today on its first fund-raising appeal.The Episcopal Appeal, planned as an annual event, will emphasize raising money for the work of the church, not for church buildings, said the Right Rev. Robert W. Ihloff, bishop of Maryland. The aim, he said, is to promote a new energy in the church."This has to do with moving from a maintenance mode into a mission mode," Ihloff said.

FRESNO, Calif. -- The Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin in California became the first in the nation yesterday to secede from the Episcopal Church, taking the historic, risky step as part of a years-long struggle within the church and global Anglican Communion over homosexuality and biblical authority. Delegates to San Joaquin's annual convention then also formally accepted an invitation to align the largely rural 14-county diocese with a conservative Anglican leader overseas, Archbishop Gregory James Venables of Argentina.

With a "decisive majority," the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland elected yesterday an Atlanta-based pastor who once led a Baltimore County parish to be its next suffragan bishop -- the diocese's second-highest post.The Rev. John L. Rabb, a former rector at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Arbutus, will replace Charles L. Longest, who retired in October after eight years in the post. Rabb is expected to take office in September.Rabb, 53, a native of Chicago, is known for his work on social issues in urban and suburban areas.

HAGERSTOWN -- Here in its geographic heart, members of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland gathered yesterday to witness the ordination of the Rt. Rev. John Leslie Rabb as their bishop suffragan.With the field house of St. James School transformed into a cathedral and filled with hundreds of the faithful, Rabb received the symbols of his office of bishop: a Bible, a ring, a cross, the holy oil called chrism, the pointed cap known as a miter and the shepherd's staff.Rabb wore a cope, a ceremonial cape used by bishops, that he designed in hues of blue and green that recalled "The Canticle of the Sun," a poem by St. Francis of Assisi.

When the Rev. Canon Eugene T. Sutton was elected the 14th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, the first person he called was his 94-year-old grandmother, a devout Baptist who lives in a Washington nursing home. "Her prayers for me have made all the difference in the world," Sutton said. But more than that, he knew she could appreciate the twists of history that led to his election. Sutton, who will be consecrated tomorrow as the state's first African-American bishop, is the great-great-grandson of slaves.

Leta Dunham got her breakfast order to go at a Roland Avenue Starbucks Wednesday morning: a grande triple skim latte in her cup and, on her forehead, an ashen reminder that we are all destined to become dust. Dunham was among Ash Wednesday observers who took advantage of Ashes to Go, a service offered by area Episcopal and Methodist churches at more than a dozen spots around the city and nearby counties, part of a national movement that began with an Episcopal church in St. Louis in 2007.

The Rev. Mary-Patricia N. Ashby, a retired Episcopal priest who had been rector of a Frederick County church, died Wednesday of a cardiac arrest at Frederick Memorial Hospital. The Mount Airy resident was 71. The daughter of a career naval officer and a homemaker, the former Mary-Patricia Neese was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Because she was a Navy brat, they moved every three years. So, she was raised in Annapolis, Florida, Washington and Hawaii. She never really called any one place home," said her husband of 48 years, John Ashby, a retired history professor who taught at the Community College of Baltimore County in Catonsville.

It is plain that many people who write about journalism, and some who have corporate authority over it, have no more idea of what constitutes editing than they do of Mycenaean Linear B. So I thought I would demonstrate a few of the basics of micro-editing and macro-editing for you. The specimen text is not a journalistic article, but an announcement that appeared years ago on the website of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland....

Each January, many followers of Jesus observe the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It was begun more than 100 years ago by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement. Originally, the friars were an order of Episcopal priests who joined the Roman Catholic Church. Christian unity has been a part of their mission since the order's founding, as it should be for every Christian. You may have heard that the Episcopal All Saints' Sisters of the Poor in Catonsville were officially received into the Roman Catholic Church.

No matter what your feels are about religion, it's hard not to be charmed by a blessing of the animals. This one happened this week at the the Cathedral of the Incarnation, part of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. Watch for little Butterscotch. I love him. (He was a good boy! He didn't bite the bishop!)

A retired Episcopal priest, whose last assignment was as the vicar at a church in northern Harford County, pleaded guilty last week to sexually abusing two young girls in Cecil County. The Rev. Donald W. Belcher, 82, entered an Alford plea on two counts of sexual abuse of minors in Cecil County Circuit Court. An Alford plea allows a defendant to maintain his innocence while acknowledging that the state has enough evidence to convict him. Belcher was released on $100,000 bond and is awaiting a June 28 sentencing, in which he could receive 25 years on each count, to be served consecutively, said Kevin Urick, assistant state's attorney for Cecil County.

To his parishioners, he was known as Father Skip, but his formal title now is the Rt. Rev. Gladstone Bailey Adams III, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York. A native of Baltimore, Adams, 49, is one of the youngest Episcopal bishops in the country. He is referred to as the "baby boomer bishop" in his diocese. Adams was consecrated in October as the 10th bishop of the diocese, based in Syracuse, after his election to the post in June. He is the spiritual leader for a large geographical diocese that encompasses 16,000 square miles and stretches from the Canadian border to the Pennsylvania state line.

The Rev. R. Douglas Pitt, a retired Episcopal rector who had been senior minister at Old St. Paul's in downtown Baltimore and earlier served two other city parishes, died Jan. 27 of complications from a stroke at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 85. Mr. Pitt was born and raised in Richmond, Va., and attended the University of Virginia, earning his bachelor's degree in 1951 from the University of Richmond. His college studies were interrupted by service with the Army's 279th General Hospital during the Berlin airlift after World War II. Mr. Pitt graduated in 1954 from Bexley Hall, the divinity school of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he won a prize for his preaching.