Former religious orders in the Anglican Communion
Former religious orders in the churches of the Anglican Communion are those communities of monks, nuns, friars, or sisters, having a common life and rule under vows, whose work has ended and whose community has been disbanded. In a very few cases this is due to the termination of the work for which the community was established, but in most cases it is due to amalgamation or the death of the final remaining member of the community.
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Former communities for men
Brotherhood of the Epiphany (BE)
The Brotherhood of the Epiphany, also known as St. Paul's Brotherhood, was an
Ewell Monastery (OC)
Ewell Monastery was an experimental
Former communities for women
Community of the Epiphany (CE)
The Community of the Epiphany was founded in 1883 by George Wilkinson, Bishop of Truro,[7] who afterwards became Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane.[8] The community was formed for work in the Truro diocese and was based at the Convent of the Epiphany, Truro, Cornwall. The sisters were involved in pastoral and educational work, the care of Truro Cathedral and St Paul's Church, and church needlework. The head of the community was the Mother Superior. There was for some forty years an active branch house in Tokyo, Japan, and there was a more long-term branch house at Penzance.[9] Branch houses were also opened in Newquay, and Truro (separate from the mother house). The sisters ran a convalescent home in St Agnes, and in Truro (in addition to the main convent and the Truro branch house) they ran a small school (Rosewin School) and a retreat house (St Michael's House). The main convent was originally located at Alverton House in Tregolls Road. The house, built in the early nineteenth century, was extended for the convent, and the chapel was built in 1910 by Edmund H. Sedding.[10] After a century at Tregolls Road it moved to Copeland Court in Kenwyn.[11] After a very full history, covering 125 years, the community was reduced to its last surviving member. In 2008 Sr Elizabeth CE attracted some attention in the local and national press, as the last surviving member of the order; she was then 92, and living in a nursing home, but still engaged in charitable work; she died in 2017, aged 101.[12] In 1936 the sisters founded a parallel community for Japanese women, the Community of Nazareth, which achieved full independence in the 1960s. This community continues its work in Tokyo and Okinawa.
Community of Jesus of Nazareth
An Anglican order of sisters whose convent was in the small village of Westcote in
Community of the Presentation (CP)
Founded in 1927 as a nursing order, originally named the Nursing Community of Christ the Consoler,
Community of St Michael and All Angels (CSM&AA)
Bishop
Community of the Servants of the Cross
This community was founded in 1877 to nurse and care for the aged and infirm, and to live a life of prayer and hospitality.[20] It was unusual in aiming to recruit nuns from working-class backgrounds, rather than the upper middle class from which many orders drew their sisters.[20] The community moved to Sussex in 1895 where it remained for over 100 years. Their Chichester convent closed in 1996, and the Sisters moved to a nursing home on the site of the former Chichester Theological College, and the last sister died in 2003.[21][22]
Community of Reparation to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (CRJBS)
A community of nuns in the Church of England, founded in 1869, whose work came to an end in the early 1990s. The last remaining member, Sr Esther Mary CRJBS, lived for several years (and into the 21st century) with the sisters of the Community of St John Baptist (CSJB), and then for the final months of her life moved to St Peter's Convent, Woking. The order was founded following a meeting at All Saints, Margaret Street, by members of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament (including the President, Canon Carter of Clewer, and his friend Father Goulden), to make reparation for any dishonour perceived to have been done to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. From 1869 to 1872 the first sisters served as novices at CSJB, but from 1872 they worked together from a mission house in Southwark, south London. In 1911 they were able to construct their own convent, the Convent of Reparation, Rushworth Street, Southwark. In 1948 they opened a second convent, the Convent of Reparation, White Rose Lane, Woking (Surrey).
Congregation of the Servants of Christ (CSC)
From 1906 the community were based in Pleshey, in what is now the Chelmsford Diocesan House of Retreat, before moving to Potters Bar in 1914 after the Evangelical first Bishop of Chelmsford Bishop John Watts-Ditchfield would not allow them to reserve the Blessed Sacrament.[23] From 1920 the Congregation of the Servants of Christ lived at Britwell Court near Burnham, Buckinghamshire, renaming it The House of Prayer. The Sisters joined with the Community of St Mary at the Cross at Edgware in October 1989.[24]
Poor Clares of Reparation and Adoration (PCRep)
The 'Poor Clares' are the second order of the Franciscan religious movement, more formally known as the Order of St Clare. The Poor Clares of Reparation and Adoration were founded in 1922 and based at St Clare's Convent on Mount Sinai, Long Island, New York. Members of the Order of St Clare live an enclosed life, and the Poor Clares of Reparation and Adoration also maintained a perpetual watch before the Blessed Sacrament. The last remaining sister died in 2003,[25] leaving the Community of St. Clare in England as the only remaining Poor Clare community in the Anglican Communion. However, the Little Sisters of St. Clare in the United States do have some members living the Poor Clare life and Rule, within the somewhat flexible bounds of that community's style.
Sisterhood of the Epiphany (SE)
The Sisterhood of the Epiphany (SE), more formally entitled the Oxford Mission Sisterhood of the Epiphany, was a companion body for women, working alongside the Brotherhood of the Epiphany (see above) in India and Bangladesh. The Sisterhood was founded in 1902 under the leadership of Edith Langridge, and followed a slightly adapted version of the Benedictine Rule. The mother house was located at Barisal (then British India, but now Bangladesh), and there were several branch houses, the largest at Calcutta. The work of the sisters was very broad in scope, including evangelism, medical work, educational activity amongst women, and (in Calcutta) the provision of both a primary school and an orphanage. In 1970 a parallel community was founded for sisters of Bangladeshi nationality, named the Christa Sevika Sangha (Handmaids of Christ), and in 1986 this order became fully independent.[26] The foundress, Sr Susila SE, left the Sisterhood of the Epiphany to become the first Mother Superior CSS, an office she still held until her death on 16 May 2011.[27] At the same time another sister (Sr Leonore SE) transferred to the Community of St. Francis in order to follow the Franciscan Rule. By the early 1990s only three SE sisters remained, and they left Bangladesh (where the work in continued by CSS) and returned to England, taking up residence at Ditchingham with the Community of All Hallows. The last three sisters died there – Mother Joan in 1999, Sr Rosamund in 2003, and Mother Winifred on 26 May 2010, when the Sisterhood ended.[28]
Society of the Most Holy Trinity (SHT)
The Society of the Most Holy Trinity, also known more simply as the Society of the Holy Trinity, was established by
Order of St Elizabeth of Hungary
The Order of St Elizabeth of Hungary was a
The English Order of St Elizabeth of Hungary was devoted mainly to mission work among the poor of
A short history of the Order and its work among the poor was published in 1967 entitled Into the Deep and subtitled "The story of the Confraternity of the Divine Love and the Order of St Elizabeth of Hungary by Mother Elizabeth of the Order of St Elizabeth of Hungary”. Little Grey Sparrows of the Anglican Diocese of Bunbury, Western Australia by Merle Bignall (1992) deals with the history of the Order with particular reference to its work in Australia, which began in the 1920s. The Sisters of the Order referred to themselves as Sparrows and wore grey habits.
The Order continued to appear in the Post Office Directory at 94 Redcliffe Gardens until 1971. By 2000, it was under the care of the Anglican
Community of St Wilfrid
The Community of St Wilfrid was founded in Exeter in 1866 by the Reverend John Gilberd Pearse, Rector of All Hallows-on-the-Wall Church in that city. From a convent in Bartholomew Street the sisters had a ministry to the poor and underprivileged, for whom they had been founded. The sisters lived in the convent for a hundred years from 1866 to 1966. In 1870, under the provisions of the Elementary Education Act 1870, the sisters opened the Forty School to provide a basic education to 40 poor children in the city. The school grew in size and importance, and became the community's main work, eventually under the name St Wilfrid's School. The sisters also ran an orphanage, a soup kitchen, and outreach ministries amongst the poor and the destitute.
The sisters and the school had their own chapels, but on the Feast of
Community of St Peter (CSP)
The Community (or Sisterhood) of St Peter was founded on 25 June 1861 by
As the need for convalescence lessened, St Peter's Home at Maybury Hill became a nursing home for the elderly, and at various times also included a guest house and a home for adults with learning difficulties. From the late 1960s there was also a separate retreat centre. By the late 1980s the number of sisters had declined and the original convent was sold. A new nursing home opened in 1988 and operated until 2002; a new convent was built in 1990 and closed in 2007, the community being dispersed and the building redeveloped as apartments. By 2020 there were only two surviving sisters (Mother Angela and Sister Margaret Paul), and the community was formally dissolved.[37] The retreat centre on the site at St Columba's House [1] remains in independent operation. The chapel of the former convent is now owned by the
See also
- Anglican religious orders
- Augustinian nuns in the Anglican Communion
- Franciscan orders in the Anglican Communion
- Order of St. Benedict (Anglican)
References
- ^ See the Oxford Mission website.
- ^ History detailed here.
- ^ Details at this Archived 2014-01-25 at the Wayback Machine directory page.
- ^ Official listing status shown here.
- ^ Closure notice shown here.
- ^ "Cistercian Order: Fr Aelred Arnesen OC". Retrieved 12 January 2021.
- Daily TelegraphTuesday 4 November 2008
- ^ "Death of The Bishop of St. Andrews".The Times; Thursday, Dec 12, 1907; p. 4; Issue 38514; col C
- ^ Cornish Church Guide. Truro: Blackford; pp. 325-26
- ^ Pevsner, N. (1970) Cornwall; 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin; pp. 234-35
- ^ "Last nun celebrates birthday of Order". Archived from the original on 2013-05-05. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
- ^ "Cornwall Live: "Truro's last surviving nun has died aged 101", 26 September 2017". Retrieved 5 July 2021.
- ^ The Westcote Convent 1927-1969. Bledington Press. 1999.
- ^ See brief history in the Anglican Religious Communities Yearbook 2000-01, page 6.
- ^ See full history by Bruce Tait in Hythe Civic Society Newsletter, edition 153 (2010).
- ^ Karel Schoeman, 1986. The Free State Mission: The Anglican Church in the OFS, 1863-1883, pages 18-19.
- ^ Karel Schoeman, 1986. The Free State Mission: The Anglican Church in the OFS, 1863-1883, page 42-53.
- ^ Karel Schoeman, 1986. The Free State Mission: The Anglican Church in the OFS, 1863-1883, page 54.
- ^ St Michael’s say farewells to beloved Sister Joan
- ^ a b Hicks, Colin. "Hidden Westgate Histories: Five Good Sisters (updated) – WGRA: incorporating all single exit side streets". Retrieved 2019-04-09.
- ^ "Charity Details". beta.charitycommission.gov.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-09.
- ISBN 9780953461134.
- ^ "Chelmsford Diocesan House of Retreat, Pleshey » The History of Pleshey". www.retreathousepleshey.com. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
- ^ "The History of Grenville court - VitrX Head Office - VitrX". VitrX. 2017-03-26. Retrieved 2018-08-20.
- ^ Her death is reported here.
- ^ Read summary history at this Oxford Mission page.
- ^ Her death is reported here Archived 2012-08-27 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ 'Sisterhood of the Epiphany' article in Anglican Religious Life 2012-13, published 2011 by Canterbury Press, Norwich, page 5.
- SPCK.
- ISBN 0-7185-0151-9.
- ^ See "Guide to the Religious Communities of the Anglican Communion", Mowbrays, 1951, page 53.
- ^ See 'Guide to the Religious Communities of the Anglican Communion', Mowbray, London, 1951, page 62.
- ^ "Sisters of the Community of St. Wilfrid". Exeter Civic Society. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
- ^ "Community of St Wilfrid's". St Michael's Church, Exeter. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
- ^ "St Peter's Convent and Chapel". Retrieved 3 April 2021.
- ^ "Susan Oldfield's Death". New York Times. 20 February 1887. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
- ^ Thackray, Jemima (20 March 2020). ""I am sad but it is the right time"". Church Times. Retrieved 3 April 2021.
- ^ "St Peter's Convent and Chapel". Retrieved 3 April 2021.