The Rev. Jeffrey Steenson, newly appointed ordinary of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, will receive members of Mount Calvary Church, Baltimore, on Sunday morning.
Mount Calvary was the first congregation of the Episcopal Church to announce its pilgrimage to the Ordinariate in October 2010. The congregation’s reception into the Ordinariate was delayed by property negotiations with the Diocese of Maryland.
The diocese announced Wednesday that it had reached a property settlement with Mount Calvary and with Joseph Richey Hospice.
The hospice property “will be permanently deeded to Joseph Richey House along with the parking lot shared by the congregation and Joseph Richey House,” a diocesan statement said. “The Anglican Use Congregation will be deeded the church building, adjacent offices, and rectory, will keep all furnishings and personal property, and will retain the right to use the parking lot shared with Joseph Richey House. The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland will receive a monetary sum as part of the settlement, and will retain first right of refusal if the congregation vacates the property.”
“Our brothers and sisters at Mount Calvary have not ‘converted’ to Roman Catholicism,” said the Rt. Rev. Eugene Sutton, Bishop of Maryland, in a letter to members of the diocese. “They have chosen to walk with different friends in the same one, holy, catholic and apostolic church of which they have always been a part. Let us pray for them on their journey. Let us hope that their work in the future will continue to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to respect the dignity of every human being, and help build up the Kingdom of God here on earth.”
Mount Calvary also will commemorate its transition with a service of Solemn Evensong at 4:30 p.m. Sunday. The Rev. Dwight Longnecker, a former Episcopal priest who is now a Roman Catholic priest in Greenville, South Carolina, will preach.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
