The Diocese of Easton’s Standing Committee has called for a “period of discernment” after Bishop Santosh Marray announced his intention to resign from leading the rural diocese on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the fall of 2026.
The Standing Committee seeks clergy and lay volunteers to serve on a discernment committee that will recommend steps for the diocese’s future.
“Under Canon law the Standing Committee is charged with conducting the search and transition for a new bishop,” the Standing Committee said in a letter to the diocese. “Before undertaking that process, the Standing Committee is forming a Discernment Committee whose charge is to help determine whether our participation in God’s mission could be strengthened by collaborating or partnering with another nearby diocese.”
A decade ago, after considering possible mergers with nearby dioceses, Easton opted to remain on its own and elected Marray. Now, with the bishop’s resignation, the Standing Committee is revisiting the topic.
“The search and installation of a diocesan bishop will likely cost the diocese around $200,000,” the Standing Committee wrote. The Standing Committee believes “it is prudent and good stewardship to first enter into another diocesan-wide discernment process to determine the diocese’s vision for its ministry in the coming decades.”
“We believe that the seismic changes we have experienced in the last decade—which include significant shifts in the religious landscape of the United States and a global pandemic—mean that we need once again to examine creative options for our future ministry,” the Standing Committee said.
The Standing Committee also noted that the discernment will be led by a consultant provided by the Episcopal Church Center, and that this process of assessment was “in line with the thinking of, and supported by, our new Presiding Bishop, the Most Rev. Sean Rowe.” Rowe specifically requested that the diocese work through these questions before beginning the search for a new bishop.
The committee will consist of up to six laypersons and six clergy from the three diocesan convocations who will “represent the gender, racial, ethnic, and generational diversity of the Diocese of Easton.” One member of both the Standing Committee and the Diocesan Council will be appointed.
The deadline for applying is January 12, 2025.
A timeline on the diocesan website sets these milestones: the Discernment Committee will be named in January; it will organize in February; “facilitate discernment discussion at diocesan convention” in March; provide interim reports in June and October; and make recommendations with the Standing Committee to the Diocesan Convention in March 2026.
The Diocese of Easton was formed in 1868 as part of a three-way division of the Diocese of Maryland (the Diocese of Washington was created at the same time). It has 39 congregations, spread across the nine rural counties of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Easton is the largest city in the region, with a population of 17,000.
With 6,858 baptized members, according to 2023 Parochial Report data, the Diocese of Easton is in the smallest third of domestic Episcopal dioceses, but only just so. It is the church’s 30th smallest domestic diocese of 95, with more than twice as many Episcopalians as Western dioceses that cover a much larger geographical area, like Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. It fares slightly less well in average Sunday attendance, ranking as the 25th smallest diocese.
Easton’s membership has declined in the last decade, but only by 14 percent (compared to an overall rate of decline of 20.9% during the same period across the Episcopal Church). It was among just a handful of dioceses that grew in membership in 2022-23.
The reason may be that Maryland’s Eastern Shore is particularly Episcopalian, especially Kent and Talbot Counties. An analysis in 2020 by the Association of Religion Data Archives found that 0.97 percent of Marylanders said they were Episcopalians, but the percentage in Talbot County, where Easton is the county seat, was more than six times higher, at 6.4 percent. In nearby Kent County, the number was only slightly lower at 5.8 percent.
Neva Rae Fox is a communications professional with extensive Episcopal experience, serving the boards of The Living Church Foundation, Bible and Common Prayer Book Society, Episcopal Community Services of New Jersey, and others.