Mission Trip Report - Episcopal Church of Cuba

During the 79th Episcopal General Convention last summer, both the House of and House of Deputies voted unanimously to re-admit the Episcopal Church of Cuba as a of the Episcopal Church -- ending a hiatus that began in 1966. Following Curry’s encouragement “bringing us together across historical divides… following Jesus and finding our way back to each other”, a small team from Christ Church visited The Episcopal Church of Cuba (“ECC”) to evaluate how Christ Church might assist the mission of reconciliation between the churches.

Five church related visits were made during the trip in June: a recently planted church in Holguin, a small church in rural Manati that was established in 1908, the oldest Episcopal church in Cuba in Matanzas, the Protestant seminary, and the ECC offices in Havana. Along the way, we were not only able to experience one of the blessings of being part of a global communion by worshipping with the same Rites we follow in Greenwich, but to also observe Rev. Zabriskie celebrate those services in Spanish. A few of the team members we able to converse in Spanish, but “amen” and “the Peace” (la Paz) didn’t require translation.

The two objectives of the trip were to deliver much needed supplies, including vitamins and medicine, to the in Holguin and Maniti and to assess with the rector, Fr. Gil Fat Roy, how we might be able to engage with these parishes. The parishes were suggested by Bishop Griselda in consultation with Rev Zabriskie and Dick Schulze, who have previously visited Cuba and have known bishop Griselda for many years. Since the diocese only has 24 priests to serve 46 parishes, it is common for a priest to support multiple parishes, which Fr. Gil has been doing since Dec 2013.

The ECC planted a church in Holguin (Cuba’s third largest city with a population of 300,000) in 2008 with the vision of developing a strong spiritual presence there. Currently the congregation is ~75% women with 5 – 7 children, and weekly services are attended by ~25 people. Many of the congregation are relatives or part of an extended family. Services are held in the front room of the home of an elderly parishioner who has been gracious in hosting services since the church was planted. This is not a long-term solution for the and the house effectively limits the size of the congregation, so a rectory was recently purchased adjacent to her house. Planned renovations to the rectory would replace the current capacity, but not allow further expansion. The opportunity for a companion church is to support this urban congregation in building a church that fits its vision for Holguin.

The congregation in Maniti was established in 1908, and recently rebuilt its church over a ten-year period following hurricane damage. Until a few years ago, they had a full-time rector, but he was forced to retire due to health reasons. Currently, Fr. Gil visits the church 3 – 4 days a month, and the congregation of 35 is led by a team of four women in his absence. There is no rectory in Maniti and serving the church from Holguin is complicated by a difficult two-hour trip and poor infrastructure. The opportunity for a companion church in Manati is to help this congregation add a fellowship room, day care center and laundry facility to its church. This church is an established part of its community, and these facilities would provide meaningful support to working families. Manati is about a tenth the size of Holguin, with a population of 35,000. Our final stop was in Havana to meet with Bishop Griselda to share our observations and gain deeper insight into her vision. Bishop Griselda came to Cuba from Bolivia and has been with the Episcopal Church of Cuba since 1980. After 25 years as rector of two churches, she was installed as Bishop in November 2010, replacing a line of interim bishops who sought to manage the church while a permanent bishop could be elected.

We met with Bishop Griselda for over four hours and not only talked through the challenges and opportunities of the facilities as we saw them, but also the personnel strategy involved in addressing those issues. The team was uniformly impressed with Bishop Griselda, her accomplishments, and her vision for a spiritually driven rejuvenation of the church.

Aside from her spiritual leadership, Bishop Griselda’s accomplishments as a manager in this environment cannot be overstated. The annual budget for the diocese (which encompasses the entire island stretching 740 miles) is less than $100,000. The organization she inherited had been starved of resources including pay and pension for decades, and the pipeline for clergy was essentially empty. She is making methodical progress in repairing a badly deteriorated infrastructure in a country that is ambivalent, if not hostile, to the efforts of the ECC. Infrastructure is poor, and supplies are only sporadically available.

Under her leadership, the ECC has developed a detailed operating plan for each parish and created a comprehensive personnel development program including an internship program as a feeder system for the seminary. She is focused on carefully building a spiritual core for church leadership while finding financial partners who can assist in rebuilding the infrastructure. Aside from spearheading the reconciliation process with the U.S. church, she led an effort to restore pensions for the church, supervised the rebuilding of nine churches, and initiated the development of a national church retreat at Camp Blankingship. Trinity Wall Street and St. Luke’s Darien have been strong supporters of the rejuvenation of the ECC along with several other churches.

Opportunities for Christ Church to engage with the ECC is fairly open, and it we should expect that to deepen and broaden over time if policy continues to loosen (modest liberalization is fitfully taking place in the private sector with entrepreneurial efforts targeting the tourist industry, limited access to the internet, etc.). We believe it makes sense to fully explore supporting the parishes in Holguin and Manati under the leadership of Fr. Gil. That could mean support for construction of a church as well as improvements to existing facilities. Likewise, the congregation needs items such as prayer books, worship items, medicine, toiletries, and other goods which they simply cannot procure in Cuba – we could sponsor periodic supply runs to support them. Youth groups and adult trips are limited only by our collective imagination and enthusiasm (with some language skills thrown in for good measure). In short, we believe there is much we can do to meet the need of these churches and do our part in “bringing us together across historical divides”.

For additional information regarding the ECC, please visit the websites below or talk with the team: - Team members: Rev. Marek Zabriskie, Dick Hollister, Frankie Hollister, Dick Schulze, Luz Velez, Lee Paine, Karolyn Armstrong, Debbie Wolf, and Randy Wolf - Episcopal Church of Cuba - https://www.anglicancommunion.org/structures/member- churches/member-church.aspx?church=cuba - Friends of the Episcopal Church of Cuba - https://www.friendsofeccuba.org/