History
As settlers and missionaries moved westward after the Revolutionary War, they brought their faith traditions with them, including those of the newly formed Episcopal Church. Shortly after Ohio was admitted to the Union, the first Episcopal church was established in the state at Worthington, near present day Columbus in 1804. After years of fruitless petitions and through the hard work of missionaries and others, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church finally granted Ohio a separate diocese in 1818.
Philander Chase was appointed the first Bishop of Ohio in 1819. Chase returned from a fund raising trip to England in 1823 and established the diocesan headquarters and a new Episcopal college, Kenyon College, in Gambier. Kenyon College and Gambier were named for Lord Kenyon and Lord Gambier, the largest benefactors to the establishment of the college and new diocese.
Bishop Chase retired in 1832 and was succeeded by Charles Pettit McIlvaine, a leading advocate Evangelicalism which called upon the Episcopal Church to turn from the more anglo-catholic reforms of the Oxford Movement and return to a purer Protestant expression in the Church. This precipitated a split of the Diocese of Ohio into two separate dioceses in 1875: the Diocese of Ohio, which favored the more evangelical expression of worship and theology, and the Diocese of Southern Ohio which favored more anglo-catholic styles.
Upon Bishop McIlvaine's death in 1873, Gregory Thurston Bedell became the Third Bishop of Ohio, after his consecration as assistant bishop in 1859. Bishop Bedell was a staunch supporter of the Union in the Civil War, and has been credited with keeping the Episcopal Church unified during this time, unlike many other denominations. Bishop Bedell also moved the headquarters of the diocese from Gambier to Cleveland as most new parishes were now located in urban areas along Lake Erie.
William Andrew Leonard was consecrated as the Fourth Bishop of Ohio in 1889 and was responsible, with financial backing from William G. Mather, for the construction of Trinity Cathedral, completed in 1907. The Cathedral was designed by Charles F. Schweinfurth in English Perpendicular Gothic form from Indiana limestone. Diocesan offices were located in the adjoining Church House, and remain here presently.
Read more about this topic: Episcopal Diocese Of Ohio
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