History

The Diocese of Connecticut is the oldest organized diocese in The Episcopal Church. It formally began with the consecration of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury as bishop of Connecticut on November 14, 1784 in Aberdeen, Scotland. Bishop Seabury convened the first Convocation (Convention) the following year in Middletown, Connecticut.

Prior to Bishop Seabury's election (at the historic Glebe House in Woodbury) and consecration, the Anglican Church had been quite active in the colony of Connecticut. The first recorded services were held in New London from Sept. 12-15, 1702 by two missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), George Keith and John Talbot. The first parish, Christ Church, Stratford, was organized in 1702.

The growth of the Anglican Church in a heavily congregationalist colony was enhanced on Sept. 13, 1722 when Dr. Timothy Cutler, president of Yale College, Samuel Johnson, Daniel Brown and James Wetmore announced their conversion to the Church of England and departed for Great Britain for ordination by the Bishop of London. By the close of the American War of Independence there were 44 parishes in Connecticut. The current diocesan bishop, the Rt. Rev. Andrew D. Smith is the fourteenth bishop of Connecticut.

The Diocese of Connecticut has been a leader in The Episcopal Church and in the state of Connecticut for many years. The Rt. Rev. Thomas C. Brownell and the Rt. Rev. John Williams served as Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church while, at the same time, serving as diocesans of Connecticut. The Rt. Rev. Walter Henry Gray, a leader in the Anglican Communion organized three Anglican Congresses and served as editor of the magazine Pan Anglican. He also served as the first chair of the Civil Rights Commission in Connecticut. Bishop Gray was a major presence at two meetings of the Lambeth Conferences.

A number of institutions have been or are connected with the diocese by whom they were founded, such as:

Trinity College
Berkeley Divinity School (now Berkeley Divinity School at Yale)
Cheshire Academy
Choate-Rosemary Hall
Kent School
South Kent School
Taft School
Salisbury School
Pomfret School
The Rectory School
St. Margaret-McTiernan School

Affiliates of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut include:

Armsmear
The Curtis Home
Oratory of the Little Way
Camp Washington 

There are 175 parishes and mission stations in the Diocese, with about 64,386 active baptized members.