Diocesan Profile
- Where We've Been

A Brief History of the Diocese of Long Island

THE FIRST CHURCHES IN THE DIOCESE FOLLOWED THE FIRST EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS, WITH DUTCH REFORMED CONGREGATIONS IN THE WEST AND PURITANS IN THE EAST. ALTHOUGH THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND WAS DESIGNATED THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH IN THE LOWER PART OF NEW YORK IN 1693, THERE WAS A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF RELIGIOUS UNREST IN THE EARLY COLONIAL YEARS. SOME OF THE FIRST CHURCHES WERE ESTABLISHED BY THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS IN FLUSHING, HEMPSTEAD, JAMAICA, SETAUKET, AND OAKDALE.

Originally formed out of the Diocese of New York, the Diocese of Long Island was first organized in Brooklyn on November 18, 1868 when 61 clergymen assembled in the Church of the Holy Trinity. Dr. Abram Newkirk Littlejohn, rector of Holy Trinity was elected Bishop on the following day. Our history gives evidence of the Diocese’s theological diversity: Bishop Littlejohn was most likely selected in as the compromise candidate between “high” and “low” factions; he had supporters in both camps, neither of which held a majority. This balancing act has persisted ever since.

In 1876, Mrs. Cornelia Clinch Stewart agreed to build a large endowed church that would serve as a memorial to her late husband, Alexander Turney Stewart – continuing his vision of an ideal community – and also serving as a cathedral to the Diocese. With no surviving children as heirs, Mrs. Stewart used their wealth to fund the new Cathedral, the Bishop’s Residence, St. Paul’s Boys School, and St. Mary’s Girls School, all built in Garden City. According to Canon Davis’s history of the Diocese,³ Mrs. Stewart’s agent, lawyer Henry Hilton, acquired such influence over her and funding for the project that donations were severely restricted, and years of litigation followed her death. The endowment for the Diocese, the Cathedral, and the Cathedral schools, St. Paul’s and St. Mary’s, was to prove inadequate in the future.

Even before the death in 1901of the ailing Bishop Littlejohn, authority had passed to a small group of affluent rectors and laymen. The second bishop, Frederick Burgess, made great strides in improving transparency and reducing the deficits – as well as the conflicts and rivalries – that left the Cathedral severely underfunded. Yet by the time of his successor in 1925, concerns over funding and control had resumed. Bishop Stires, the third bishop, was an affluent man who arranged, at a time of Diocesan money worries, to have his salary paid by a wealthy friend. Accompanied by centralization of authority under the Diocesan council, the “subtle overtones” of control by a small group were clear. The same concerns of clergy and laity who felt disenfranchised and asked “embarrassing and erstwhile forbidden questions” of the Bishops and “the establishment” were to recur through the 1970s,and beyond.⁴  

Rapid economic growth and population shifts during the first decades of the 20th century led to equally rapid growth of the church on Long Island. Churches were established to minister to Italian and other immigrant groups; hospitals, schools, and charitable organizations blossomed as well. Yet the Great Depression marked a fundamental change in the church: No longer the exclusive home of the affluent, the Diocese found much of its missionary work too expensive to maintain, and densely populated areas in the city were reduced to slums. Of course, thanks in large part to wealthy congregants and friends in Garden City, the Diocese was able to erect a Cathedral House in 1938, but even economic recovery could not disguise the fact that its base had changed. The wartime economy and postwar boom drew hundreds of thousands of working and middleclass from different parts of the U.S. and beyond. To accommodate migration to Nassau and Suffolk suburbs, new churches were built and parish halls added, but the old pattern of financial support from the wealthiest was not the same. Meanwhile, in many parts of Brooklyn the Episcopal Church had declined. Official neglect and unscrupulous practices by lenders and real estate operators accelerated decay in many urban neighborhoods; few black immigrants were Episcopalian until Anglican immigrants from the Caribbean provided the seeds for rebirth of the Brooklyn church in the late 1960s and 1970s.

The Right Rev. Richard B. Martin, Suffragan Bishop, was the first black bishop to serve in the Diocese but the only active bishop not asked to live in Garden City. Even on their way to services at the Cathedral, Bishop Martin relates, minority visitors in the 1960s could be followed by Garden City police cars as they walked from the train station. We have had to work through the problems of our recent past. But times have changed. Bishop Martin was succeeded as Suffragan by another black bishop, The Right Rev. Henry B. Hucles, III, and today all races worship together, meet and enjoy fellowship (and all bishops regardless of color have been welcome in Garden City).

Recent times have seen financial ups and downs, and the Diocese has not been immune to this. The Cathedral Corporation and Episcopal Health Services recovered from financial bankruptcy, yet many mourn the sale of St. Paul’s and St. Mary’s Schools and the Smithtown Campus of Episcopal Health Services. Falling memberships and resources caused several congregations to be closed or merged.

Financial pressures and the ongoing commitment to social programs forced some parishes to make difficult decisions. St. George’s faced community opposition when it tore down its 1828 parsonage and parish hall to build low income housing in Astoria, with the help of state and federal development funds and the support of the Diocese. With attendance down, the church felt it had no choice but to seek new income from subsidized housing for the elderly to continue its mission.