Virginia Episcopalian Magazine Spring 2014 Issue | Page 30

Civil War
and the Life of the Diocese

Bishop’s Visitation
Julia Randle

If the annual meeting of a Diocese
is something like a family reunion,
then the bishop’s visitation to a
congregation is similar to a visit from
the head of the family. Like the annual
convention/council of the Diocese,
visitations were dramatically affected
by the Civil War.

Canon law requires the visitation
of a congregation every three years.
During the 1850s, the Rt. Rev. William
Meade, bishop of the Diocese of
Virginia, and the Rt. Rev. John Johns,
Meade’s assistant bishop, clearly met
that standard of duty. Between the
two bishops, they averaged visiting
110 of the 210 different churches and
mission stations each year. Most
congregations welcomed their
bishop at least every other year, while
urban congregations in Alexandria,
Charlottesville, Fredericksburg,
Norfolk, Richmond and Petersburg
usually received a separate annual
call from each bishop. The visitations
themselves often lasted two days, with
multiple services and sermons by the
bishop, as well as opportunities for the
parishioners to gather with him on an
informal or intimate basis, deepening
the relationship between congregation
and diocese.

Constant military action in Virginia
and U.S. Army occupation of various
portions of the state throughout the
Civil War prompted dramatic changes
to an Episcopal bishop’s ability to visit
his flock.

Trains and boats were frequently
devoted to transporting troops,
while other forms of transportation
28

The Rt. Rev. John Johns

became increasingly difficult to obtain.
Even when transportation could be
procured, travel was prohibited to
U.S. Army-occupied areas by a bishop
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in
the Confederate States of America.
A large arc of Diocese of Virginia
territory, from Norfolk and the Eastern
Shore, along the Chesapeake Bay and
Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers
through what is now West Virginia, was
inaccessible to the bishop of Virginia
for most of four years.

All the recorded episcopal
visitations during the war years were
performed by Bishop Johns due to
the death of Bishop Meade. In the
course of the war, Bishop Johns could
average visitations to 37 different
congregations annually, only appearing
at a total of 95 different churches or
missions between May 1861 and April

Virginia Episcopalian / Spring 2014

1865, primarily in the central portions
of the state. In addition, the bishop’s
stay in a parish was severely truncated,
rarely lasting more than a few hours.
Conditions normally prohibited multiple
services and time to linger with warstressed congregants, straining the
diocesan bonds between bishop and
people nurtured over the years.

While battles and troop
movements usually frustrated Bishop
John’s efforts to meet with his people,
the vicissitudes of war occasionally
provided unexpected opportunities
to visit. Advances through Maryland
toward Washington, D.C., by
Confederate forces drew U.S. Army
troops out of the Shenandoah Valley
and parts of West Virginia, opening
a window of opportunity for Bishop
Johns. He immediately traveled
to Winchester, holding services at
Christ Church, and devoting two
days to visiting individual parish
families in the area, then moved
northeast toward congregations
in Jefferson (W.Va.), Fauquier and
Loudoun Counties that he had not
seen for three years. Despite danger
of capture, he conducted services in
Trinity, Shepherdstown, then slipped
back into Confederate States-held
territory despite the theft of his horse.
Bishop Johns had to postpone further
reconnection with his people in this
and other areas of the Diocese of
Virginia until after the war’s end. t