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The Diocese of Tennessee, with approximately 14,000 communicants, is located in the area of the state roughly defined by the northern and southern paths of the Tennessee River. It is about 200 miles at its widest from east to west and 120 miles north to south, with Nashville, the state capital almost at its center. Currently the diocese is made up of 50 congregations, 35 of which have parish status.
The Episcopal Church in Tennessee was established with the founding in 1827 of St. Paul's Church, Franklin, by schoolmaster James Hervey Otey. This congregation joined Christ Church, Nashville, to form a nucleus for a diocese in Tennessee. The first diocesan convention took place in 1829 and Otey was consecrated as first Bishop of Tennessee in 1833. In 1866 Tennessee's second Bishop, Charles Todd Quintard, recommended that the diocese be split into three separate units. But it was not until over a century later in 1977 that an Advisory Committee on Structure began deliberations and ultimately recommended that division take place. As William Evan Sanders, the Diocesan at the time, remarked, "Our caution in following Bishop Quintard's counsel seems to be an epitome of long range planning."
The diocese of West Tennessee came into being in 1983. The creation of a new diocese in East Tennessee occured in 1984 and the third in the state, the Diocese of Tennessee, held its organizing convention in November 1984 and elected its first Bishop in January 1985, the Right Reverend George Lazenby Reynolds, Jr., who died in 1991. The Right Reverend Bertram Nelson Herlong was elected in January 1993 and was consecrated in June 1993. |
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