The above video was taken at the 170th Convention of the Diocese of California at the moment when Saint Anna’s was officially brought into union with Convention. The motion was made by the Canon to the Ordinary Abbott Bailey and affirmed unanimously by Convention.  The video is what was shown on the screen to the delegates of Convention so there is a few minutes where what is shown is simply a slide or two while The Canon to the Ordinary is speaking.

The Most Rev. Michael Curry, thank you for your support of Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church in Antioch, California. We are deeply grateful for the work you are doing. You are a Light in the World!

Service celebrating new saint seals bond between her congregation and church that took her name

By David Paulsen

Posted Oct 8, 2019

[See photos at Episcopal News Service)

Zora Nobles, left, and her cousin, Dwala Nobles, present relics of St. Anna Alexander at a service Oct. 6 at Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church in Antioch, California. Photo: Kazuhiro “Kaz” Tsuruta

[Episcopal News Service] A California congregation named for one of The Episcopal Church’s newest saints, St. Anna Alexander, celebrated its namesake at a Sunday worship service that included a visit from two members of the church that Alexander helped establish in Pennick, Georgia.

Dwala Nobles, 59, and Zora Nobles, 65, cousins and longtime members of Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Pennick, brought with them century-old relics from Alexander’s work at Good Shepherd Church and its school, including Alexander’s Book of Common Prayer. On Oct. 6, Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church in Antioch, California, welcomed them as the congregation celebrated Alexander’s legacy as the only black Episcopal deaconess.

“It was almost like coming home,” Dwala Nobles told Episcopal News Service in a phone interview the day after the service. “We felt like we were home among family and friends.”

Saint Anna’s, the first Episcopal church to be named after an African American woman, was formed in March through the merger of two former congregations, St. George’s in Antioch and St. Alban’s in Brentwood in the Diocese of California. Alexander had only a year earlier been confirmed as a saint in The Episcopal Church, when General Convention in July 2018 voted to add her and her feast day, Sept. 24, to the church’s calendar of saints.

Deaconess Anna Ellison Butler Alexander was born in 1865 to recently freed slaves and died in 1947. She ministered in rural Georgia, focusing on the education of poor black children. Photo: Diocese of Georgia

Alexander was born in 1865 and died in 1947, and she spent much of her adult life ministering to poor black residents of Glynn and McIntosh counties in rural Georgia, particularly through education. She became a deaconess in 1907 in an era before the church allowed women as priests or deacons. Among those she taught at Good Shepherd were Dwala Nobles’ father and Zora Nobles’ father.

Among the items they brought with them to California were Alexander’s hymnal from 1878 and a Sunday school ledger from the early 20th century. Some of the materials include Alexander’s handwritten notes on teaching methods.

“St. Anna was indeed the persistent force encouraging and urging her students to aim high,” the Rev. Jennifer Nelson, a deacon in the Diocese of California, said in her sermon for the Oct. 6 service. Nelson is originally from Guyana and said Alexander reminded her of the caring teachers who encouraged her in her education.

“She had God’s blessing as she continued to forge onward, blazing a path that gives us a window that now shows us the courage and tenacity she would need to overcome the bigotry and discrimination in her time.”

During the service, Alexander’s Book of Common Prayer and other relics were placed on the altar. The cousins from Alexander’s Georgia church presented the congregation at Saint Anna’s with a framed picture of Alexander that was propped against the altar. Saint Anna’s reciprocated by giving Dwala Nobles and Zora Nobles a silver chalice that had been used by one of the two congregations that merged to form the new church.

St. Anna Alexander’s relics, including her Book of Common Prayer and hymnal, are received by the Rev. Alberta Buller and placed on the altar during a service Oct. 6 at Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church. Photo: Kazuhiro “Kaz” Tsuruta

A video of the service was shared on the church’s Facebook page.

Alexander was “imbuing us with her spirit,” the Rev. Jill Honodel, the congregation’s long-term supply priest, told ENS. She described it as an emotional and joyous day, centered around highlighting the life and works of an Episcopal saint who is only beginning to receive the full recognition she deserves.

“It felt like together, from coast to coast, we are taking what has been hidden and invisible all these years and we have the privilege and the honor of revealing it,” Honodel said.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, who visited Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in January 2018, also addressed those gathered at Saint Anna’s, through a brief video he recorded for the service. He alluded to a resource center established by Saint Anna’s.

“I rejoice in the fact that you, Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church, have focused on the needs of children and families in your community with a resource center for children and families,” Curry said. “That indeed is God’s work. That indeed is the work of Anna Alexander, deaconess of The Episcopal Church.”

Honodel and other local leaders spent the following day showing their two visitors from Georgia around the San Francisco Bay Area, including a sightseeing stop at the Golden Gate Bridge. They were scheduled to return home with Alexander’s relics on Oct. 8.

“It was just really critical that we come for this. We know this is just the beginning of the relationship,” Dwala Nobles said.

– David Paulsen is an editor and reporter for Episcopal News Service. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

Source: https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2019/10/08/service-celebrating-new-saint-seals-bond-between-her-congregation-and-church-that-took-her-name/

FIRST CHURCH TO BE NAMED AFTER ST. ANNA ALEXANDER IS INAUGURATED

For Immediate Release

25 March 2019

Contact:  Stephanie Martin Taylor, stephaniem@diocal.org  (415) 869-7820

Antioch, California – Sunday, in a much-anticipated liturgy, the words of Bishop Marc Andrus soared through the air, It is my delight to authorize with the consent of the Standing Committee the organization of St. George’s and St. Alban’s into a new bishop’s congregation with the name of St. Anna’s Episcopal Church.

With those words, the first Episcopal Church in the nation to be named after Saint Anna Alexander was created.  Anna Ellison Butler Alexander is a new saint in the Episcopal tradition whose Feast Day is on September 24th and will be included in the next edition of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.  Anna Alexander came to the attention of St. George’s, Antioch, and St. Alban’s, Brentwood, during last year’s Lent Madness and six months before General Convention reaffirmed her sainthood in July.   Born shortly after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Anna Alexander devoted her life to the service of others by providing much needed education and literacy to the children of those formerly enslaved. Despite the segregation of the Episcopal Church at the time, she became the first African American Deaconess in the Episcopal Church. 

The new congregation has parishioners who hail directly from Uganda, Liberia, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, The Philippines, Korea, Mexico, Canada, Holland, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Bermuda and Ghana among others.  The Rev. Jill Honodel, Long-Term Supply Priest said, We were so inspired by Anna's story of the pouring out her life for the sake of those formerly enslaved; despite having little resources she managed over time to build a school as well as a church to help people succeed through literacy.  Educational segregation exists right here in our neighborhood in that only 9% of the African American boys pass their math through high school. We are inspired by Saint Anna to do our part so that as many people as possible have a chance to succeed and the opportunity for a good future.  When parishioner Betty Smith saw the saint’s photo on the front cover of Sunday’s bulletin, she thought, It was good to come to church this morning and to see a saint of the church that looks like me.  I’m really thankful that God has given this to me in my time. 

St. George’s of Antioch and St. Alban’s of Brentwood, which are near the epicenter of the real estate crash that impacted the nation in 2008, were hard hit.  In 2018, they decided to not only share space in Antioch but also to share governance. September 30th, the two mission churches officially petitioned to merge and reform into a new mission.  The membership was unanimous in the decision. There is potential for a future church plant in Brentwood on a 9-acre property owned by the Diocese of California.  The membership of the new Saint Anna’s has done significant and heartfelt congregational work over the last two and a half years.  Bishop Marc Andrus has been supportive of the congregations and their merging into one and naming themselves after the church’s newest saint.

The new Sr. Warden of Saint Anna’s Michelle Price summarizes the sentiments of the congregation by saying, I’m elated that we are finally Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church. I was so inspired by her story in Lent Madness. She models what I feel is true Christianity: her quiet faithfulness and being a teacher, a champion for literacy and education, which is something I feel very passionately about. I took away from Lent Madness her being a saint as something I could emulate in my own life. Some of the saints do things that are so huge and so dynamic and here’s this humble, small woman in Pennick, that just quietly changed people’s lives one student at a time and depopulated the area and brought them to a new life where otherwise they would have been left behind so she is truly an inspiration to me.  Hopefully our church will model the same through our resource center by hosting literacy programs, after school programs and math programs.

Mimi Costa-White whose photo as a five-year-old was taken in the church when it was called St. Barnabas said, Witnessing the proclamation of the birth of St. Anna’s Episcopal was both moving and joyous. I felt St. Anna Alexander’s spirit of strength, determination and love of community in every moment of the service. It makes me very proud to be a member of the first church to honor her memory and teachings. 

The new church will host multiple celebrations this year that will be open to the community beginning on July 21st.

The mission statement of Saint Anna’s is A diverse community celebrating God’s love and acceptance.

Photography by Emma Marie Chiang

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6TH

GIVING THANKS FOR ALL THAT GOD IS DOING!

EMISSARIES OF RECONCILIATION CROSS COUNTRY TO CELEBRATE SAINT ANNA

Relics of the first African American deaconess unite congregations from California and Georgia as sister churches

 For Immediate Release

04 October 2019

Contact:  The Rev. Jill Honodel st.annasepiscopalchurch@gmail.com   (925) 435-9396

Antioch, California – On Sunday, October 6, 2019, cousins Zora Nobles and Dwala Nobles, members of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Brunswick, Georgia, will present the tattered buckram-covered 1892 version of the Book of Common Prayer once owned by the first African American deaconess in the Episcopal Church, Anna Ellison Butler Alexander, at the first church named in her honor, St. Anna’s Episcopal Church in Antioch.

The book was used to teach the children of the formerly enslaved to read during the social disorder following the Emancipation Proclamation.

The service will be live-streamed on the church’s Facebook Page (Saint Anna’s) on Sunday, October 6th at 10 a.m. PST, 7 a.m. EDT.

Invited to the first Feast Day of Saint Anna celebration at St. Anna’s Episcopal Church in Antioch are three African American female deacons from the Diocese of California. The Rev. Jennifer Nelson, the co-chair of the Vivian Traylor Chapter of the Union of Black Episcopalians, will preach. The Rev. Doe Yates, the first and only African American deacon to serve at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, and The Rev. Alberta Brown Buller of Christ Episcopal Church, Sausalito.

Anna Ellison Butler Alexander whose parents had been enslaved on Butler Island in Georgia directly influenced the trajectory of the Nobles family by educating their father and uncles and later giving them pertinent advice, such as buying property hidden from sight.

The Church of the Good Shepherd in Brunswick, Georgia, founded by Deaconess Alexander as both a schoolhouse as well as a church and of which the Nobles are members, celebrated its 125th anniversary on the Sunday prior to her September 24 Feast Day where 100 people were in attendance, including members of the saint’s family. The Church of the Good Shepherd envisions restoring St. Anna’s schoolhouse to be used as a reconciliation center. The Rev. Jabriel Ballentine (Racial Heresy podcast) encouraged the congregation in his sermon and in the workshop he led following the service.

Dwala and Zora Nobles plan to lead the procession of oblation bearers carrying St. Anna’s 19th century Book of Common Prayer to the altar where they will hand the fragile prayer book to Rev. Buller to place on the altar during the Eucharist. The Rev. Jill Honodel who has been guiding the congregation in the formation of Saint Anna’s said, Every time I tell people to imagine what it will be like for us to experience Dwala and Zora carrying Saint Anna’s Book of Common Prayer and handing it to Alberta, we get tears in our eyes. Saint Anna’s spirit is going to walk through our front doors, up the aisle and right to our altar. She is imbuing our church with her spirit.

Dwala Nobles said, “It is our hope and prayer that Saint Anna Alexander’s light will illuminate and guide the path of all who believe in the power of service – unconditional service.  The Good Shepherd Episcopal community in Brunswick, GA where Anna began her service, is honored to now join with Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church to share and speak with one voice as we continue to commemorate her life and legacy.  We are using the model of beloved community that Saint Anna created 100 years ago to extend our community, which now includes the congregants of Saint Anna’s Episcopal Church in Antioch.

The Rev. Jill Honodel said, our congregation is excited to meet Dwala and Zora Nobles, the bond is already there; and we are elated that they are going to imbue our church in California with the Spirit of Saint Anna by bringing her relics to us.  We will most certainly forge a lasting relationship and partner with The Church of the Good Shepherd in reconciliation in the years to come.  I’ve taken pause in recent weeks to reflect upon my ministry over the past 20 years. I imagine as I look back on this day years from now, I will think this feast day, the first Feast Day of Saint Anna Ellison Butler Alexander celebrated at Saint Anna’s, will most likely be the highlight of my ministry.  I can think of nothing more profoundly meaningful and lifegiving in ministry than this moment.

Photo credit for Saint Anna’s Book of Common Prayer:  Dwala Nobles

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