About Us
As we search for our next rector, we invite you to review the Parish Profile, which outlines what we seek. How we beganOn the evening of Oct. 26, 2003, a dozen kindred spirits met at the home of the Rev. Roger Smith, a retired former rector of St. Helena’s Episcopal Church in Beaufort, and his wife, Headley, for Evening Prayer and conversation. In the wake of the recent General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC), the need for a community of faith both more inclusive and more supportive of TEC’s direction than existing parishes in the nearby area had become increasingly clear. The initial 12 grew in number and soon were a house church that gathered on alternate Sunday evenings, offering its members comfort and refuge in a troubled time in local diocesan history.
In the following months and years, we at St. Mark’s Chapel, as we by then were known, worked hard to maintain ties with the Diocese of South Carolina in the hope of gaining recognition as an official Episcopal entity. Though our efforts were unavailing, in 2012 the then-bishop led some two-thirds of congregations and clergy in the diocese to disaffiliation from TEC, and those remaining were reorganized as The Episcopal Church in South Carolina with the Rt. Rev. Charles vonRosenberg as provisional bishop. At the Diocesan Convention in 2013, St. Mark’s was granted mission status by the diocese, and at long last became a full-fledged parish church at the convention in 2015. Among its many blessings, St. Mark’s has been served from its earliest days by the several retired priests in its midst, most still active members of the parish. Chief among them was the late Rev. Smith, who more than the chapel’s founder was its steadfast shepherd and fierce defender. On retiring in 2008 as emeritus, he was succeeded as chaplain by the Rev. Dr. Robert Hansel but remained our lodestar till the end of his life. For a time, while the Rev. Patricia Daniel-Turk, the Rev. Jack Nietert and the Rev. Smith were rotating as celebrants at St. Mark’s, they became affectionately known as “the Madre-Padre Cadre.” When continued congregational growth brought with it the need for a more encompassing priestly ministry, the Rev. James Dannals accepted the call as our first vicar. Later, while the search for a full-time rector was underway, the Rev. Jonathan Coffey, himself a retired rector and St. Mark’s parishioner, was appointed interim rector, serving until Fr. Roy arrived. A St. Mark’s timeline (head)
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