Bishop Duncan-Probe announces updated diocesan COVID-19 response

As infection rates rise in our region and around the U.S., Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe announces updates to the diocesan COVID-19 response. Indoor in-person gatherings will be suspended beginning Sunday, November 29, 2020 and continuing through at least January 1, 2021. Updated diocesan guidelines are now available at cnyepiscopal.org/covid-19

Greetings, friends!

I hope you enjoyed the 152nd Diocesan Convention as much as I did. I am so thankful to all who planned, implemented, attended, and have watched since this past Saturday. What a joy to be part of this faithful community in action.

I want to let you know that I have changed our diocesan response to COVID-19. We will no longer have “phases” or “steps” but will have a unified response that is available on our diocesan website and has been sent to all parish leadership. In this response, there are provisions for baptisms, funerals, and weddings. But as of November 29th, 2020, we will be suspending all in-person indoor gatherings for a time.

There is no doubt that in this time there is so much fear and anxiety. So much is trying to push us apart. And so as people of Jesus Christ we have renewed our commitment to seek a world healed by love as we learn to love God, one another, and all God’s creation. As we pray, listen to one another, and especially to voices different than our own, as we connect within and beyond our Church, as we share stories of faith, as we speak truth, and yes, as we respond with all that we have and all that we are.

This year as we continue to listen, learn, and respond to institutional racism and dehumanization of others, as we seek to serve God in the people in our communities, I pray that we will indeed repent of the sin in our own hearts that keeps us from being people of love and of service. No doubt this is a tough time. But God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, and of power, and of a sound mind.

So together, dear friends, let us love God and love one another. I pray that you will be blessed and be a blessing.

God be with you now, and always.


The Rt. Rev. Dr. DeDe Duncan-Probe
Bishop of Central New York

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