Z 0963.000 Protestant Episcopal Church, Diocese of Mississippi, Records

Church records of the Diocese of Mississippi (organized 1826) during the episcopate of its first bishop, the Rt. Rev. William Mercer Green (1850-1884), and its second bishop, the Rt. Rev. Hugh Miller Thompson (1884-1902). These papers include miscellaneous diocesan correspondence and the Journal of the Standing Committee of the Diocese, 1826-1898. Of special historical interest are the Civil War papers in the collection, which document the action of the southern churches after Mississippi's secession from the Union on January 9, 1861. These papers include the circular letter sent from Sewanee by the senior southern bishops, Bishop Polk and Bishop Elliott, asking for a meeting of all southern bishops in Montgomery on July 3, 1861, to "consult upon such matters as may have arisen out of the churches in our civil affairs." Mississippi delegates attended the Montgomery meeting, after which the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States was organized.

The papers also document the return of southern bishops to the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America in 1865. Bishop Green's pastoral letter to the church in Mississippi, December 14, 1866, calling for schools for the freed Negroes, is among the papers. Other papers include letters dimissory, testimonials of the Standing Committee, documents concerning the organization of parishes and missions, and correspondence concerning clergymen called, disciplined, and deposed.

The collection includes manuscripts, broadsides, pamphlets, and newspaper clippings. The Church News for May, 1903 contains Tennessee Bishop Thomas Frank Gailor's memorial sermon on Bishop Thompson, which was delivered to the Diocesan Council meeting in St. Andrew's Church, April 28-30, 1903. This issue of The Church News also contains the announcement that the Rt. Rev. Theodore DuBose Bratton, D. D., rector of St. Mary's School, Raleigh, North Carolina, has accepted the bishopric of Mississippi. Description of other diocesan archives, now missing, can be found in Inventory of the Church Archives of Mississippi, Protestant Episcopal Church, Diocese of Mississippi (Mississippi Historical Records Survey, Jackson, 1950).

Microfilm edition contents:

• Roll 1 (MF Roll # 36096): journal of the standing committee of the diocese (1862-1898); official papers of the diocese (1847-1864).
• Roll 2 (MF Roll # 36097): official papers of the diocese (1865-1879).
• Roll 3 (MF Roll # 36098): official papers of the diocese (1880-1886).
• Roll 4 (MF Roll # 573): official papers of the diocese (1886-1903; n.d.).