REPARATIONS
Reparations is the spiritual and material process to remember, restore, reconcile, and make amends for historical and continuing wrongs against humanity that can never be singularly reducible to monetary terms, but must include a substantial investment and surrender of resources.
— EDOW’s Working Definition of Reparations
The Episcopal Diocese of Washington is committed to bravely uncovering, understanding, reckoning with, and acting to dismantle racism within ourselves, our faith communities, the diocese, and our localities. This work includes reckoning with our diocesan history of participation in anti-Black racism and learning more about the legacy of benefit the diocese has received from that participation.
In January 2025, the Diocesan Committee on Reparations will bring forward three recommendations at our annual convention. These recommendations, developed in collaboration with the Committee on Black Ministries, are meant to support our continued efforts to understand and lament the harms of anti-Black racism in our diocese, and, where possible, to make amends.
A diocesan Service Toward Repentance will be held on Friday, January 24, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. at Washington National Cathedral (optional dinner at 5:30 p.m.). Following our years-long work on reparations, the service will be a liturgy of truth-telling, reckoning, and repentance for the harms done within the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, from the enslavement era through the present, to the Black community, so that we might move toward new relationships in Christ. Convention delegates and guests, please register through convention registration. All others, please register here.
The service can be live-streamed for those who cannot be physically present here.
Our journey toward reparations will not be without its challenges. Yet our commitment to justice and equity requires that we walk this road of self-discovery, understanding, confession, repentance, and ultimately, restitution for our institutional involvement with white supremacy.
The call for reparations has been active, in one form or another, since emancipation. EDOW’s efforts have been grounded in scripture and a definition of reparations that encompasses truth-telling and remembering, restoration, and reconciliation. Learn more
Uncovering and telling the truth about our history is an essential part of the work of reparations. Understanding these harms informs the path toward spiritual and material reckoning and repair within EDOW. Learn more
At Diocesan Convention on January 25th, 2025, delegates will vote on three recommendations from the Committee on Diocesan Reparations. The night before Convention, the Diocese will host a Service Toward Repentance. Learn more
EDOW’s formal work on reparations began in 2019 with the Reparations Task Force, and in 2023, transitioned to the Committee on Diocesan Reparations. The timeline lists official actions of convention and major endeavors of these two groups. Learn more
All parishes in the Diocese of Washington are encouraged to examine their histories from the perspective of race and racism. Several congregations have done so, and others are in process. Support and resources are available. Learn more
Over the course of the past several years, a variety of educational resources on reparations have been made available. Some have been developed within EDOW; others have been used by congregations as guides. Learn more
