The Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina is a diocese in the Episcopal Church. It consists of 28 counties in western North Carolina and its episcopal see is in Asheville, North Carolina, seated at Cathedral of All Souls. The first recorded worship from the Book of Common Prayer west of the Catawba River was in 1786. Valle Crucis, where one of the two conference centers is located, began as a missionary outpost in 1842. In 1894, a resolution was adopted in the Convention of the Diocese of North Carolina that the Western part of the State be set off and offered to the General Church as a Missionary District. The following year, in November 1895, the first Convention of the District of Asheville was held at Trinity Church in Asheville. In 1922, after all the requirements had been fulfilled, a petition from the Jurisdiction of Asheville to become the Diocese of Western North Carolina was presented at the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. It was accepted on September 12, 1922. The Ravenscroft Associate Missions and Training School of the North Carolina Episcopal Diocese and the former residence of the Bishop was once housed at Schoenberger Hall in Asheville. Diocesan offices are located at the Bishop Henry Center in Asheville. The diocese contains 63 parishes, 6 summer chapels, a diocesan School - Christ School, Asheville; A retirement community, Deerfield, Asheville; 2 conference centers - Lake Logan, and Valle Crucis; a thriving summer camp, Camp Henry, and over 15,000 members. The diocese is divided into six deaneries. Its cathedral is the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, located in Biltmore Village. The diocese is a proponent of social justice, especially in issues concerning immigration, poverty and the marginalized. The diocese is notable for two small mountain parishes that contain frescoes created by Ben Long, an Italian-trained artist: the fresco of the Last Supper at Holy Trinity church in Glendale Springs and Mary Great with Child and John the Baptist at Saint Mary's Episcopal Church in Beaver Creek, both part of the Holy Communion Parish of Ashe County. In another, much larger parish, St. Paul's Episcopal located in the foothills of Wilkesboro, two recent Long frescoes can be seen. These frescoes depict Paul the Apostle in prison and his conversion of the Damascan Road. They were completed in 2003. The diocese has historically practiced a higher churchmanship than most dioceses in the Fourth Province, and especially the other two dioceses in the state.
The 7th and current Diocesan bishop is The Right Reverend José Antonio McLoughlin, who was ordained and consecrated on October 1, 2016 as the first Bishop of Western North Carolina of Latino descent. Prior to his election as bishop of the Diocese of Western North Carolina, Bishop José served as the Canon to the Ordinary and Chief-of-Staff for the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma since 2008. Previously, José served congregations in the dioceses of Southeast Florida and Virginia. Bishop José earned his Masters in Divinity from Virginia Theological Seminary and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Central Florida. Prior to his call to the priesthood, the Bishop worked in the criminal justice field serving in the State of Florida as a police officer and in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. in various capacities, most recently as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General. Bishop José was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and raised in Florida. Since becoming the Bishop of the Diocese of Western North Carolina, Bishop José has declared, in many and various ways, that he hopes to be a different kind of bishop, and he particularly does not want to be remembered as a distantly-removed dignitary. While not disregarding the great traditions of the Church, Bishop José believes that changes are necessary in the ways the church ministers in our day, and many of those changes must originate from the ministry of the bishop. He has to be a “hands-on” bishop who is close to the people of the diocese and the clergy who serve them. He has committed to being fully engaged in the church’s ministry with youth, minorities, and underserved populations. He is passionate about raising up a new kind of leadership for the church in our day. Bishop Jose' has been married to Laurel Lynne since 1993 and together they have two children, Alexander and Alyson.
