The Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
Bishop of Maryland
On June 29, 2008, the Right Reverend Eugene Taylor Sutton was consecrated the 14th Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland of the Episcopal Church. Now a resident of Baltimore, MD, he came to the diocese after having served as Canon Pastor of Washington National Cathedral since June 2000, and Director of its Cathedral Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage.
Bishop Sutton was born and raised in Washington, DC, educated in its public schools, and did his undergraduate work at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. In 1981, he received his M.Div. from Western Theological Seminary, where he was awarded the Pietenpol Honors for Senior Excellence, and was ordained in the Reformed Church in America. After serving as pastor of an inner-city congregation for five years, he entered graduate studies at Princeton Theological Seminary where he completed all but dissertation in the Ph.D. program in 1992.
While teaching homiletics and liturgics for several years at New Brunswick Theological Seminary and at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, TN, he returned to his love of Anglican spirituality, and did his Anglican studies at the University of the South, School of Theology in 1993. In 1995-96, he served as Assistant to the Bishop and Chaplain of the Diocese of New Jersey, while also serving as adjunct professor of preaching at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He has served as vicar of St. Michael’s Church in Trenton, NJ, priest-in-charge of St. Margaret’s and St. Mary’s parishes in Washington, DC, and associate rector for mission and spirituality at St. Columba’s Church in Washington, DC.
Throughout his ministry in parishes and academia, Bishop Sutton has been a frequent leader of retreats and conferences throughout the nation on prayer, spirituality and preaching. While in the nation’s capital, he founded Contemplative Outreach of Metropolitan Washington (COMW), an ecumenical network of churches and individuals committed to centering prayer and renewing the contemplative dimension of the gospel for daily living. In addition to having published several articles on prayer, spirituality and homiletics, he is one of the contributors to the book The Diversity of Centering Prayer.
He is married to Sonya Subbayya Sutton, who serves as the director of music at St. Alban’s Church in Washington, DC, and they have four young adult children and stepchildren in their blended family.
Bishop Sutton Speaks Against the Death Penalty in Maryland
Testimony before the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment
August 19, 2008
We applaud and praise Governor O’Malley’s moral courage to place a moratorium on state-sponsored executions in Maryland. We hope and pray that this commission will conclude that the death penalty should be abolished in this great state. Read more...
A Moral Test for Maryland Legislators
By The Right Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
and the Right Rev. John Bryson Chane, Bishop of Washington
Washington Post, Sunday, January 11, 2009; B08
As the Maryland General Assembly prepares to convene on Wednesday, we hope that legislators will decide against the death penalty in Maryland. Doing so would represent an enormous moral failure for the state and for civil society. Read more...
