Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina

The Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina is a diocese in the Episcopal Church. It consists of 27 counties in western North Carolina and its episcopal see is in Asheville, North Carolina, seated at Cathedral of All Souls.

Contents

• Bishops
• Asheville Deanery
• Foothills Deanery
• Hendersonville Deanery
• Mountain Deanery
• Piedmont Deanery
• Western Deanery
• References

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 65 parishes and over 15,000 members, divided into six deaneries. Its cathedral is the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, located in Biltmore Village. The 6th Diocesan bishop is the Right Reverend G. Porter Taylor, who has served since September 18, 2004 and will retire on October 1, 2016, upon the ordination of the 7th Diocesan bishop.

The diocese is a proponent of social justice and has applied to the Episcopal Church for a relationship as a sister diocese of the Anglican Diocese of Durgapur, India from 2007 through 2010. 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. 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.