New Priest Brings Renewed Hope To St John’s

By Nancy K. Crevier

By day, he dispenses legal advice. On Sunday mornings, he dispenses the Eucharist.

The Reverend Mark R. Moore is the new priest at St John’s Episcopal Church, working on a limited basis for the tiny congregation in the center of Sandy Hook since September. A full-time attorney for the Connecticut Legal Services, with an office in Bridgeport, and a former history teacher, Rev Moore has been an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church since 1987.

His spiritual journey and his life work have given him the skills that he hopes will translate into a good fit with the community-oriented congregation of St John’s, said Rev Moore in a recent interview.

“I started out as a teacher, coming from a long line of teachers in the family,” said Rev Moore, who is descended from one of the original settlers of Milford, as well as President Calvin Coolidge. His teaching career began in Roxbury, Mass., just outside of Boston, during the unsettled desegregation days of the 1970s. It was his first opportunity to do community outreach, connecting with the youth of that area.

From teaching, he moved on to a job in the private sector, producing educational programs as an educational media specialist, also in the Boston area. It was right around this time that he began to feel a spiritual pull.

“In the 1970s, you always hear about the counterculture, but there was also a huge spiritual movement that grew out of the counterculture movement,” said Rev Moore. He became active in a small, storefront church in Boston. “I loved that,” he recalled. “It was rooted in the mystical, contemplative Catholic traditions, and it filled a need I had to be part of a larger tradition,” said Rev Moore.

When friends connected him with the high Episcopal Church in New Haven, he fell in love with the beauty of the liturgy and the prayer. “There is an incredible richness in the Episcopal Church that is very different from what I grew up with in the Protestant religion,” said Rev Moore.

A rector at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Brookline, Mass., encouraged him to go to the seminary in Cambridge, so he left his position in educational media and spent the next three years submerged in religious study.

“I also trained in the St Ignatius tradition,” said Rev Moore, at the Center of Religious Development in Cambridge. The St Ignatius tradition is a form of contemplative prayer and meditation in which thoughts are focused on God, allowing God to speak to the faithful through the process, explained Rev Moore.

He also trained as a hospital chaplain, and in 1986 was ordained as a deacon at St John’s Episcopal in Portsmouth, N.H., where he was ordained into the priesthood a year later.

His first parish in Mansfield, Mass., was not unlike St John’s in Sandy Hook, in several respects, said Rev Moore. “There were probably 12 parishioners when I started. But even though it was fairly small, it was the most diverse congregation I’ve ever had,” he said. The small congregation was devoted to community work, as is St John’s in Sandy Hook, and it was during his five years at Mansfield that he became involved in the community outreach that has become the focus of his ministry. By the time he left Mansfield after five years, the parish was flourishing. It had a cable television program, a big ministry to immigrants, had extended its community outreach, and had won a statewide award in 1989 for ministry to the challenged individuals in the community.

“I’m pretty traditional in my belief,” said Rev Moore. “I believe we are called to be a part of the wider world. When you start to do that, your faith starts to have more meaning. When you reach out, you come in contact with people very different from yourself, and it enriches you.”

He moved on to a church in Lincoln, R.I., and then became an interim minister, a position where his skill in organizing was well put to use, he said. He served at St Peter’s in Milford and then settled at Grace Episcopal in Trumbull, feeling that his daughter, now 17, needed more stability.

“In the Episcopal Church, you are expected to do continuing education and outreach,” Rev Moore said, “so I decided to do something different to meet other people and be stimulated in a different way than I was by the church.” He attended law school nights, always planning to practice public interest law. After passing the bar exam, he did legal volunteer work for children and abuse cases, elder law, and child law, before leaving Grace Episcopal to work full-time as an attorney, a year and a half ago.

But he did not leave his spiritual background behind. “I served as a substitute priest, and St John’s in Sandy Hook was one that I filled in at this past summer,” he said.

The congregation of St John’s Episcopal in Sandy Hook has been without a permanent minister since the Reverend Joan Horwitt moved on in 1987. After that, the parish went into a regional ministry, with the late Father Pagett serving fairly regularly until illness prevented him from doing so, and part-time priests Reverends Daniel Mattila and Judith Toffee through the past summer.

Once a thriving congregation, in recent years the number of congregants has been reduced to just eight or ten families. But like the Mansfield, Mass., church community, they are small but mighty, hosting the annual Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, providing space for the Organic Farmers’ Market, and housing the FAITH Food Pantry, among other community programs.

“I like the people of St John’s. It seemed like a good fit, not just because I was looking for a church where I could do just the Sunday service, but intuitively, it felt good. The St John’s parishioners seem incredibly committed to keeping their church going. They have an amazing number of things going on here,” said Rev Moore.

The goal of the church is to grow in number, said St John’s Warden Bruce Moulthrop last winter in an interview with The Bee. This week he added, “We knew that we would eventually find a person who was a good fit for us, and are very pleased and excited to have the Reverend Mark Moore with us. We feel is the right person to move us forward from our transitional period and help us grow as a community. St John’s doors are welcome to all. With Father Mark’s help and guidance we will now have the continuity to explore new avenues and reach out more into the community. We hope that people will come to meet him and see what St John’s is all about.”

Rev Moore believes that having a regular priest every Sunday to serve the Eucharist and minister to the congregation may move the church toward the goal of an increased membership. Because every church is different, he said, there is no telling what can happen.

Presently, his agreement with St John’s is for Sundays only, “But if they begin to grow, I will be available for more things, I imagine,” he said. For now, he will be there every Sunday for the 9:30 am Mass, and for as many special events as his work and private life allow.

A special Christmas Eve service is scheduled on December 24, at 8 pm.

“I’d love to see St John’s start to grow,” said Rev Moore. “But for now, I guess we will just go with the flow.”