Rector
St. Alban's Episcopal Church
Washington, D.C.
I’m a native of England who came to the USA as an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill. While there, I was moving from teenaged charismatic evangelicalism and was led by the Spirit to something much more graceful in a large Episcopal parish. I returned to the UK and to Cambridge and, while there and with the blessing of two bishops, I decided to return to the States to learn about large parishes. I was ordained in North Carolina and so am ecclesiastically indigenous to the Episcopal Church.
I have enjoyed large parish ministry in Raleigh, NC, Alexandria, VA, Atlanta, GA and Washington DC to which we moved after eighteen years at All Saints’, Atlanta pursuing a professional opportunity for my wife. Along the way, I have also taught parish ministry at Virginia Theological Seminary (where I also taught preaching) and the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.
I have also served the wider church in many capacities including Standing Committee and seven years chairing the budget committee in the Diocese of Virginia, being a long time Trustee of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, as well as The Anglican Studies Advisory Board at Candler and the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Yale Divinity School. I am an active member of the Compass Rose Society and have led parishes into international relationships, notably in Sudan and in Tanzania.
In recent years I have been interested in discovering what we need to be and do as church today in order to have a thriving Episcopal Church in the generations that follow us. I imagine stable traditional parishes functioning like abbeys, with any number of worshipping communities related to them in some way. These might exist for three months or thirty years. They might gather on a weekday evening or have a residential aspect. They might be a group of ten or a group of one hundred. They might look and feel quite different from the churches we know and love today.
I’m married to Sage and between us we have four children, Alexander b.1991, Joanna b.1996, Ruthie Rhodes b. 2003, Allyson b.2004. I became a US citizen in 2015. I‘m a happy hacker on a golf course. I am a voracious reader. I enjoy cooking, exercise and multi-day hikes.
As part of process of electing the XV Bishop of the Diocese of South Carolina, in-depth interviews were conducted with the five candidates on the slate. Veteran newspaper journalist, Elsa McDowell (who also served on the Bishop Search Committee) conducted the interviews, asking each candidate the same six questions, which were provided in advance.
**Link to resources mentioned by the Rev. Hoare during the interview: https://bit.ly/3rVHw4K**
The Reverend Geoffrey M. St. John Hoare was asked to introduce himself to the diocese in a short video and answer the following question: "Why do you feel called to serve in the Diocese of South Carolina as Bishop?” Click the video to hear what he has to say to the diocese.
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