Anglican pilgrimage to Navajoland a celebration of Indigenous cultures, self-determination

[Episcopal News Service] Nearly three dozen Anglicans worldwide have returned home from a nine-day pilgrimage to the Missionary Diocese of Navajoland with a deeper knowledge and appreciation of Diné culture and spirituality.

“It was a rich experience. We really gained an understanding through sharing our sacred stories and our songs and prayers,” the Rev. Cornelia Eaton, Navajoland’s canon to the ordinary, told Episcopal News Service. “The pilgrimage was done in a respectful way, and it was powerful to us when the Maōri offered their own warrior dance and prayers in our honor.”

The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American tribe by both land and tribal enrollment. Its reservation occupies a large portion of the Four Corners region, including parts of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico and southeastern Utah.

Eaton led the Aug. 1-9 pilgrimage, which was organized by Archbishop Don Tamihere of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. Tamihere, as one of the province’s three co-equal primates, represents the province’s Indigenous Māori people.

Other church leaders who participated in the pilgrimage included Archbishop Marinez Santos Bassoto, presiding bishop and primate of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, and Archbishop Chris Harper, national Indigenous Anglican archbishop of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The 34 pilgrims stopped in Episcopal parishes and sacred spaces throughout Navajo Nation, including Good Shepherd Mission in Fort Defiance, Arizona; the Navajo Nation Museum in nearby Window Rock, Navajo Nation’s capital; and Spider Rock, a large sandstone spire located at the junction of Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona, where Diné families have been living for nearly 5,000 years.

“When we were at Spider Rock, we just listened to the wind around us and took in a moment of silence,” Eaton said. “That silence brings such different voices from the canyonlands that has a lot of history, because Spider Rock is where a lot of our ancestors were captured and forced to march to Fort Sumner during the Long Walk. So, it was through being quiet where we all got to experience listening to our ancestors.”

The pilgrims also visited St. Christopher’s Mission in Bluff, Utah, and Episcopal congregations in the Farmington, New Mexico, area, where the Navajoland diocese is based. They also visited the diocese’s Hozho Wellness Center in Farmington. The center serves as a support and counseling center for Navajo women and their families by offering a food delivery program and parenting, gardening, cooking, art and storytelling classes. The word “hózhó” means “balance and beauty” in the Navajo language.

Near the end of the pilgrimage, the pilgrims stopped at Santuario de Chimayó near Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Pennsylvania Bishop Daniel Gutiérrez, president of the Anglican Communion Compass Rose Society and a New Mexico native with Mesoamerican ancestry, led a prayer service. They also stopped at Picuris Pueblo, one of New Mexico’s 19 Native American pueblos whose inhabitants have resided there for centuries. Each pueblo is a sovereign nation. While at Picuris Pueblo, the pilgrims met with former Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, and Tom Udall, former U.S. ambassador to New Zealand.

Gutiérrez told ENS that the Compass Rose Society is working to elevate Indigenous voices in the Anglican Communion.

“Indigenous people have been ignored and maligned, especially by the church, yet they are the most faithful people with deep concern for the Earth and walking in the world with presence,” Gutiérrez said. “We want to empower their work – God’s work – in the world.”

Each day, the Diné Episcopalians served the pilgrims local homemade meals, such as lamb stew, fry bread, Navajo tacos and blue corn mush. At dawn, they shared sacred corn pollen, tádídíín, while silently praying.

“It was really powerful, just amazing to be present there while facing east as the sun was rising,” Eaton said.

Several of the pilgrims told Eaton the food tasted “like back home.”

“There were so many similarities between our cultures despite where we are in the world,” Eaton said.”

The pilgrimage also was a celebration of the Navajoland’s formal recognition as a diocese. Navajoland was created in 1977 as an area mission of The Episcopal Church. In 2024, the 81st General Convention authorized its elevation to missionary diocese status, allowing it to call its own bishop. That status was formalized in June 2025 when Executive Council approved Navajoland’s new constitution. It soon will launch a bishop search.

“We celebrated the work of self-determination and of being who we are today,” Eaton said. “Part of it was staying faithful and staying prayerful. It’s a huge step forward.”

Eaton said she’s spent the last few days reflecting on the pilgrimage, calling it a success:

“This experience, I feel, was healing in every way and for the world that is in need of healing and restoration – this is what the hózhó, the Beauty Way ceremony, is all about. We were in ceremony, in prayer, as we journeyed in the four directions of Navajoland,” Eaton said. “In my knowledge, our pilgrims’ relatives of the Maori, Amazon, Canada and Lakota – we all bring this knowledge of how we are related to the elements, the land, plants and animals, that give us sacred sustenance to bring us life. 

“The Diné and the Anglican pilgrims have a deep connection to God’s holy creation that makes us one people intertwined in a sacred and holy way. This is a gift of the Divine Creator. I am proud and grateful to walk this journey together.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.