Virginia priest could be removed from priesthood over ongoing Eucharistic ‘fast’ against racism

[Episcopal News Service] A white Virginia priest has demanded The Episcopal Church atone for its past complicity with white supremacy and racism. Now the Rev. Cayce Ramey, who has embraced the label of “heretic,” soon could be removed from the priesthood for refraining from receiving or distributing Communion over the past two years as part of his self-described Eucharistic “fast.”

Ramey had served as rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Alexandria since 2014 but stepped down in December 2022, shortly after the Diocese of Virginia began Title IV disciplinary proceedings against him for his fast. Diocesan leaders accused him of neglecting one of his core duties as a priest and of disregarding “the doctrine, discipline and worship of the church.”

In May 2024, a disciplinary hearing panel sided with diocesan leaders and endorsed Ramey’s removal. On Nov. 25, the churchwide Court of Review will consider his appeal of that ruling. Ramey already has been barred by Virginia Bishop E. Mark Stevenson from performing any priestly duties or serving on any diocesan bodies. If the Court of Review upholds the hearing panel’s decision, he likely would be punished with deposition, or removal from the priesthood.

The case has generated an extensive trove of supporting documents, which ENS reviewed for this story. They point to two contrasting conclusions: Many of Ramey’s fellow Episcopalians agree with his views that the church must confront the legacy and persistence of systemic racism. At the same time, Ramey has frustrated some of those Episcopalians by “weaponizing the Eucharist” as a kind of racial justice protest.

Throughout, Ramey has steadfastly defended his ongoing fast. “I believe that the white church knows our siblings have something against us, so we must act,” Ramey explained in a February 2023 letter to one of the diocesan committees from which he was forced to resign. “I believe we can find repentance and reconciliation through the justice and mercy of God if we prioritize our relationship with our BIPOC siblings,” he said, using a common abbreviation for Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Episcopalians must prioritize those relationships “even over the demands” of the Book of Common Prayer, he continued. “The purpose of a fast is always to bring change, healing, justice, humility and hope. I continue to long for the day I can return to the altar to celebrate in reconciled life with my siblings.”

Ramey also clarified that his parish never was deprived of the Eucharist, because during his fast, all of All Saints’ worship was conducted with neighboring congregations at joint services involving multiple priests, through a partnership that had deepened with the COVID-19 pandemic.

When reached by Episcopal News Service, Ramey described the Eucharistic fast and his related racial justice work as “fundamental to the ministry of the priesthood.”

“This was my call. It was discovered, discerned and affirmed in community,” Ramey said of his ordination. “And then the Holy Spirit called me to action in the midst of this priestly ministry.” His fast, he continued, is “a recognition of our role in historic and ongoing violence of white supremacy.”

Ramey denied shirking his priestly duties. “I have never felt more clearly, more firmly grounded in my sacramental leadership as a priest as I do now,” he said. “I have not walked away from the Holy Eucharist. This is a fast called into by the Holy Spirit in conviction – and to be called out of by the Holy Spirit in conviction.”

ENS also reached out to the Diocese of Virginia seeking additional comment for this story. A diocesan official referred ENS to the documents already posted to the diocese’s website and said Stevenson would be willing to comment “once the canonical proceedings have concluded.”

The hearing panel, in its May 8 decision, acknowledged that The Episcopal Church has a “rich intellectual tradition” that, at times, has encouraged the exploration of theological change. “Nevertheless, no individual priest has the authority to change his behavior without his bishop’s permission to align with a newly developed personal theology that contradicts the church’s teachings.”

“Celebrating the Holy Eucharist is widely understood to be at the very heart of what it means to be an ordained priest. Only an ordained priest can perform this sacrament,” the panel said. “In a very real sense then, a priest who refuses to celebrate Holy Eucharist, in theory as much as in practice, has chosen to cease to ‘be a priest.’”

Clergy Title IV cases typically end at the diocesan level, though clergy can mount final appeals to the churchwide Court of Review, which was first tasked to receive such appeals in 2018 under canonical changes approved by the 79th General Convention.

The Court of Review, a mix of lay and ordained members from all nine of the church’s provinces, will hear oral arguments at its livestreamed meeting at 2 p.m. Eastern Nov. 25. It will not take any new evidence or testimony.

A call to the priesthood – and racial justice ministry

Much of the case against Ramey can be summarized from a 316-page document that collects a series of exhibits submitted to the hearing panel. It includes an eight-page statement in which Ramey responds to the allegations. He dates his path to ordination to September 2003, when he was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq, as a U.S. Marine Corps communications officer. One day, his unit’s chaplain, an Episcopal priest, gave him an impromptu “battlefield promotion” as a lay Eucharistic minister.

“The gift and grace of Jesus’ incarnate life, death and resurrection embodied in Holy Eucharist were never more real to me than in that moment,” Ramey wrote.

After he returned from deployment, he began the process of discerning a call to ordination and eventually enrolled at Virginia Theological Seminary, which required seminarians to take at least one class at an outside, partner institution. He chose “The History of the Black Church” at Howard University School of Divinity in Washington, D.C. Later, he interned at a historically Black congregation, Church of the Holy Comforter, also in Washington. He was ordained in 2012, and in 2014, he was called as rector at All Saints, also known as Sharon Chapel.

He soon got involved in Triangle of Hope, a partnership between the Diocese of Virginia and Anglican dioceses in England and Ghana aimed at engaging with the church’s historic involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. Then in 2017, he traveled to Ghana for a Triangle of Hope planning meeting and to tour the Diocese of Kumasi, including the chapel at Cape Coast Castle, which had been built over a former slave-holding facility.

“The site of the first Anglican celebration of Holy Eucharist in Ghana was directly above hell on earth,” Ramey wrote. “Where was Christ in that moment of Eucharistic celebration? Returning to the Diocese of Virginia and my parish, the questions surrounding Holy Eucharist never left me.”

In fall 2019, he began attending Virginia Union University, a historically Black institution, to pursue a doctorate exploring how “racial justice is inseparable from Gospel.” Then in March 2020, the pandemic struck, forcing widespread suspensions of in-person worship. That spring also was a time of racial reckoning across the United States after the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

In a February 2021 email to Virginia Bishop Suffragan Susan Goff, who was serving at the time as the diocese’s ecclesiastical authority, Ramey said he was “wrestling” as part of his graduate studies with advocating for a voluntary fast from receiving the Eucharist.

“Jesus’ admonition in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew says that if our sibling has something against us that we should leave our gift at the altar and first go and be reconciled,” Ramey wrote. “I am more and more convinced that our Eucharistic theology, born and bred in the white supremacy of our country, requires fundamental undoing and redoing and that we must recognize the reality in which we already exist, that of broken communion.”

Ramey told ENS he began his liturgical fast in June 2021. He has not received or distributed Communion since then, apart from exceptions he made to celebrate Holy Eucharist on Easter.

Also in 2021, Ramey was a leader in an Episcopal racial justice group known as Good Trouble that was pushing the Diocese of Virginia to commit to a program of racial reparations. In November 2021, that effort helped persuade the diocesan convention to invest $10 million in a reparations fund and $500,000 in a separate racial justice fund. “These actions of Convention continue a commitment to learning about and atoning for the sin of racism, ” the diocese said in a news release announcing the funds. “The people of the Diocese will strive to repair the damage of failing to live by the Christian faith.”

The issue of Ramey’s Eucharistic fast did not appear to become a pressing diocesan matter until January 2022, when Goff wrote to Ramey raising renewed concerns.

“Your decision not to receive the sacrament is one thing. Your decision not to provide the sacrament for other people is another. That decision requires other people to make sacrifices for the sake of your conscience, while you make little sacrifice at all,” Goff wrote. “The sacrament is not your gift – it is Jesus’ gift … Jesus himself instituted the sacrament in the midst of great brokenness, as a sign of reconciliation — not as a result of reconciliation, but as a means toward it.”

Eucharistic fast leads to disciplinary case against priest

Ramey, while still preaching, was relying on other priests to distribute Communion at the weekly joint services organized by a burgeoning collaborative known as the Potomac Episcopal Community. All Saints, though a partner in the collaborative, did not host any services at its church during this period.

Nevada Bishop Elizabeth Gardner was one of those neighboring priests, until her consecration as bishop in March 2022. Gardner previously served as rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, about two miles from All Saints. She told a diocesan investigator that Ramey suggested “that every priest of The Episcopal Church should be deposed, and all church properties sold for [racial] reparations.” Gardner also sensed that some All Saints parishioners “felt abandoned by their priest and disconnected.”

Ramey acknowledged to ENS that some members of his congregation disagreed with his theology, which may have caused confusion and frustration. “I knew there were many more people in the congregation who supported me,” he said.

Then in an October 2022 phone conversation, Goff confronted Ramey more directly about ending his fast. Ramey said it would continue.

“I don’t know when the end of this fast will be,” he said, according to Goff’s notes from the conversation. “I feel like I’m living into my sacramental ministry more fully than I ever have in my life as I do this work.”

Goff advised him that if he didn’t end the fast, she might need to ask him to renounce his priesthood.

Two weeks later, on Nov. 10, Goff and Ramey met in person at the bishop’s office. Ramey said he would not voluntarily leave the priesthood, nor would he end his Eucharistic fast. “The sin of white supremacy and racism must first be healed and reconciled before Eucharist has a context,” he said, and the church “is living a notoriously evil life,” according to Goff’s notes.

“By neglecting the sacrament you are neglecting your priestly vows,” Goff responded. “Your decision has broken community and put you outside the canons, rubrics and practices of the church. You can do the work you are doing around white supremacy and racism justice without being a priest. You are not functioning as a priest now.”

The next day, Goff contacted the diocese’s Title IV intake officer to initiate a disciplinary case against Ramey.

Stevenson was consecrated bishop of the Diocese of Virginia on Dec. 3, 2022, taking over from Goff as ecclesiastical authority. On Dec. 7, he issued a restriction of Ramey’s ministry. Ramey, as a member of the Diocese of Virginia Standing Committee since 2021, was prohibited from participating in the committee’s business. It was then that Stevenson also barred him from serving on any other diocesan committee, board or commission.

Three days earlier, Ramey had said goodbye to All Saints. He resigned effective Dec. 4, the second Sunday of Advent.

During March 2024 testimony before the diocese’s Title IV hearing panel, two African American bishops, the Rt. Rev. Gayle Harris and the Rt. Rev. Wendell Gibbs, spoke in favor of the diocese’s efforts to depose Ramey, according to The Living Church’s coverage of the hearing. Virginia Theological Seminary Dean Ian Markham also spoke against Ramey’s Eucharistic fast. In Ramey’s defense, the Rev. Katherine Sonderegger, a VTS professor, reportedly opposed punishment for what she said was Ramey’s conviction that his fast was calling “this diocese and the white members of it to a deeper obedience and repentance.”

As Ramey awaits the Court of Review’s appeal ruling, he has pitched consulting services, publicly branding himself as “an Episcopal priest tasked with interrupting normative white supremacy in the Church,” according to his website, Racial Heresy.

“Hire a Heretic!” the site says. “Jesus’ radical love as justice has gotten me accused of heresy. No. Really.”

The website also advertises two separate pilgrimages to Ghana in March 2025 that will be led by an “experienced anti-racism laborer, Episcopal priest and trained systems-oriented group facilitator” – the Rev. Cayce Ramey.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.