About Me - The Rev. Matthew Gillett

I was made a deacon in The Episcopal Church in 1991, and a priest in 1992, and I officially took early retirement on October 1, 2021 after 30 years of service.

My public ministry, however, came to a sudden halt in April, 2020. At that point, I experienced what might best be described as a great falling apart of my life. Jesus said that if we wish to find our life, we need to lose it, and that if we wish to live within the realm of God, we must be born again. And this is exactly what happened to me in 2020 -- or, at least, when it began to happen. It is a journey that has taken nearly five years.

Driven by psychological and emotional forces that I didn't understand and with which I could not cope, I made choices which, in the end, caused a great deal of pain to a great many people. To say that I am sorry to all those who were caught up in that pain is not nearly sufficient. Sometimes there are things that happen in life for which words are not adequate, and the crisis into which I fell -- which my own choices created -- is one of those moments where language seems to fail.

My own healing process continues. Therapy has illuminated many things of which I was not previously aware. I know now the forces that tend to drive me, and if I am not aware of them and careful about them, they will drive me off a cliff.

My hope and prayer is that others caught up in the pain of my crisis are making progress in their healing.

Navigating these years of crisis brought me to the very limit of institutional religion, and I am not sure where I stand with it these days. And I have come to deeply appreciate that, in the end, the essence of religion or spirituality, whether it be the Christian tradition or any other, is to promote human healing, rooted in authenticity. A religion or spiritual path that does anything other than this has lost its way. I have encountered people firmly rooted in the Christian tradition who were incapable of or uninterested in helping to promote my healing and growth. And I have encountered people who have no religious commitment whatsoever who have been essential in that process. It has been unbelievably painful. But it has also been punctuated by moments of breathtaking grace.

I have come to a new place in my life at long last. A cycle has ended, and I find myself at a point of arrival -- but also of departure. As I integrate all that has happened into the story of my life, and come to a place of acceptance and surrender, I am beginning to explore what it means to be a priest in this next chapter.

In March, 2025, The Episcopal Church decided that it would no longer allow me to be an Episcopal priest, and my journey with them came to a conclusion. I have affiliated with the Esoteric Interfaith Church, which resembles more of a religious association than anything else. It is an affiliation which gives me standing as a clergy person, so to speak, while allowing me to explore the meaning of priesthood in a larger context.

There is a freedom in that, however. The freedom to continue to develop my relationship with the sacred, with Reality Itself, with Being Itself, and its connection to this whole messy business of being human. That, I think, is a big part of what it means to me now to be a priest.

The ordination I received many years ago cannot be cancelled: I have simply lost the right to exercise it within or in the name of The Episcopal Church. With this new affiliation, I think of myself now as a Priest-at-Large in the world, hoping out of my own journey from self-imposed crucifixion to unmerited resurrection to share some measure of grace, kindness, compassion, and insight with those amongst whom I find myself.