The Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE and aka the Cowley Fathers), founded in the parish of Cowley, England in 1866 by Richard Meaux Benson, is the oldest religious order for men in the Anglican Communion. The society was the first stable religious order to be established in the Anglican Communion since the English Reformation of the sixteenth century. It is recognized officially as a religious community by the Anglican Church of Canada. The SSJE brothers live under a rule of life and, at profession, make monastic vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience.
In North America, the brothers preach, teach and write on the life of prayer, and offer spiritual direction and formation. Individual brothers work in a variety of local and regional ministries-with students, with prisoners, and with persons affected by HIV and AIDS. The brothers maintained a publishing company, Cowley Publications (now part of Rowman & Littlefield publishers), that produced books on topics related to prayer and spirituality for an ecumenical readership.
With the encouragement of Bishop Rocksborough R. Smith, 4th Bishop of Algoma, the SSJE founded a community in Bracebridge, Ontario in 1928 and based in the Collegiate Church of St. John the Evangelist. Bishop Smith was an annual visitor to the Mother house of U. S. Cowley Fathers is the Monastery of St. Mary and St. John, on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. The community ceased operations in Bracebridge in the mid 1980s and sold the property.
Superiors included: Father Palmer (1927-1947), Father Hawkes (1948), Father Morley (1948-1954), Father Thorton (1954-1963), Father Palmer (1963-1965), Father McCausland (1966)
