Timothy Paul Baymon

Timothy Paul (secular name Timothy Baymon) is the founder and first patriarch of the Holy Communion of Churches (also known as the Holy Christian Orthodox Church), a Christian denomination within the Convergence Movement. Having served as president of the World Bishops Council— an ecumenical body of Christian churches and their prelates —he also became the founder and senior pastor of the Christian Cathedral in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Biography Timothy Paul was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, and raised in the Church of God in Christ—a historically and predominantly African American, Protestant Christian denomination.

By August 1999, he was elevated into the episcopacy by Peter Paul Brennan, Carl Jimenez, James Lagona and Joseph Grenier. After his episcopal elevation, Baymon, Yvette Flunder, Brennan and George Augustus Stallings sat in the executive college of the World Bishops Council as late as 2007.

Since his episcopal consecration, he has also served in various community boards. Baymon joined the New England Partners in Faith, serving two terms as president of the Council of Churches of Western Massachusetts.

In 2003, Baymon and the World Bishops Council denounced universalism, and also publicly criticized the teachings of Carlton Pearson, whom the council judged to be heretical.

In 2004, Baymon signed a letter with 28 other religious leaders in support of religious freedom in Iraq. Representing the World Bishops Council at the United Nations Department of Public Information / Non-Governmental Organization Conference—now known as the United Nations Civil Society Conference—Baymon urged Christians to "become greater stewards of the earth" by conserving energy, reducing greenhouse gases and deforestation, and creating public and private partnerships which will lead to renewable energy sources. In 2017, Baymon and the Holy Communion of Churches filed a lawsuit against the Epiphany Tower owner. In 2018, the hotel planned by Baymon and his church opened.

As of 2020, documents leaked regarding Baymon and his denomination's involvement with offshore shell companies.

Holy Communion of Churches

The Holy Communion of Churches, also known as the Holy Christian Orthodox Church (HCOC) is a predominantly African American Christian denomination established in the United States of America by Timothy Paul Baymon. As part of the Convergence Movement, while—in contrast with mainstream Eastern Orthodox tradition—ordaining women to the presbyterate and episcopate, a practice deemed uncanonical and unbiblical by the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Eastern Catholic Churches in union with Rome. The Holy Communion of Churches also incardinates and confers its holy orders upon Baptists and Pentecostals, reconstituting their organizations as autocephalous and autonomous dioceses and archdioceses, and provinces.