A Spiritual Baptist leader who chose to enquire about his wife’s love and
commitment for the church is thanking God everyday that he made this gesture. As
a matter of fact, not only has his own soul been saved by this effort but also
that of hundreds of other individuals with whom he has come into contact with.
So is the case of Reverend Peter E. Doyle, who was drawn into
the Spiritual Baptist religion sometime in the 1980s when he decided to see for
himself what kept his wife, Maureen, in church for several hours on Sundays and
sometimes all nights on Saturdays. He followed her to church one day and has
never left the church since.
Doyle, who migrated from
St. George’s, Grenada to New York City in 1972, recognized that his wife,
Maureen, was committed to her
religion.
(The couple met approximately
one year after his arrival in the United States and though they were from
different parts of the English-speaking
Caribbean (she from
Tobago) they soon discovered that they wanted to spend the rest of
their lives together. That union has reproduced four children and three
grandchildren.)
The young husband’s
curiosity did not stop just there. In the summer of 1987, after he was
convinced that the teachings he received were in relation to the what was
written in the Holy
Scriptures, the young man accepted Holy Baptism. He was baptized by Patriarch
Norris V. Ashton and the late Mother Cynthia Doyle.
However the young convert
possessed a greater thirst for the word of God and also a desire to spread the
word. In 2000, he was ordained by Patriarch
Norris V. Ashton, head of Mt. Moriah Spiritual Church in Brooklyn, New York. During his early years as a
reverend, the young man was commissioned to assist the late Reverend Cyril Ali
Jackman. Upon Jackman’s passing, he became the full fledged head of the
Spiritual Baptist church called Children of St. Ann’s located at 162-164
Woodrow Street, Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Reverend Doyle has taken also
extended himself and taken up the responsibilities of representative
of the International Affairs of the Spiritual Baptist Arch-diocese of
New York.
In 2003 he returned to his
homeland with a ‘Mission'. He was supported by members of the ‘Children of
St. Ann’s Spiritual Baptist
Church’ as well as members of ‘Mt. Moriah Spiritual
Baptist Church’
which is located in Brooklyn, New York.
