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HISTORY
The first Cursillos developed in the Roman Catholic Church in Mallorca, Spain, in the late 1940s. Under the leadership of their bishop, several laymen began to formulate a way to draw active laymen into the work of "Christianizing" the everyday life settings where they lived.
Eventually, the Cursillo Method found interested parties in the United States. The first Cursillo Three-Day Weekend in the United States was held in Waco, Texas, in 1957. At first, these were still held in the Spanish language, and were available only to Roman Catholics. The first English speaking weekend was in 1961 in San Angelo, Texas. In time a few Episcopalians were invited to participate in the weekends.
The first official Three-Day Weekend in the Episcopal Church was conducted with help from Roman Catholic sponsors in the Diocese of Iowa in 1970. Soon, weekends were being held in various parts of the country. The first National Episcopal Cursillo Seminar was held in 1975 in the Diocese of Dallas. The National Episcopal Cursillo Committee was formed in Atlanta in 1979.
In 1977, Fr. Rick Belser, then Rector at Saint Michael’s in Charleston, attended a Georgia Cursillo, and some of the people from Georgia later moved to SC. This small group, with the encouragement of Bishop Temple and Roman Catholic Cursillistas, was instrumental in offering the first Episcopal Cursillo in South Carolina, held at Camp St. Christopher in 1978. Since then the Cursillo Servant Community of The Anglican Diocese of SC, which numbers over 5000, has held 188 Three-Day Weekends, with #189 taking place in October 2021..