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Whilst
many people today are aware of the Presbyterian Church’s Scottish
roots, few realise that the Episcopal Church in the
United States
shares a common heritage with their Presbyterian brothers and sisters.
While many think that the Episcopal Church came from the Church of
England, it was actually Scottish Episcopalians, many of them ardent Jacobites, supporters of the exiled Stuart family, that were
responsible for the foundation of an Anglican Church independent of
the British Crown in the new country of America.
During the colonial period, the
whole continent of America was part of the Diocese of London, although
the Bishop of London never visited the various Anglican congregations,
and no confirmations or ordinations of clergy were ever held,
isolating colonial Anglicans from their Mother Church. After the
American Revolution, the Anglican Church in the former colonies was in
a quandary: clergy in the Anglican tradition could only be ordained by
bishops in apostolic succession, and Church of England Bishops could
no longer ordain American clergy. Rather than accept a temporary form
of ordination without Bishops, ten Anglican clergy from Connecticut
met in 1783 to find another solution. They elected one Samuel Seabury,
a former missionary in New
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York and ironically, a Loyalist
who supported the British cause, to be their bishop. Seabury travelled
to England, but was refused to be consecrated by Church of England
Bishops, who said that they could not consecrate a person who would
not take the required oath of loyalty to the British monarchy.
Undaunted, Seabury then went to Scotland.
The Scottish Episcopal Church,
unlike the Church of England, was not the state church of Scotland. It
had been disestablished and replaced by the Presbyterian Church (known
after as The Church of Scotland) in 1689. Many of the clergy,
including 14 bishops and 900 clergymen, had sworn allegiance to the
deposed King James II, and therefore, William of Orange recognised the
Presbyterian faction for supporting his efforts to secure the throne
during the Glorious Revolution. The Episcopal Church suffered under
harsh penal laws during the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite Rebellions, which
saw attempts to return the Stuarts to the throne. Episcopal Chapels
were closed, clergy imprisoned, and the Church was forced to go
“underground”, much like their Covenanting Presbyterian counterparts
in the 1600’s. From 1690, it can be said that the Scottish Episcopal
Church was a separate, autonomous church, and that this status would
assist in the creation of a separate American Episcopal Church as
well.
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On November 14, 1784, in the Long
Acre Chapel of Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, Samuel Seabury was
consecrated Bishop for America, the first Anglican Bishop to serve
outside the British Isles, and thus laying the foundations for the
worldwide Anglican Communion. Seabury’s consecration by Bishop Robert
Kilgour of Aberdeen, Bishop Arthur Petrie of Moray, and John Skinner,
Rector of St. Andrew’s and Bishop Co-adjutor of Aberdeen was the first
since 1688 in Scotland and forced the Church of England to allow fully
organised daughter churches throughout the British Empire, complete
with ordained Bishops. For the first time, an Anglican Church had
been created in a country not subject to the sovereignty of the
British Crown, and unlike the Church of England or Scotland, an
integral part of the British state.
Today, in St. Andrew’s Cathedral,
the Seabury Memorial window stands in honour of the first American
Bishop and the three Scottish Bishops who consecrated him. In the
north aisle of the Cathedral, the coats of arms of 48 American states
are adorned on the vaulted ceiling, a unique and fitting tribute to
the bond between American and Scottish Episcopalians. |
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On this side of the
pond, the Scottish origins of the Episcopal Church are commemorated on
the Church’s official shield and Flag (see graphic). Adopted in 1940
by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the shield is:
Argent, a cross gules, on a canton azure nine cross-crosslets argent
in saltire.
The red
cross on white is for the Church of England, of which the Episcopal
Church is the American representative, the white cross-crosslets
represent the nine original dioceses and the blue canton with the
crosses in saltire is a reminder of the Episcopal Church of Scotland
from whom the first American bishop Samuel Seabury received his
consecration as bishop.
By
Todd Wilkinson FSA (Scot) |
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Sources:
http://www.heraldica.org/topics/usa/episcopa.htm
http://www.fotw.ca/flags/rel-epis.html
http://www.epischicago.org/Faith/AboutEpisShield.cfm
http://www.scotland.anglican.org/history.htm
http://www.scotland.anglican.org/a_church_for_scotland.htm
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/282.html
http://www.cathedral.aberdeen.anglican.org/history.htm |
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