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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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