14 November 1784
A.D. Scottish & American
Episcopalians—Samuel Seabury Conscecrated at St. Andrew’s Chapel, Aberdeen
Wilkinson, Todd. “The Scottish Roots of the Episcopal Church,
Scotland.” Scottish History Online. N.d.
http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/episcopal-church.html. Accessed 9 Jul 2014.
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 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.
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