Feast Day Of Samuel Seabury

Today we celebrate the consecration of Samuel Seabury, the first bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. During the colonial period and after the end of the Revolutionary War, the church in the United States had no bishops. Candidates for the priesthood traveled the arduous journey to England to be ordained before the war. After the war, the requirement that all candidates for ordination swear an oath of loyalty to the British crown became an impediment to sending American candidates to England for ordination, therefore the church in the United States needed its own bishop.

Samuel Seabury was chosen to be the first bishop, but because of the impediment of the oath of loyalty in the consecration ceremony in the Church of England, he turned to Scotland, and on 14 November 1784, Samuel Seabury was consecrated to the Episcopate by the Bishop and the Bishop Coadjutor of Aberdeen and the Bishop of Ross and Caithness of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, which was no longer the established church, and therefore did not include the loyalty oath to the British crown in the ceremony.

James Kiefer at the Lectionary provides further information on Seabury.

Readings:

Psalm 133
Isaiah 63:7-9
Acts 20:28-32
Matthew 9:35-38


PRAYER

Eternal God, you blessed your servant Samuel Seabury with the gift of perseverance to renew the Anglican inheritance in North America: Grant that, joined together in unity with our bishops and nourished by your holy Sacraments, we may proclaim the Gospel of redemption with apostolic zeal; through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.