An Introduction to the Episcopal Church. Joseph B. Bernardin
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as “bishop.” The early Christians were mostly from the lower orders of society and of small means, and they not only suffered financially in many cases for their new beliefs, but also took little thought for the future on account of their expectation that the end of the world was near. Hence the problem of relief of the poor was a pressing one. The apostles felt that they could not take the time from their preaching necessary to attend to. such work, so a body of officials was appointed to take charge of this and to visit the sick. They were called by a word in Greek which means “servant” and from which we get the English “deacon.” They were the origin of the first order of the Christian ministry.
St. Paul was the one chiefly instrumental in the process by which Christianity grew from a purely Jewish and Asiatic religion to be a Gentile and European one as well. Quietly but doggedly Christianity grew and spread throughout the Roman Empire in spite of the fact that it was an illegal religion, despised by the ruling classes, and often persecuted by the State.
The last and severest persecution of Christianity under the Emperor Diocletian was followed by the Edict of Toleration issued by the Emperor Constantine in 311. From that time on increasing privileges were granted to Christianity until finally it became the official religion of the Empire. Church buildings began to be erected and the Church grew rapidly in numbers and wealth under Constantine. In 325 at Nicaea he assembled the first general council of the whole Church to pass on disputed points of doctrine and discipline, and from then on general councils have been held at intervals. In the year 1054 the Church in the East and the Church in the West, which had been increasingly estranged from one another since the ninth century, formally separated and have remained so ever since.
Long before this time Christianity has come to Britain. Unauthenticated tradition attributes it to St. Joseph of Arimathaea who is supposed to have come to Glastonbury with the Holy Grail. In all probability it was due to converted Gallic merchants and Roman soldiers. St. Alban, the first Christian martyr in Britain, suffered death there in the third century, and about the year A.D. 300 bishoprics are known to have existed at London, York, and Lincoln. But when the Roman legions were withdrawn in 401, the Christians were soon driven by the invading barbarians to the west of England and Wales, and even over into Ireland. In the next century the attempt to reconvert England was begun by two distinct missions. One came over from Ireland to Iona under St. Columba and worked down from the north; the other was the famous mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great under St. Augustine, which established itself at Canterbury in the year 597, and worked up from the south. As a consequence of this the Archbishop of Canterbury became the leading bishop of the Church of England. It took another century and the devoted labors of numerous saints before England was once again, at least nominally, Christian.
The English bishops in the course of time came more and more under the authority of the Pope, as did the English king John, who became his feudal fief. But as the popes began to abuse their authority and to exact heavy financial payments, a revolt gradually began to set in after the Black Death in 1349 with the passing of the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire forbidding appointments to English bishoprics or benefices, or appeals to courts outside the realm, without the king's consent.
Throughout the Dark Ages the Church not only maintained the culture and learning of the ancient civilized world, but also looked after the social needs of the people through its own religious communities, caring for the poor, the sick, and the wayfarers. With the dawn of the Renaissance, and influenced in no small degree by the continental reformation of the Church initiated by Luther, inflamed by disgust at the moral corruption of the papacy and clergy, and brought to a head by an unworthy personal controversy of Henry VIII with the Pope over the question of annulment, parliament more and more restricted papal authority in England until, in 1534, it was declared that the Bishop of Rome had no authority over the bishops of the Church of England. In spite of the momentous consequences of this decision, the ordinary Christian was little affected at first by this decree, for he continued to worship in his same parish church and cathedral in the Latin tongue and to receive the sacraments from the hands of the same ministers as formerly. Henry VIII died no less orthodox and catholic than when the Pope conferred on him the title, still claimed by English sovereigns, “Defender of the Faith.” Before the final breach with Rome, Henry had obtained the appointment of Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, and Cranmer took a leading part in the reformation of the Church of England.
When Henry VIII died in 1547 he was succeeded by his nine-year-old son Edward VI, who was controlled in turn by his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, as Protector, and then by the Duke of Northumberland. Under them, in response to strong urging on the part of the people who wished further to purify the Church of England of what they considered unscriptural elements and unholy practices, the service books were first translated into English, and drastic reforms were made in the conduct and practice of worship.
Edward VI was succeeded in 1553 by his half-sister Mary, who restored the papal authority and the Latin service, and put to death some of the bishops who refused to take the oath of obedience of the Pope, including Archbishop Cranmer of Canterbury. In 1558 she was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth, who once more repudiated the authority of the Pope over the Church of England and issued a revised English Prayer Book in 1559. In 1570 Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Pope. This marks the formal withdrawal of the Church of Rome from communion with the Church of England. Although England repudiated the authority of the Bishop of Rome, she did not withdraw from fellowship with the Church of Rome, but Rome from her. But centuries before this the Church of England, mentioned in the Magna Carta of 1215, had been established by law as the official Church of the realm of England, and it was authorized to receive land taxes, known as tithes, for its support.
During Elizabeth's reign the new country to the west was being opened up and explored. It was a chaplain of the flagship of Sir Francis Drake who, on the shores of Golden Gate Bay in San Francisco in the year 1579, held the first Prayer Book service in this country. Various parts of America were settled by different religious groups. Florida and Maryland were founded by the Roman Catholics; New England by the Puritans or Congregationalists; Rhode Island by the Baptists; New York by the Dutch Reformed; Pennsylvania and New Jersey by the Friends; Delaware by the Swedish Lutherans; and Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia by the Church of England.
The first permanent English settlement was made at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, where the Rev. Robert Hunt preached and administered the sacraments. The direct successor of that congregation still exists today as Bruton Parish, Williamsburg, Virginia. From there the Church of England spread into Maryland, and in these two states it became established by law as in England, and received tithes for its support.
In spite of much opposition the worship of the Church began to be held in Boston at King's Chapel in 1687. With the coming of the English governor to New York in 1664 Church of England services were held, after those in Dutch, in the old Church of St. Nicholas within the Fort. Trinity Parish was organized in 1697 and a year later moved into its own church building. In Philadelphia Christ Church was founded as early as 1695.
By the time of the Revolutionary War there were congregations of the Church of England in all of the colonies, chiefly, however, in the larger towns along the seaboard. Many of these were assisted greatly by two missionary societies, then recently formed in England by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bray, which still exist today: the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded in 1699 and commonly known by its initials as the S.P.C.K., and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1701 and now known as the U.S.P.G.
Throughout all these years not only was no bishop appointed for the colonies, in spite of many petitions on their part, but none ever visited them. Nominally they were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. In consequence, Confirmation was never administered, and anyone wishing to be ordained had to make the perilous voyage back to England, which greatly hindered the development of a native ministry.
When the Revolutionary War broke out, though there were priests like Dr. William White of Christ Church, Philadelphia, who became Chaplain not only of the Continental Army but also of the Continental Congress, the majority of the clergy remained loyal to the King. Consequently, after the war was over, the Church suffered in prestige, in spite of the fact that the majority of the signers both