• The Apostles Simon Peter (died 64 AD)
• Simon the Zealot (died 61 AD)
• James son of Alphaeus (died 62 AD)

All three are reported to have been missionaries in the British Isles.

• With the arrival of Christianity the standing stones were adopted by the monks, who carved Christian images on them and used them to mark the boundaries of their monasteries. Many of the stones may have been sculpted directly from standing stones.
• Columba studied under Ireland’s most prominent church figures.
• The Celts inhabited Ireland & Britain into the Middle Ages when their culture and language diverged into the modern Welsh, Cornish, Bretons, & Irish (different dialects)
• Augustine (Roman) was the first archbishop of Canterbury around 597 AD. However, the Celts never accepted him as their bishop.

• The majority of the debate centers around the issue of the calculation of the dates for celebrating Easter.
  • NOTE: The Celtic Church: Priests permitted to marry, used a different mode of baptism, kept the Jewish Sabbath, and observed Easter on the Hebrew Passover
  • King Oswiu (King of Northumbria) declared “it was fitting that those who served one God should observe one rule of life and not differ in the celebration of the heavenly sacraments”.
  • Bishop Colman, abbot of Lindisfarne, argued for the Celtic Church
    • According to Irish Christians their roots went back to the apostle John and his churches
  • Agilbert, bishop of the West Saxons, argued for the Roman Church
    • The Romans insisted that the apostles Peter and Paul and their churches practiced Easter in the pattern which the Roman church kept.
  • Though the Celtic Christians were defeated by King Oswiu’s vote, they continued to oppose Rome until the 11th century when they assimilated into the Roman religion
  • The early church of England was a distinctive fusion of British, Celtic, and Roman influences.

The Emergence of Countries

England was named after a Germanic tribe called the “Angles”, who settled in Central, Northern, and Eastern England in the 5th century. A related tribe called the “Saxons” settled in the south of England. That is why that period of English history is called “Anglo-Saxon”. Dates these countries were established

• 843 France – 937 England – 962 German – 1937 Ireland

The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon (c. 550– 1066 CE). Old English developed from a set of North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken along the coasts of: Frisia (Netherland) – Lower Saxony (Germany) – Jutland (Denmark) – Southern Sweden By Germanic tribes known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes

The Anglican Reformation

• Anne Boleyn (Queen 1533-1536) Influential in Henry VIII break with Rome
• Thomas Cromwell (Lawyer & statesman served as chief minister to King Henry 1532 to 1540) pushed for Henry to break with Rome

Elizabeth 1st religious settlement
Act of Supremacy of 1559
Abolished papal supremacy, but defined Elizabeth as Supreme Governor, rather than Supreme Head, of the church. This change of title placated those who did not feel that a woman could be the head of the church, and the act passed fairly easily.

Act of Uniformity of 1559
Restored the 1552 version of the English Prayer Book but kept many of the familiar old practices and allowed for two interpretations of communion, one Catholic and one Protestant. The bill was hotly debated but eventually passed by three votes.

The Church of England in America

American Revolution

Samuel Seabury was a Loyalist before the end of the Revolutionary war and claimed them in England in 1783, when he was seeking Episcopal consecration.

Seabury was arrested November 1775 by local Patriots and kept in prison six weeks. He took refuge in New York City where he was appointed chaplain to the King’s American Regiment in 1778. At the end of the war, he stayed in the United States and was loyal to the new government.

March 25, 1783, a meeting of ten Episcopal clergy in Connecticut elected Seabury bishop. There were no Anglican bishops in America to consecrate him so he sailed to London on July 7. In England, his consecration was impossible because, as an American citizen, he could no longer take the oath of allegiance to the King. He turned to the Scottish Episcopal Church. At that time, the Episcopalians in Scotland were not the established church; they were a legally recognized but oppressed.

Seabury was consecrated in Aberdeen November 14, 1784 by 3 Bishops on the condition that he study the Scottish rite of Holy Communion and work for its adoption, rather than the English rite of 1662. To the present day, the American liturgy adheres to the main features of this rite in one of its Holy Eucharist Liturgies.

The anniversary of his consecration is now a lesser feast day on the calendars of the Episcopal Church (United States) and the Anglican Church of Canada and other churches of the Anglican Communion.

Seabury’s consecration by the non-juring Scots (refusal of allegiance to the monarchy) persuaded Parliament to make provision for the ordination of foreign bishops. Seabury’s tenacity in the matter had the effect of making possible a continued relationship between the American and English churches.

The Anglican Communion

The Lambeth conference is a decennial assembly of Bishops of the Anglican Communion convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Canterbury Cathedral. The second and subsequent councils meet at Lambeth Palace located outside London UK.

The Anglican Communion is 39 autonomous national and regional Churches plus six Extra Provincial Churches and dioceses; all of which are in Communion – in a reciprocal relationship – with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the Communion’s spiritual head.

There is no Anglican central authority such as a pope. Each Church makes its own decisions in its own ways, guided by recommendations from the Lambeth Conference, Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Anglicans and Episcopalians have always worked and worshipped together across national borders to support each other’s lives and ministry.

The insight, experience and wisdom contributed to joint endeavors by Anglican Communion members from all provinces means that the Communion can pack a real punch at national and international levels.

Examples of such collaboration can be found in the Communion’s Networks, in projects such as Anglican Witness, the Anglican Alliance, in its International Commission on Unity, Faith and Order and on the Anglican Communion News Service.

The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States Flag

• The shield was adopted by the General Convention of 1940 and is rich in symbolism.
• The red cross on a white field is the St. George Cross, an indicator of our link to the Church of England, the mother church of the Anglican Communion.
• The miniature crosses in the blue quadrant symbolize the nine original American Dioceses that met in Philadelphia in 1789 to adopt the constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. Connecticut (1783), Maryland (1783). Massachusetts (1784), Pennsylvania (1784), New Jersey (1785), New York (1785), South Carolina (1785), Virginia (1785), Delaware (1786).
• The miniature crosses are in the form of St. Andrew’s cross in tribute to the Scottish church’s role in ordaining the first American Bishop, Samuel Seabury, in 1784.
• The colors red, white and blue symbolize, respectively,
  • (Red) the sacrifice of Christ and Christian martyrs,
  • (White) the purity of the Christian faith, and
  • (Blue) the humanity of Christ received from the Virgin Mary.
• In duplicating the colors of the American flag, they also represent the Episcopal Church’s standing as the U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion.