This week in Christian history: ‘Festival of Reason,’ Asa Mahan born, first American Episcopal bishop consecrated

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Sunday, November 08, 2020

First Episcopal Church Bishop consecrated – Nov. 14, 1784

Samuel Seabury (1729-1796), the first American to be made a bishop of The Episcopal Church in the then newly independent United States of America. | Public Domain

This week marks the anniversary of when Samuel Seabury was consecrated as the first American bishop of The Episcopal Church, taking the position soon after the American Revolution.

Due to the lack of Anglican bishops in North America, Seabury had to travel to the United Kingdom, where the ceremony was performed by the Scottish Episcopal Church.

“The one condition of the Scottish Episcopal Church was that, in the matter of the Holy Eucharist, Seabury was to study the Scottish rite and work for its adoption rather than the English rite of 1662,” noted the modern Episcopal Church’s Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society in 2012.

“To this day, one of the rites for Holy Eucharistic in the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer adheres to the main features of this Scottish rite.”