November 14
THE CONSECRATION OF SAMUEL SEABURY
1784
art by Rev. Kirsten Kohr of Geneva, OhioWe give you thanks, O Lord our God, for your goodness in bestowing upon this church the gift of the episcopate; and we pray 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 our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Samuel Seabury, the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, was born in Groton, Connecticut on November 30, 1729. After ordination in England in 1753, he was assigned, as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to Christ Church, New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1757, he became rector of Grace Church, Jamaica, Long Island, and in 1766, rector of St. Peter’s, Westchester County. During the American Revolution, he remained loyal to the British crown and served as a chaplain in the British army.
After the Revolution, a secret meeting of Connecticut clergy in Woodbury, held on March 25, 1783, named Seabury or the Rev. Jeremiah Leaming, whichever would be able or willing, to seek episcopal consecration in England. They extended the call first to Leaming, who declined; Seabury then accepted, and sailed for England.
After a year of negotiation, Seabury found it impossible to obtain episcopal orders from the Church of England because, as an American citizen, he could not swear allegiance to the crown. He then turned to the Non-Juring bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. On November 14, 1784, in Aberdeen, he was consecrated by the Bishop and the Bishop Coadjutor of Aberdeen and the Bishop of Ross and Caithness in the presence of many people.
Upon his return home, Seabury was recognized as Bishop of Connecticut in Convocation on August 3, 1785, at Middletown. With Bishop William White, he was active in the organization of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention of 1789. Seabury kept his promise, made in a concordat with the Scottish bishops, to persuade the American Church to adopt the Scottish form for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.
In 1790, Seabury became responsible for episcopal oversight of the churches in Rhode Island; and, at the General Convention of 1792, he participated in the first consecration of a bishop on American soil, that of John Claggett of Maryland. Seabury died on February 25, 1796, and is buried beneath St. James Church, New London.
Excerpted directly from “Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2022,” p. 508-509.
