Reformed Episcopal Church

In the 19th century, as the Oxford Movement urged that the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Church of England return to Anglicanism's roots in pre-Reformation Catholic Christianity, George David Cummins, the Assistant Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky, became concerned about the preservation of Protestant, Evangelical, Reformed, and Confessional principles within the church. Tozer's criticism appeared in a letter published by the New York Tribune on October 6, 1873. These failed earlier attempts and Tozer's criticism of the ecumenical communion service Cummins thought an opportunity for decisive action. Some in the Protestant Episcopal Church saw Cummins' decision as schismatic. Others, however, disagreed. One correspondent of the publication "The Episcopalian" said, "If we say that this new church has begun in schism, the church of Rome alleges the same things against us. The real question is, which party is guilty of the schism, the party which separates and goes out? or the party that forces the separation, by making binding on the conscience what Christ has not made binding?" Rather than characterize this as schism, Cummins and his fellow reformers portrayed themselves as providing a Protestant, Anglican identity under which there could be a 'closer union of all Evangelical Christendom.' "The Reformed Episcopal Church would be what the Protestant Episcopal Church might have become had it not been paralyzed by the Tractarian virus." The term "Reformed" was never intended to denote any Calvinistic sense of Reformed theology, but was intended to convey Cummins' purpose of an Episcopal Church that had been reformed against Catholic influences. The founders of the church would often stylise the name as The Re-Formed Episcopal Church, for disambiguation so that it was known this was the Episcopal Church Re-Formed and not of a reformed theology. Cummins was in attendance at a Convention on 21 October 1868 and was greatly disappointed by the "Catholic" practices which he witnessed: "[a]ltars erected, with super-altars, with burning candles, and floating clouds of incense; the communion service set in a Roman framework ... there is a departure from the doctrinal basis of the Reformation." Cummins' feelings grew stronger after reading an essay titled "Are There Romanising Germs in the Prayer Book?" which asserted that the Romanisation of the church and the Holy Eucharistic service was not an influence from the outside but, rather came from inside the church – it was in the Prayer Book itself, thus; Cummins started pushing stronger against the "Roman germs", which caused him to lose friends on both sides: Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals alike. The REC has had several periods of a general distinct theology. Although it began as a way to preserve Protestantism within the Anglican identity, the Anglican aspect of the identity began to fade over time. With its growing and heavy emphasis on ecumenical relations with other Protestants, many of those who converted or were confirmed in the REC had identities from various other Protestant backgrounds. Due to this influx and the short-lived bishopric of the founders, the typical Reformed Episcopalian went from a Protestant, Latitudinarian pathos to a more Dispensationalist persuasion in a relatively short period of time, much of this happening in the early 1900s. Over the following several decades, the REC made the transition to more Reformed theology in the Calvinistic sense. It was not until the 1990s that the Presiding Bishop, Leonard Riches, pushed for the revitalization of Anglican theology and identity in the REC, which remains the current identity today. Early growth In the United States Within six months of its founding in 1873, the REC grew to about 1,500 communicants, two bishops and 15 other ministers. In 1875, over 500 African-American Protestant Episcopal communicants in South Carolina's Low Country joined the REC as a group. In Canada Within a year from the founding of the REC, like-minded Canadian Anglicans in New Brunswick and Ontario seceded from that Church and formed Reformed Episcopal congregations. In October 1874, Edward Cridge, dean of the Anglican cathedral in Victoria, British Columbia, withdrew with about 350 of his congregation to form the Church of Our Lord and join the Reformed Episcopal Church. Cridge was consecrated a bishop for the REC in 1876. Many of the Canadian Reformed Episcopal Churches joined the United Church at its founding. The Reformed Episcopal Church now has three churches in Canada, two in British Columbia and one in Ontario. St. George's Church, Hamilton is affiliated with the Diocese of the Northeast in the US, and both Holy Trinity Church in Colwood and Living Word in Courtenay are a part of the Diocese of Western Canada and Alaska. In England In 1877, in response to a petition from REC sympathizers in England, the REC's Fifth General Council acted to establish the Reformed Episcopal Church in that country. Former Church of England minister Thomas Huband Gregg was consecrated a bishop to lead adherents there. By 1910 there were 28 ministers and 1,990 communicant members constituting the Reformed Episcopal Church in that country. Bishop Fedechko subsequently became affiliated with the Independent Anglican Church Canada Synod. Revised Book of Common Prayer Revised editions of the REC Book of Common Prayer were issued in 2003 and 2005 (see below). ==Current status==

The Reformed Episcopal Church reported that it had 13,600 members in 2009. In 2016, total membership had fallen to 6,927. In 2022, the church reported a total membership of 7,602, a 9.7% increase from six years prior. Dioceses United States The Reformed Episcopal Church was originally divided into four synods. The synods were renamed dioceses in 1984. As of 2016, there are four U.S. dioceses with 108 parishes and missions: From 2008 to 2016 an additional U.S. Diocese of the West existed. It had been formed as a Missionary Diocese from the Diocese of Mid-America and attained full diocesan status when churches from the Anglican Province of America joined the REC in 2008, led by Winfield Mott. In April 2016, the diocesan synod voted to dissolve the diocese due to its small size and merge with ACNA's Missionary Diocese of All Saints. It has ten congregations and missions. The bishop ordinary is Gerhard Meyer. The other two expressions, which (in contrast) belong to the Anglican Communion, are the Diocese of Europe of the Church of England and the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe from the USA. ==Relations with other jurisdictions==

Formation of Anglican Church in North America in North Dallas, Texas. Seat of Bishop Ray Sutton.In 2009, the REC became a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), a denomination seeking to create a new Anglican Communion province distinct from the Episcopal Church. ACNA is in communion with the Anglican Churches of Uganda, Nigeria and Sudan, with approximately 30 million members worldwide, representing approximately one-third of the faithful of the Anglican Communion. Earlier developments The REC in North America has been in full communion with the Free Church of England since 1927, when Reformed Episcopal congregations and clergy in England merged with the FCE. Bishops of the two churches take part in episcopal consecrations of the other, and there are periodic visits between them. On occasion REC clergy have served in FCE parishes and vice versa. As of 2018, there are two FCE dioceses in England and one diocese in South America. In 1998 the REC signed a concordat of intercommunion for the first time with an Anglo-Catholic communion, the Anglican Province of America (APA). A 2005 renewal of the agreement also established intercommunion with the Anglican Communion's Church of Nigeria. This agreement of intercommunion between Reformed Episcopal Church and Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) gives privilege for Church of Nigeria Priests in diaspora to be licensed and practice in any jurisdiction of REC. Recently in 2018 NEMA-REC accepted and licensed priests who are immigrants in the United States. An additional proposal would have led to an eventual merger between the APA and the REC, but the APA's decision not to join the new Anglican Church in North America in 2008 is an obstacle to the proposed merger. ==Slavery and emancipation==

George David Cummins George David Cummins, the founding bishop of the REC, was the son of a slaveholder. Cummins' view of slavery maintained there was nothing inherently sinful about slave-holding and that the practice, in and of itself, was never condemned in Scripture as being an abomination to God or harmful to mankind. He qualified this statement with certain opinions pertaining to the practice. Although he was not anti-slavery, his view of slavery and the African-American differed considerably from that of many of his contemporaries. According to Cummins the African-American slave is "of one blood with ourselves, a sharer in common humanity, a partaker of our hopes and fear." This attitude did not compel him to endorse emancipation; he was, however, convinced of the need for a stance of paternalism. Cummins charged slaveholders to be more responsible and caring of their slaves: "The Anglo-American [is] the tutelar guardian of the African," adding that it is the responsibility of white Americans "to regard the African race in bondage as a solemn trust committed to these people from God, and that He has given this great mission of working out His purposes and mercy and love towards them." He believed that freed slaves should return to Africa and create a livelihood for themselves. Ordination of black clergy Following the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, black churches with black clergy and officiates sought inclusion into various dioceses and denominations. While some dioceses of the Episcopal Church were more open to the inclusion of black congregations, there were many dioceses who, as a collective whole, disowned and rejected blacks from the Episcopal communion. Frank C. Ferguson, a former slave and a minister of a black congregation, experienced such discrimination. This ultimately led his congregation, and four others, to leave the Protestant Episcopal Church and move to the REC. Despite his earlier comments on slavery and emancipation, Cummins welcomed black congregations and clergy into the REC. By doing so, he rose above the "color line" and showed that the REC's declarations about openness and liberty were more than theological vocabulary. He had not imagined that either he or the REC would become pioneers of racial justice, and in the 1870s he faced as much reluctance from Northern whites in his own General Council as from South Carolina whites in their diocesan convention. For Cummins, ecumenicity, and being united with other Christian believers, was more important than racial exclusivism. The Reformed Episcopal Seminary became one of the first seminaries to be racially inclusive. ==Doctrine==

Founding principles The founders of the Reformed Episcopal Church professed a faith rooted in the English Reformation, regarding the Holy Scripture as the Word of God, and accepting the authority of the Nicene, Apostles' and Athanasian Creeds, the first four ecumenical councils, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (in the form published in 1801 by the Protestant Episcopal Church), and the Declaration of Principles of the Reformed Episcopal Church. They emphasized the Protestant, Reformed, Evangelical and Reformational aspects in the history of the Church of England, making frequent allusions to Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Ridley, Bishop Hugh Latimer, Bishop John Hooper, Archbishop Matthew Parker, Bishop John Jewel, Archbishop Edmund Grindal and other Reformers in the Church of England. Early leaders of the Church, in lectures and sermons, warned against Ritualism as a denominational proclivity in the Episcopal Church. Declaration of Principles The first general council of the REC approved this declaration on 2 December 1873: According to the church's early founders, bishops were "presiding presbyters, not diocesan Prelates". Mason Gallagher, one founding minister, argued that the true episcopate had come through the 1785 line of evangelicals. In his view, the Protestant Episcopal Church had changed its principles and thereby lost any claim to valid episcopacy when it adopted the 1789 Book of Common Prayer containing a "Scoto-Romish Communion service and a thoroughly Sacerdotal Institution Office", and when it created a House of Bishops with power to overrule the existing House of presbyters and laymen: "If there is such a thing as the Historic Episcopate, and it is of any value, the parties making this offer in the present case cannot deliver the goods." and the word "priest" was expunged from the REC's Book of Common Prayer in favor of the word "minister". grants wider flexibility to re-interpret the Thirty-nine Articles in an Anglo-Catholic manner while maintaining the perspective of the English Reformers. It uses the terms "priest", "altar", and "Real Presence", and speaks of the authority of tradition as well as that of Holy Scripture. Reformed critics characterize these developments as rejecting the 39 Articles, revising the force of the Declaration of Principles, as well as departing from the Church's evangelical and Reformed heritage in order to accommodate Anglo-Catholicism. Role of women in ministry The church does not ordain women as bishops, presbyters, or deacons. In 2002, the denomination approved a canon that provides for the "setting apart" of qualified women as deaconesses who are not considered by the church to be ordained. While they are not considered ordained they do have important functions within the ministry of the church. Canon 22 states, "The duty of the Deaconess is to assist the Minister in the care of the poor and sick, the religious training of the young and others, and the work of moral reformation." Deaconesses in the Reformed Episcopal Church may have liturgical responsibilities; however they do not have eucharistic responsibilities beyond that allowed to any other member of the laity. Some conservative Anglicans, especially those within the Continuing Anglican churches, have criticized the REC for uniting with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) since certain ACNA dioceses ordain women to Holy Orders. While only a few dioceses ordain women to the priesthood, there are more that ordain women to the diaconate. Clergy transfers Under the current canons of the Reformed Episcopal Church, a non-REC minister entering into the REC ministry as a deacon or presbyter is to receive Holy Orders if he has not already been ordained by a bishop recognized by REC as in the historic succession. If previously ordained in a non-episcopal church, the applicant to the REC may need to be regularized. ==Book of Common Prayer==

1873 edition The founding First General Council of the REC approved a Book of Common Prayer for the church, with a text based on the proposed 1785 BCP prepared by William Smith and William White (later the first Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania). This text, published in 1786, had been offered to the First General Convention at Philadelphia held in 1785. Although initially authorized in some states, its changes met with considerable resistance, and the Episcopal Church adopted a different text in 1789 as its Book of Common Prayer. In accord with prevailing Evangelical preferences and in opposition to Tractarianism, the 1873 REC Council made various changes in order "to eliminate from the Prayer-Book the germs of Romish error, which the compromises of the Elizabethan era have transmitted to us." Cummins and other Evangelicals concerned about the influx of Anglo-Catholic Ritualism had been impressed by a tract, published by Frank S. Rising in 1868, entitled: "Are There Romanizing Germs in the Prayerbook?" The adoption of Bishop White's Book was an attempt to remove those portions of the BCP which were or could be made objectionable to the Evangelical conscience. The REC Book replaced the word "priest" with "minister" throughout, dropped saints' days from the calendar, and struck from the Apostles' Creed the words "He descended into hell". From the service of Holy Communion expressions such as "holy mysteries" and "eating the flesh and drinking the blood" were removed. References to baptismal regeneration were modified in accordance with evangelical views, as were the services of Ordination and Marriage. with a subsequent update in 2005. ==Seminaries==

's chapel in Oreland, Pennsylvania The Reformed Episcopal Church has three seminaries. Reformed Episcopal Seminary The Theological Seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church, otherwise known as Reformed Episcopal Seminary, is the largest and oldest of the seminaries of the Reformed Episcopal Church and is accredited by the Association of Theological Schools. It began offering classes in 1886 in West Philadelphia and was chartered in 1887. Now located in Oreland, Pennsylvania, it offers Master of Divinity (M. Div.), a Certificate in Bible and Theology, and a Licentiate in Diaconal or Deaconess Ministry. Cummins Seminary Cummins Memorial Theological Seminary trains students within and outside of the Anglican tradition. Founded in 1876 by Bishop Peter Fayssoux Stevens, it is the oldest American seminary that has historically trained African Americans for ministry in the Episcopal tradition. As of 2020, it was unaccredited and mostly operated as a night school for those who work full-time, offering a master of divinity, master of arts in Christian leadership, and bachelor of theology degrees. It moved to its present campus in Summerville, South Carolina, in 1980. Cranmer House also publishes an open-access, peer-reviewed, biennial journal called the Cranmer Theological Journal. ==See also==