Hansen Bible Study

On This Day in Church History

A real event from the story of the church on each calendar day, told with its setting and what came of it, and quoted word for word from sources published before 1931.

On this day · November 14

Samuel Seabury Consecrated America's First Bishop

November 14, 1784 · Aberdeen, Scotland

The setting

After the American Revolution, Episcopal churches in the United States had no bishop of their own. English bishops could not consecrate Samuel Seabury, a Connecticut clergyman, without requiring an oath to the British king. He turned to the bishops of the small, persecuted Episcopal Church in Scotland.

The story

On Sunday, November 14, 1784, Seabury was consecrated in a chapel on the upper floor of a house in Long-acre, Aberdeen, by Robert Kilgour, Primus of the Scottish Church, assisted by Bishops Arthur Petrie and John Skinner.

His biographer stressed that it was no secret ceremony. A considerable number of clergy and many lay people were present. The sermon was printed afterward, and the service closed with verses from Psalm 90.

“The service was not performed in secret and with bated breath.”

Beardsley, Life of Seabury, p. 145

What happened next

Seabury returned as bishop of Connecticut. His consecration helped make possible the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, organized in 1789, the American branch of the worldwide Anglican family.

Why it matters: Small, struggling churches can bless the wider church in big ways.

Source: E. Edwards Beardsley, Life and Correspondence of the Right Reverend Samuel Seabury (1881), Chapter on the consecration, pp. 144–146. Public domain.

← Back to today

Church Family Tree

One church, many branches →

Nine eras of church history, a family tree of the major traditions, and how the Pentecostal revival, fed by many Protestant streams, produced the Assemblies of God.

Other days

On This Day in Church History | Hansen Bible Study