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The above monument reads:
U NEAR THIS SITE IN 175O U
The Foundations were laid for Middletown first
Protestant Episcopal Church. This building, completed
in 1755, was named Christ Church, the predecessor
of the Church of the Holy Trinity.
In this church, The Right Reverend Samuel Seabury, DD
Bishop of Connecticut and the first Bishop of the
American Protestant Episcopal Church, first met with
his clergy on August 2, 1785, after his return from
his consecration in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Here a few days later services were held for the
ordination of four Deacons and on Priest of the
Church. These were the first such services
of ordination to be held in this country.
^ ^ ^
erected by
The Church of the Holy Trinity
August 6, 1950
"The consecration of Bishop Seabury in Aberdeen by three
Scottish Bishops was the beginning of the worldwide Anglican Communion."
form the Anglican
Communion News Service
The Consecration of Samuel Seabury (November 14)
The Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War that followed
caused more than just a few hard feelings in England. The revolution caused the
isolation of American Anglicans from the Anglican Church in England. Because of
this, they formed an independent church of the Anglican Communion, The
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. This was the first independent
Church outside of the British Isles.
In 1783 Samuel Seabury was selected to be the Bishop of the new Church in the
state of Connecticut. He sailed to England as an applicant for consecration by
the English Bishops. However, there was a requirement that anyone being
consecrated as a Bishop in the Anglican Church must first take an oath of
allegiance to the King of England. Because he would not take this oath, the
English Bishops could not consecrate Seabury. After almost a year and a half in
England he then traveled to Scotland where he was consecrated by the Scottish
Bishops Kilgour, Petrie, and Skinner, whose line of succession was the same as
the English Bishops, at Aberdeen November 14, 1784.
Seabury returned to Connecticut in 1785 and became the rector of St. James
Church in New Haven, CT. Many questioned the validity of his consecration, but
in 1789 the PECUSA General Convention confirmed his consecration and he became
the Presiding Bishop. In 1792 he joined with three bishops that had received
English consecration in 1787 and 1790, in the consecration of Bishop Thomas J.
Claggett of Maryland. This confirmation united the lines of succession from the
Scottish and English churches.
Bishop Seabury died 4 years later on February 25, 1796 in New London, CT.
Throughout his life, Seabury had exemplified a portion of the Christ Church
Mission Statement in that he started many new churches and is said to have
confirmed over 10,000 people in his tenure as Bishop.
The Diocese of Connecticut is the oldest organized diocese in
the Episcopal Church. It formally began with the consecration of the Rt. Rev.
Samuel Seabury as bishop of Connecticut on November 14, 1784 in Aberdeen,
Scotland. Bishop Seabury convened the first Convocation (Convention) the
following year in Middletown, Connecticut.
from the
Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut
Consecration
of Samuel Seabury
First American Bishop, 1784
We give you thanks, O Lord our God, for your goodness in bestowing upon this Church the gift of the episcopate, which we celebrate in this remembrance of the consecration of Samuel Seabury; 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.
Samuel Seabury, the first Bishop of the Episcopal Church, was born in Groton, Connecticut, 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 clergymen in Woodbury, on March 25, 1783, named Seabury or the Rev. Jeremiah Leaming, whichever would be able or willing, to seek episcopal consecration in England. Leaming declined; Seabury accepted, and sail 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 a number of the clergy and
laity. On his return home, Seabury was recognized as Bishop of Connecticut in
Convocation on August 3, 1785, at Middletown.
From Lesser Feasts and Fasts
But after the war was over the Episcopal church in Middletown
revived. The people connected with it had not been confirmed, there being no
bishop in America to perform that service, until Rev. Samuel SEABURY was
consecrated Bishop of Connecticut in Scotland in 1784. On the 17th of September,
1786, this Bishop confirmed one hundred and twenty-seven persons in this town, a
few of whom, were perhaps from neighboring places.
from
Middletown Churches
Links on Bishop Seabury
Consecration of Samuel Seabury, bishop
November 14 - Bishop Seabury Day
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