Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

About thirty miles south and west of Boston now sits the town of Canton. At the start of the Revolutionary War the Anglicans of Canton built Trinity Church, whose vicar was a missionary from the Church of England. They were one of about three hundred Church of England congregations scattered about the thirteen colonies. In the first months of the revolution a mob came to Trinity Church and burned the building to the ground. The vicar, and much of the congregation, fled to the safety of the British Army. There, behind the lines, they took up various support roles to the army of their king. When the United States Revolution was won, this vicar, and most of the missionary priests from the Church of England, became prisoners of war. Alongside the vicar of Trinity, Canton was another priest: Samuel Seabury.

Along with an armed guard, walking past ranks of imprisoned soldiers waiting for a ship home, walked members of the first executive council of the Episcopal Church. They were looking for the priest they had called to be their first bishop, hoping he would come and minister to the other side of the conflict. Samuel Seabury decided to accept that call, to serve the very people who now held him prisoner and who had burned the churches of his peers. On November 14, 1784, with the Church of England’s blessing, Seabury went to the house of a Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church and was consecrated by him and two other Scottish Bishops in the living room.

Seabury would return to the United States of America where about 10,000 Episcopalians, 0.25% of the population, awaited his leadership. He had made a pledge to serve in a country that had incarcerated him, burned the churches of his peers, and brought him to set aside part of his ordination vows for their sake. This is the type of service we are called to, the type of love we are called to share, as Episcopalians.

Pax,

—Ben