Reformed Episcopal Church - History

History

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.

The founding of the Reformed Episcopal Church followed an 1873 controversy about ecumenical activity. In October of that year, Bishop Cummins joined with Dean Smith of Canterbury, William Augustus Muhlenberg, and some non-Anglican ministers at an ecumenical conference of the Evangelical Alliance. During the conference, held in New York City, Cummins, Smith and the non-Episcopalian ministers presided at joint services of Holy Communion. The retired missionary bishop, William Tozer, who visiting in New York at the time, criticized Smith and implicitly Cummins for participating in a rite different from that in the Book of Common Prayer. Tozer's criticism appeared in a letter published by the New York Tribune on 6 October 1873.

Bishop Cummins defended his actions in a letter published 10 days later, but after criticisms from Anglo-Catholic clergy, he resigned his position on November 10. Three weeks later, joined by 21 Episcopalian clergy and lay people, he organized the first general council of the Reformed Episcopal Church in New York City on 2 December 1873. At this time, as recorded by his wife in her biography of him, Cummins and the other early members spent much time in writing their "35 Articles" which encapsulated the faith they wished to express in the REC.