George Washington and Religion - Anglican Affiliations

Anglican Affiliations

George Washington was baptized as an infant into the Church of England, which, before the American Revolution, was the state religion of the colony of Virginia. Because the British monarch is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and because its clergy are obliged to swear an Oath of Supremacy to the monarch, churches of this denomination in the United States joined together, after the Revolution, to establish the Episcopal Church. Until Virginia enacted the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), the Episcopal Church retained its role as the state religion of Virginia. (The denominations that share the Church of England tradition remain associated in the Anglican Communion).

As an adult, Washington served as a member of the vestry (lay council) for his local parish. Office-holding qualifications at all levels—including the House of Burgesses, to which Washington was elected in 1758—required affiliation with the current state religion and an undertaking that one would neither express dissent nor do anything that did not conform to church doctrine. At the library of the New-York Historical Society, some manuscripts containing a leaf from the church record of Pohick were available to Benson Lossing, an American historian, which he included in his Field Book of the Revolution; the leaf contained the following signed oath, required to qualify individuals as vestrymen:

I, A B, do declare that I will be conformable to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, as by law established.,

1765. May 20th.—Thomas Withers Coffer, Thomas Ford, John Ford.

19th August.—Geo. Washington, Daniel M'Carty

Washington served as a vestryman or warden for more than 15 years; these voluntary positions required substantial devotion of time, effort and money on his part.