George Washington and Religion - Communion

Communion

In 1915 the great-grandson of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton reported that when he was 7 years old and she was 97 years old (about 1854) she said, "If anyone ever tells you that George Washington was not a communicant in the Church, you say that your great-grandmother told you to say that she 'had knelt at this chancel rail at his side and received with him the Holy Communion.'"

Besides a few other contemporary accounts like those above, the record of his taking communion contradicts such claims. Among the sources, ministers at four of the churches Washington often attended wrote that he never took communion. Washington regularly left services before communion, along with the other non-communicants. When Rev. Dr. James Abercrombie, rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church, in Philadelphia, mentioned in a weekly sermon that those in elevated stations set an unhappy example by leaving at communion, Washington completely stopped attending on communion Sundays. Abercrombie later related that an unnamed person, who Abercrombie thought was a U.S. Senator, told him that Washington, in recounting this incident, said he had never been a communicant. (Communion was not celebrated every week in the Episcopal Church at that time). Long after Washington died, when asked about Washington's beliefs, Abercrombie replied: "Sir, Washington was a Deist!" Nonetheless, it was also not uncommon in those days for churchgoers to pass on participating in communion.