The writer of a recent letter titled “Don’t break up Episcopal Church” stated, “The church that kept its Northern and Southern sections together during the Civil War. …”
I would like to refer her to the book “The Church in Confederate States” by Joseph Blount Cheshire, D.D.
“A Convention was held in Columbia, South Carolina, to organize the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States. A church constitution was drawn up and other matters settled. Within a few months, most of the Southern dioceses, including South Carolina, had ratified the constitution and had become part of the new church. The church’s only “General Council” was held in Augusta, Georgia, November 12-22, 1862.”
The Northern and Southern churches did reunite shortly after the end of the War Between the States.Much of what became the Diocese of South Carolina started as the Church of England, and then freely joined the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, then became the Protestant Church of the Confederate States and then back to Protestant Church in the United States, and that name has been recently changed to the Episcopal Church.
WILLIAM McINTOSH III
Co-archivist
St. Philip’s Church
