The Episcopal Church

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Denomination : Anglican

Official blazon

Argent a cross throughout gules, on a canton azure nine cross crosslets in saltire of the field.

Origin/meaning

The design of the arms or shield of the Episcopal Church was adopted by its General Convention in 1940 and depicts the red cross of St. George, patron saint of England, dividing the silver field of the English flag into four rectangles. The field to the upper left is blue, from the flag of Scotland, containing a composite cross of St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland, made up of nine silver cross-crosslets in saltire, each of them representing one of the nine original dioceses which met in Philadelphia in 1789 to form the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America: Connecticut (1783), Maryland (1783), Massachusetts (1784), New Jersey (1785), New York (1785), Pennsylvania (1785), South Carolina (1785), Virginia (1785)and Delaware (1786).

The colours red, white, and blue are also, coincidentally, the colours of the flags of both the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The cross of St. Andrew remembers the fact that Samuel Seabury, first bishop in America, was consecrated by bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church at Aberdeen in 1784. Thus the arms or shield overall represent the heritage of the Episcopal Church from both England and Scotland.