George David Cummins
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
and founder of the Reformed Episcopal Church
Reformed Episcopal Church
The Reformed Episcopal Church is an Anglican church in the United States and Canada and a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America...
.
Life and career
George David Cummins was born in DelawareDelaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
on 11 December 1822. He graduated from Dickinson College
Dickinson College
Dickinson College is a private, residential liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Originally established as a Grammar School in 1773, Dickinson was chartered September 9, 1783, five days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, making it the first college to be founded in the newly...
in 1841, and entered the Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
ministry.
In 1845 Cummins took orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
. After serving as rector
Rector
The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...
of Episcopal parishes in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, he was appointed Assistant Bishop of Kentucky
Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky
The Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, encompassing the western half of the state of Kentucky. The diocese, which originally comprised all of Kentucky, consecrated its first bishop, the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Bosworth Smith, in 1832...
in 1866.
A staunch Evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
of Reformed
Reformed churches
The Reformed churches are a group of Protestant denominations characterized by Calvinist doctrines. They are descended from the Swiss Reformation inaugurated by Huldrych Zwingli but developed more coherently by Martin Bucer, Heinrich Bullinger and especially John Calvin...
doctrine, Cummins opposed the influences of Ritualism and the Anglo-Catholic
Anglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....
Oxford movement
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
. In 1873, Bishop Cummins was criticized for receiving communion
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
with ministers outside the Protestant Episcopal Church, and resigned his position. He then founded the Reformed Episcopal Church
Reformed Episcopal Church
The Reformed Episcopal Church is an Anglican church in the United States and Canada and a founding member of the Anglican Church in North America...
, of which he was the first presiding bishop, in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Bishop Cummins died in Lutherville, Maryland 26 June 1876.
Publications
- Alexandrine Macomb Cummins (Mrs. G.D. Cummins), Memoir of George David Cummins (New York, 1878). Available on-line at http://www.archive.org/details/memoirofgeorgeda00cummuoft
- Historical material by and about Cummins from Project CanterburyProject CanterburyProject Canterbury is an online archive of material related to the history of Anglicanism. It was founded by Richard Mammana, Jr. in 1999, and is hosted by the non-profit Society of Archbishop Justus...