Anglican Communion News Service

[ACNS source: Scottish Episcopal Church] Seabury Day will be marked in the Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney with special services in Peterhead on Friday 14 November, the 219th anniversary of the consecration of Samuel Seabury as the first Bishop in the United States.

The Dean of Aberdeen, the Very Reverend Gerald Stranraer-Mull, who is also priest in Peterhead, Ellon and Cruden Bay, explained, "The consecration of Bishop Seabury in Aberdeen by three Scottish Bishops was the beginning of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The chief consecrating Bishop was the Primus, Bishop Robert Kilgour, and this year's service, for the first time, honours him. A wreath will be laid on his grave in the old churchyard, overlooking Peterhead harbour, and the band of the Salvation Army will lead a procession to Saint Peter's Church, the successor to the one in which Bishop Kilgour ministered during his long episcopate. He was born at Cruden Bay nine miles from Peterhead and even when Bishop of Aberdeen he never lived anywhere but within these nine miles. At that time Bishops in Scotland were also parish priests."

The Eucharist in Saint Peter's will be celebrated by the Primus of Scotland, the Most Reverend Bruce Cameron, who will then launch an appeal, to run until Easter, for a new house for the priest at Misty Point, in an expanding community in Aberdeen's companion Diocese of Saint John's in South Africa.