Contours of Conformity 1662-1832: the story of a German Lutheran congregation and the Church of England

Having recently discovered the story of the German Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, an exploration of its early years provides a fascinating insight into how non-episcopal Continental Protestant churches were regarded by 18th century Anglicanism. (The title 'Little Dutch Church' is a misnomer for Deutsch.)

Established in 1756 as a "common meeting house of the German Lutheran congregation", it was the place of worship for the 'Foreign Protestants' - mostly Lutherans from the Palatines - who had settled in Halifax. For the first few decades of the church, clergy from the "English Church of St. Paul" in Halifax provided sacramental ministrations, with Lutheran laity leading prayers and reading sermons. In the words of a history of the congregation:

Ordinarily, the German schoolmaster read prayers twice on Sundays as well as a sermon on each occasion.

Another description, in good Lutheran fashion, also notes the singing of hymns.

The contemporary account notes the administration of the Sacrament by the clergy of St. Paul's:

On New Year's Day, 1759, the Lord's Supper was administered to about 60 persons, by the Revds. Dr. Breynton and Dr. Wood, ordained ministers of the English Church at Halifax, at which the first mentioned preached a sermon from Ezekiel xi.16.

Here was a German-speaking Lutheran congregation, retaining a lay-led Lutheran liturgy of the Word on most Sunday, and then receiving the Sacrament from English clergy - according to the Book of Common Prayer, as required by law - on Sacrament Sundays. What this arrangement clearly indicates is an understanding of shared faith and of ecclesial communion.

This is also indicated in the account of the dedication of the church at Easter 1761:

On the second day of Easter, the German Lutheran Church was solemnly dedicated to God, and called St. George's by the Rev. Dr. Breynton, who preached a sermon on St. John, iv. 21-24 ... The Lord's Supper was administered to a large congregation.

The dedication name, St. George, was not without some significance, hinting at a shared Protestant civic allegiance to the Hanoverian succession, indicative - as was commonly understood - of Lutheran and Anglican fellowship: there was, after all, no bar (from either confession) to a Lutheran becoming Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

The ecclesial communion indicated by the dedication of the church was given further expression in the description of 'Confirmation' in the German congregation later the same year:

On the 20th Sunday after Trinity were confirmed 10 young men and 7 young women by our schoolmaster, John Gottfried Torpel, in the Church, St. George, where the Catechism has been explained and also the following questions ...

This, of course, was a Lutheran understanding of Confirmation, reflected in part in the Prayer Book Confirmation rite. That the missing element of the Prayer Book rite - the laying on of episcopal hands - was not regarded as undermining this Confirmation is seen when we read the description of the next Sunday:

On the 21st Sunday after Trinity, the Holy Supper was administered in St. George's Church by the Rev. Dr. Breynton and Dr. Wood to a numerous congregation.

In other words, the Sunday following the Confirmation and the admission as communicants, the English clergy celebrated "the Holy Supper" (a Lutheran term), almost certainly in order to allow the new communicants to receive the Sacrament. This certainly suggests a willingness to recognise and facilitate the Lutheran understanding of Confirmation.

In 1784, the German congregation received Bernard Houseal as its pastor. A native of the Duchy of Wurtemburg, Houseal was ordained to the Lutheran pastorate by the consistory of Stuttgart. After serving German congregations in New York and Maryland, he returned to New York as the senior Lutheran minister in 1770. As a result of his loyalty to the Crown during the Revolutionary War, he took refuge - with many other Loyalists - in Nova Scotia in 1784. It was arranged before his arrival that he would pastor the German church in Halifax. 

The next year Houseal crossed the Atlantic to receive episcopal orders from the Bishop of London. This, however, was almost certainly not a case of Houseal abandoning his Lutheran orders. The German congregation had asked for financial support from SPG. SPG agreed to appoint Houseal as a missionary, but this required him to be in episcopal orders. As is clear from the SPG report on the matter, the German congregation was entirely supportive of Houseal receiving episcopal orders to this end: "his own congregation having desired the same, by memorial". What is more, while in London to receive episcopal orders - made deacon and ordained priest on 28th December and 29th December 1785 - Houseal preached in the Lutheran Church in the Savoy. Such a preaching engagement would have been incredibly unlikely if it was understood that Houseal was renouncing his Lutheran orders.

While further research would be necessary to confirm this, it is surely most likely that his episcopal ordination was understood by himself, and probably by the Bishop of London, as episcopal recognition of his presbyteral ministry. As a 19th century Lutheran commentator noted, this was not an unprecedented arrangement:

Like Peter Muhlenberg in Virginia, he held a double position, as Lutheran pastor of a German congregation and as missionary and chaplain of the Established Church of England. 

In such cases, episcopal ordination of non-episcopal Lutheran pastors reflected the need to maintain the good order of the Church of England. As the context surrounding Houseal's December 1785 ordination indicates, there is nothing to suggest that it was a denial of his Lutheran orders.

Placed alongside the consistent prayers offered by the 18th century Church of England for Continental Protestants and the co-operation with Reformed and Lutheran traditions in the American colonies, it demonstrates how the Continental non-episcopal Protestant churches were viewed by Anglicans as sharing the same faith, enabling sacramental fellowship. In the case of the German Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, there was no sense at all, for example, of the English clergy being required to challenge the German congregation about Lutheran confessional statements on eucharistic doctrine. Similarly, for the German congregation, receiving the Sacrament from Anglican clergy, according to the Book of Common Prayer, was not understood to be a rejection of Lutheranism.  Nor did the congregation and its pastor view receiving episcopal orders as a denial of Lutheran orders.  

Surprising as it may seem, this little church in Nova Scotia reveals a significant aspect of the contours of conformity in 18th century Anglicanism.