THE USAGER NONJURORS OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND

On the History of the Seven Usager Nonjurors, the Great Concordat of Jerusalem, and the Divine Liturgy of St. James of Jerusalem

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

The English and Scottish Nonjurors occupy a unique place in the history of Western Churches. Following the Revolution of 1688, many bishops and clergy refused to swear allegiance to the Protestant usurpers William and Mary, believing that they had already sworn a sacred oath to the Catholic King James II and that such an oath could not be broken without violating both conscience and the law of God. Although deprived of their sees, churches, and worldly privileges, these confessors chose suffering rather than compromise, as they upheld their motto: “No King but Christ; No Church but Apostolic!” Their fidelity gave rise to the Nonjuring movement, a communion which, over the following generations, increasingly devoted itself to recovering the Orthodox faith, worship, and discipline of the Ancient Church of the West.

Among them arose a remarkable company of bishops and theologians now remembered as the Seven Usager Nonjurors: George Hickes, Jeremy Collier, Thomas Brett, Archibald Campbell, James Gadderar, Thomas Rattray, and Thomas Deacon. A “Usager” was one who was committed to the use of the Ancient Liturgy of St. James, rather than some recently composed, more “Reformed” liturgy. While differing in personality and vocation, they were united by a single conviction: that the ancient Churches of England and Scotland could only be renewed by returning to the theology and liturgical life of the first millennium. They restored the ancient Jacobean Eucharistic Oblation and Epiclesis, encouraged frequent Holy Communion, kept feasts and fasts, defended prayers for the departed, revived the mixed chalice and brought back the use of leavened bread, and immersed themselves in the writings of the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church. Their scholarship was never mere antiquarian curiosity, but a practical effort to recover the living inheritance of the Ancient and Apostolic Church.

Their aspirations reached beyond Britain. Under the leadership of Bishop Archibald Campbell, with the theological assistance of Thomas Brett and Thomas Rattray, the Nonjurors entered into formal negotiations with the Patriarchates of Constantinople and Jerusalem, and gained the support of the Russian Orthodox Tzar as well. The resulting negotiations, remembered in our blessed tradition as the Great Concordat of Jerusalem, stand as a great monument of Western Orthodoxy, bearing witness to the unbroken Faith and Apostolic Orders of the Ancient Churches of England and Scotland in terms immediately recognizable to the Orthodox Churches of the East, restoring formal communication between East and West after centuries of estrangement following the Great Schism. Although full sacramental communion was never recognized by all the Eastern Patriarchates, owing to the later secret apostasy of the Patriarch of Constantinople toward Rome, the increasingly hard line adopted by the Church of Jerusalem toward the Christian West, the abolition of the Patriarchate in Russia, and the death of the Tzar who had sponsored the negotiations, the Concordat nevertheless revealed a profound agreement concerning the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Apostolic Ministry, the Holy Mysteries, correct liturgy, and the authority of the Fathers among the Churches tracing their lineage to the Holy Apostles. More importantly, these negotiations demonstrated that Western Christians could consciously seek reunion with other Orthodox Churches without abandoning the authentic liturgical and spiritual patrimony of the ancient British and Celtic West.

While the unfortunate political circumstances of the eighteenth century prevented the full realization of this vision of intercommunion and mutual recognition, the Nonjuring communion exerted great influence throughout the West. Yet, through persecution at the hands of the Anglican Church and other Protestant bodies, it gradually diminished in numbers, and many of its congregations disappeared. Its founding principles, great scholarship, and saintly Apostolic Succession, however, did not disappear. Through its bishops, published liturgies, theological writings, and the continuation of its succession in the Church in America, the movement preserved an enduring witness that the Western Church need not choose between fidelity to its own heritage and communion with the Orthodox Faith.

The Ancient Church of the West humbly receives this inheritance, both in a succession recognized and strengthened by the conditional ordinations of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and in the preserved culture, ethos, teachings, and scholarship of the Scottish Church in the Americas. Standing firmly within the Orthodox Faith, we preserve the liturgical, musical, spiritual, and canonical treasures of the historic West, while fully embracing the theological definitions of the East and the canonical integrity and sanctity of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. We understand ourselves not as the creation of a new ecclesiastical body, but as the continuation of the hope cherished by the Usager Nonjurors for their descendants: to be a fully Orthodox local Church, manifesting within our ancient Celtic, British, Scottish, English, and Irish patrimonies the life of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Their desire to unite the ancient Western patrimony with the fullness of Orthodoxy remains the guiding vision of our own ministry, and, by God’s mercy, has now found renewed canonical and doctrinal expression in our midst.

For this reason, the following Great Concordat of Jerusalem occupies a place of honor within our tradition and forms the foundation of this Prayerbook. It reminds us that Christian unity is not achieved through compromise or innovation, but through a common return to the Apostolic Faith once for all delivered to the saints. Yet that unity is not found in submission to foreign hegemony or ecclesiastical colonialism, but in the faithful preservation of the holy Patrimony entrusted to us through the witness of many generations of faithful fathers and mothers, the blood of the martyrs, the lives of our holy ascetics, healers, and wonder-workers, and the teaching of our holy bishop-fathers in the Faith.

The Seven Usager Nonjurors remained faithful witnesses to that calling. We shall do the same. Their courage in suffering, their devotion to the Holy Fathers and Mothers of the Church, their love for the Ancient Liturgy of St. James, and their unwavering commitment to the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Orthodox Church continue to inspire the mission of the Ancient Church of the West, as we labor to preserve and hand on the Holy Orthodox British Patrimony which we have received from them, that we may faithfully hand it on to many generations yet to come.