Some Episcopal Church Trivia

So, I was thinking the other day, I wonder what does all the stuff on the Episcopal Church's flag and shield mean--these are the types of questions that randomly pop into my head as a budding seminarian. Other questions like, wouldn't it be uber sweet to jump into a vat of the filling that they use for the Maple and Brown Sugar Pop Tarts? also occur, but I'll get into those on a separate posting I'm sure. Much the way my brother Ben goes on a diatribe about the sweetness of Big Wheels on his blog. Which, by the way, Ben, are hella sweet. No denying the truth.

So, through the modern miracle of the Internet (you know, the one that Al Gore created), I was able to find out a whole ton of stuff. Mostly that the flag has its roots in the Diocese of Long Island. Apparently there was this guy, one William Baldwin, who decided that the church should have a flag--this was in like 1918-ish. He realized that there was no flag for the church when he was on some committee to help the Diocese celebrate its 50th anniversary. The committee he was on was tasked with having some big whoop-dee-doo of a procession with lots of flags--ones for the archdeconries (yes that is a real word, go look it up), the various cathedral ministries, etc. Well, old Billy Baldwin noticed that there wasn't a flag for The Church....

S0000, fast forward to the General Convention of 1940--in Kansas City, BTW for those of you scoring at home, he presented a mock up and it was accepted along with oh, the Prayer Book. Pretty good amount of stuff at that General Convention got decided.

Here's what everything stands for, in good ole Billy Bob's words: "The red cross is the oldest Christian symbol dating back to the third century. The white represents purity and the red the blood of the martyrs. The blue is ecclesiastical blue, light in color, and used in the clothing of the Blessed Virgin Mary and on this flag represents the human nature of our Lord which He got from His virgin mother. The nine cross-crosslets or Jerusalem crosses represent the nine dioceses that convened in Philadelphia in 1789 when the Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church was adopted with its House of Bishops and House of Clerical and Lay Deputies and the Book of Common Prayer. The nine cross-crosslets are set in the form of a St. Andrew's cross in memory of the fact that, to avoid swearing allegiance to the British Crown, Bishop-elect Samuel Seabury of Connecticut had to go to Scotland to be consecrated by Scottish bishops."

The original version is hanging the the undercroft of the Cathedral on Long Island, a copy of the original one, presented at the General Convention in Kansas City is at the Washington National Cathedral right here in The District--you know that's what people who live in D.C. call it, because we are so cool-like-that. Oh wait, good thing we live in Alexandria so we don't have to sound all, well, like that.

So, now whenever someone comes up to you on the street and says, "For 500 pesos, tell me what do all the components of The Episcopal Church's flag mean." You can answer with glee and pride in your heart, and collect your $45.45. Don't say I never gave ya nothin'.

If you want the whole story--in a lot better detail than what I've got above, peep this web page:
http://www.allstates-flag.com/fotw/flags/rel-epis.html#stgeorge

So there.