Commontide
Proper 12
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 6th Sunday after Trinity
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Priest and Ecumenist
Anglican Commemoration
William Reed Huntington was the foremost priest of the American Episcopal Church in his generation and the architect of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, the four-point basis on which Anglicans have sought reunion with other Christians ever since: Holy Scripture, the ancient Creeds, the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the historic episcopate. Long rector of Grace Church in New York, he also led the revision of the American Prayer Book and the restoration of the order of deaconesses.
William Reed Huntington was born in 1838 in Haddam, Connecticut, to a prominent Episcopal family. He was educated at Harvard and the Berkeley Divinity School, and ordained a priest of the Episcopal Church in 1862. In 1883, he became rector of Grace Church, Manhattan—one of the most influential pulpits in American Protestantism. A prolific writer and theologian, Huntington published numerous works on ecclesiology, liturgy, and church unity. His masterwork, The Church-Idea (1870), proposed a framework for Christian reunion grounded in four essential elements: the Holy Scriptures, the historic creeds (particularly the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds), the two dominical sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist), and the historic episcopate. This framework—later called the Lambeth Quadrilateral—offered a middle way between Roman Catholic claims to papal supremacy and Protestant fragmentation. Huntington argued that these four elements constituted the irreducible core of catholicity, and that reunion could be achieved if diverse Christian bodies affirmed these essentials while permitting diversity in polity, discipline, and custom. His vision profoundly influenced the 1888 Lambeth Conference, which formally adopted the Quadrilateral as a basis for ecumenical dialogue. Huntington was also a liturgical scholar who contributed to Prayer Book revision discussions and articulated the theological principles underlying Anglican worship. He remained rector of Grace Church until his death on July 27, 1909, having shaped both Anglican identity and the broader ecumenical movement.
William Reed Huntington exemplifies the ecumenical pastor-theologian and prophetic voice calling the church to unity. His Lambeth Quadrilateral became the foundational framework for Anglican ecumenism and influenced Christian reunion conversations globally. He is venerated in Anglican tradition as the theological architect of ecumenical openness and the articulator of a catholicity that transcends both sectarian Protestant fragmentation and Roman centralism.