Commontide
Anglican Commemoration
Priest & Ecumenist
July 27 · d. 1909
also known as William Reed Huntington
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 Lowell, Massachusetts, studied at Harvard, and read for holy orders under the priest who would later be his bishop, for he never attended a seminary. Ordained in the early 1860s, he served first as rector of All Saints, Worcester, and from 1883 until his death as rector of Grace Church in New York, one of the great parishes of the American church. But his lasting work was done not in any one pulpit but in the cause of Christian unity.
Huntington looked out on a Christendom broken into fragments, a Protestantism splintered into countless sects and a Rome that answered division with the claim of one central authority over all, and he asked a simple, searching question: what is the irreducible core of the church, the few things on which all Christians might one day reunite? In his 1870 book The Church-Idea he set down his answer, four plain essentials, and gave them a memorable name, "the Quadrilateral of pure Anglicanism." Around these four points, he believed, "a Church of the Reconciliation ought to be among the things possible." He was careful to say that he did not wish to impose the whole Anglican system on America, for "the Anglican principle and the Anglican system are two very different things"; it was the principle, the simple catholic core, that he offered as a ground for unity.
The church listened. In 1886 the bishops of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Chicago, adopted his four points as their terms for reunion, and in 1888 the bishops of the whole Anglican Communion, gathered at the Lambeth Conference, adopted them in a slightly revised form. So Huntington's four essentials became the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, and they remain to this day the standing basis on which Anglicans enter into conversation with other churches, the most influential single thing the Anglican tradition has given to the modern search for Christian unity.
He was no seeker of fame, and he is no household name; he was, as his own age called him, simply the first presbyter of his generation, a working parish priest who also gave the church a tool it still uses. He labored for years on the revision of the American Prayer Book, and he led the effort to restore the ancient order of deaconesses, so that women might serve in a recognized ministry. He died in 1909, having spent his gifts not on building his own name but on knitting the torn body of Christ a little closer together, which is perhaps the most thankless and the most Christ-like of all the church's works.
How we know Huntington is from his own writings and from the public records of his church. His foundational book was The Church-Idea: An Essay Towards Unity (1870); he wrote also A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer and other works, and his texts survive in the public domain. The journals of the General Convention and the resolutions of the 1886 House of Bishops at Chicago and the 1888 Lambeth Conference document the adoption of his Quadrilateral. He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1838, took his degree at Harvard, read for orders rather than attending a seminary, and was ordained deacon in 1861 and priest in 1862. He was rector of All Saints, Worcester, from 1862 to 1883, and of Grace Church, New York, from 1883 until his death; he died on July 26, 1909, and is commemorated on the following day. The four points of the Quadrilateral as the councils adopted them are the Holy Scriptures, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the historic episcopate, locally adapted.
William Reed Huntington is commemorated on July 27 in the calendars of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America. He is honored above all as the father of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, the four-point Anglican basis for Christian reunion that remains the reference point of Anglican ecumenical dialogue to this day. He is remembered as the leading parish priest of his generation, rector of Grace Church in New York, as a principal reviser of the American Book of Common Prayer of 1892, and as the man who moved and at last secured the restoration of the order of deaconesses in the Episcopal Church. His memory belongs to the long, patient labor for the unity of the church.
Further reading. Huntington's essential work is The Church-Idea: An Essay Towards Unity (1870), where he first set out the four points and named the Quadrilateral; it is freely available in the public domain. The resolutions of the 1888 Lambeth Conference, which gave the Quadrilateral its enduring form, are also readily available.
Online resources. The Church-Idea is at the Internet Archive, and several of Huntington's shorter works are at Project Canterbury.
British (Received Pronunciation): Chicago-Lambeth /ʃɪˈkɑː.ɡoʊ ˈlæm.bəθ/
Readings for an Ecumenist
Ezekiel 34:11–16Psalm 133Ephesians 3:14–21John 17:10–26
Almighty God, we give you thanks for the ministry of William Reed Huntington, who labored that the Church of Jesus Christ might be one: Grant that we, instructed by his teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, which is Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.