The Winnipeg Scheme

the Rt. Rev. Machray Primate of Canada

Although Canada claims the earliest North American prayer book service held at Frobisher Bay in 1578, the Canadian church itself was late in coming, not formed on a national basis until 1893. In between these dates, Canadian Anglicans struggled in the back-woods as a wilderness church. When Bishop Robert Machray arrived from London in 1865 at Rupert’s Land,  he confronted the problem of ordering Hudson Bay colonial churches in such a way to best “secure the ground for the Church of England”. Bishop Machray’s reforms began at the Red River camp where a model for greater British North America developed. Church order increasingly gained ground, and by 1890 the Winnipeg Conference proposed a structure for Canada. Crucial to this proposed national church was Machray’s Solemn Declaration of 1893. The Declaration would be the capstone of Machray’s work, and from its institution Anglican who face a similar tundra of vacuous faith and order today may learn many practical points.

Ordering a Wilderness:  Robert Machray was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. While studying at Cambridge, Machray’s dislike of free church presbyterianism in the 1840′s convinced him to leave protestant dissent altogether and formally confirm his faith as Anglican in 1853. Machray entered Holy Orders in 1855, and served as a curate at Ely Cathedral. First promoted to chapter Dean, by 1865 Machray was called to the Bishopric. His consecration at Queen Victoria’s Palace Chapel symbolized a life-long identity with the English Crown that not only gave him a high regard toward Prayer Book standards, but it would later lead him to the distinguished title of royal Prelate for the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

Machray’s immediate pastoral charge was the ordering along English formulae of British colonials settled in Rupert’s Land. Along the Red River settlement, Canadian Anglicans were accustom to Presbyterian forms of worship. Machray’s passion for the Prayer Book and episcopal establishment informed a number of reforms. Machray’s successor, Archbishop Matheson, would say this about his attachment to the Book of Common Prayer:

“I rarely ever met anyone who loved and valued our Book of Common Prayer as he did. To him it was the vital vehicle which carried the worship of the heart to a holy God in temperate, stately and beautiful language.”

Beginning with worship, Red River was required to follow the prayer book rather than Methodist or Presbyterian patterns of devotion. They were required to have Holy Communion at least once per month with the offertory returned to the usual place. The Calendar was restored for normal liturgical use and its associated holy days observed.  Other Sundays, evening and morning prayer were to be conducted,  accompanied by regular catechism, and surplice with gown worn by ministers for services. For better organization of the diocese, Machray then set up vestries with wardens elected solely by the men of the same parishes. Constitution and canons were adopted, archdeacons appointed, and soon a cathedral w/ college emerged. Tithes were regularly collected allowing parishes to gradually become self-supporting. From these humble beginnings the Manitoba diocese was sufficiently ordered to not only be an active mission center for the northern territory, but it also proved an example for doctrine and worship in the nation generally.

The Solemn Declaration: By 1890 canadian provinces began moving toward a national church. While Eastern and Maritime provinces feared a loss of relative autonomy, Machray calmed these doubts by explaining how the national principle– embodied in ‘general synods’ and archbishoprics– has existed in alongside the normal unit of the diocese throughout history. According to Machray, British Americans needn’t fear a loss of local authority since in both England and America archbishoprics existed without compromising the basic unit of diocesan government. As chairman and primate of the 1890 synod, Machray proposed three resolutions promising both a federal and constitutional structure for Canada’s national church, otherwise known as the Winnipeg Scheme:

1) A Solemn Declaration that the Church of England in Canada desired to continue an integral part of the Anglican Communion, adhering to and upholding all the distinctive tenets and features of the Mother Church.2) The General Synod, when formed, did not intend to, and should not, take away from or interfere with any existing rights, powers, or jurisdiction of any Diocesan Synod within its own territorial limits.

3) The Constitution of a General Synod involved no change in the existing system of Provincial Synods, but the retention or abolition of the Provincial Synods was left to be dealt with according to the requirements of the various Provinces as to the Provinces and the Dioceses within such Provinces seemed proper.

The last two points were surities giving a tiered structure  for provincial and diocesan co-existance. But the scheme’s first point is most relevant, “A Solemn Declaration that the Church of England in Canada desired to continue as an integral part of the Anglican Communion, adhering to and upholding all the distinctive tenets and features of the Mother Church“. On the first point, Bishop Machray wrote much like American New England high-churchman, Samuel Seabury, assigning a rather ‘high’ status to England as an example for doctrine and discipline, departing in minimal ways. This in itself was a refutation of low church pan-protestantism more common to Red River before Machray’s arrival and, unfortunately, salient in southerly American colonies like Virginia. However, unlike Americans, the Canadian church was not incumbent to equivocate the name of their church for dissenting opinion. Even up to the 1890′s  Canadian Anglicans could call their sacred assembly,  ”the Church of England in the dominion of Canada”.

The Solemn Declaration of 1893 was approved by Toronto’s first general synod. It would be the linchpin to a distinctly Anglican identity proving a cornerstone not only with liturgy but doctrine as well.  Its first half is a reiteration of the same criteria given in the 1888 Lambeth Quadrilaterial, passed eight years before the Winnipeg Conference, designed especially for catholic ecumenicalism rather than full articles of faith between Anglican churches. It covered the Church of England in Canada as being 1) creedal; 2) ruled by scripture; 3) sacramental; and, 4) of apostolic ordering. This portion of the Declaration read as follows:

WE, the Bishops, together with the Delegates from the Clergy and Laity of the Church of England in the Dominion of Canada, now assembled in the first General Synod, hereby make the following Solemn Declaration:

WE declare this Church to he, and desire that it shall continue, in full communion with the Church of England throughout the world, as an integral portion of the One Body of Christ composed of Churches which, united under the One Divine Head and in the fellowship of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, hold the One Faith revealed in Holy Writ, and defined in the Creeds as maintained by the undivided primitive Church in the undisputed Ecumenical Councils; receive the same Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as contain mg all things necessary to salvation; teach the same Word of God; partake of the same Divinely ordained Sacraments, through the ministry of the same Apostolic Orders; and worship One Cod and Father through the same Lord Jesus Christ, by the same Holy and Divine Spirit who is given to them that believe to guide them into all truth.

The second half of the Declaration was more specific, proclaiming the historical faith of England, credited to Machray himself. Following the terms of subscription set by Whitgift in 1584, the declaration affirmed those same three formularies definitive of the famous Tudoran Settlement, namely, “prayer book, ordinal, and 39 articles”. Here, the Solemn Declaration vowed to “hold and maintain the doctrine, sacraments, and Discipline of Christ” as ‘set forth and received’ by the same three formularies. Noted also was the perpetual nature of this public vow, “and to transmit the same unimpaired to our posterity”. The last half of the Declaration read thusly:

And we are determined by the help of God to hold and maintain the Doctrine, Sacraments, and Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded in his Holy Word, and as the Church of England hath received and set forth the same in the “Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Church of England; together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be sung or said in Churches; and the Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons;” and in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion; and to transmit the same unimpaired to our posterity.

Anglican Realignment: It would be nice to see a realignment toward Reformation standards rather than ‘convergencism’ or ‘three-streams’ Anglicanism. Given the 1890 Winnipeg Scheme was borne of the same spirit as the 1865 Red River reforms, we see the basis of Anglican government as not merely a ‘recognition’ or passive reception of historical formulas– “bcp, 39 articles, and ordinal”– but a holy oath to “maintain and uphold” England’s reformed catholic faith and discipline. The language of the Declaration might be contrasted to the ACNA’s statement of faith which is apparently less confident about the relation between apostolic faith and Anglicanism, using weak language like “we receive” while sparing stronger terminology– “affirm” and “confess”– for points normally reserved for the Quadrilateral. In contrast, the 1893  Declaration employs the same consistent wording throughout the entire document, namely, “maintain” and “hold” between both halves. Perhaps older Anglicanism exuded with a certain confidence regarding the relation of Settlement standards to apostolic faith that modern convergence churches like ACNA lack or otherwise hesitate upon?

On the other end of the spectrum is the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC), flagship of the Continuing or St. Louis church movement which left TEC in 1976. The ACC’s C&C  officially rejects the Settlement as normative for reliable for Anglican doctrine. While the ACC bishops generally have looked toward the Tiber or across the Bosporous in squaring questions of faith and worship, many of the lower clergy identify with a more Protestant ethos or middle-of-the-road episcopalian church tradition, evidence by the ACC’s 1979 synodal resolution that recognized the substantial presence of low churchmen under the wing of anglo-catholic priests who led them out of TEC.

At the Continuum Blog, Fr. Hart and Fr. Wells have cleverly argued a canonical status for 39 articles through the ACC’s apparent endorsement of the 1962 Canadian BCP which inside contains the same 1893 Solemn Declaration. Thus, the Solemn Declaration seems to have a growing influence not only for orthodox jurisdictions in Canada like Petite Riviere but perhaps the United States as well. In the future the Declaration might be used as an instrument not only to “beef-up” the language of ACNA statements, but ultimately it might prove a scheme for correcting Romanizing doctrine too often found in  St. Louis Churches, particularly the ACC/ACA.  The established nature of the Solemn Declaration in Canada (and its present appeal in the ACC) gives it some precedence as a common North American document uniting traditional Anglicanism. It should be pursued as such.

A more detailed story of Bp. Machray’s life and history of the Declaration might be read at the Canadian PBS: The Legacy of AB R. Machray: a case history all Anglicans should know.