FYI Northern Neck

FYI Northern Neck is a monthly lecture series that highlights subjects of interest to the residents of the Northern Neck. On Thursday, March 14th, at 7 PM, the March lecture will be held in the parish hall of St. James Episcopal Church, located at 15870 Kings Highway, Montross.

Robert Teagle, the Executive Director at the Foundation for Historic Christ Church in Weems presents “Church and State in Revolutionary Virginia.” Established by law and supported by taxation, the Church of England was the official religion of colonial Virginia. Church life revolved around the parish, a geographical area that supported a minister and functioned as a unit of local government. Over the eighteenth century, Presbyterians, Baptists, and other dissenters challenged the Church of England’s authority and traditional role in Virginia society.  In the Revolutionary period, Virginians ensured religious liberty through landmark legislation that profoundly shaped the new nation. This illustrated presentation examines how Virginia moved from a royal colony with few dissenters and a well-established Church of England to an independent commonwealth that declared religious freedom a natural right of mankind.