Built upon the foundation of the authoritative Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, the Reformed Episcopal Church declares her first priority to be that of evangelism, the bold and unadulterated proclamation of salvation by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 8:4). In keeping the faith once delivered to the saints, the Reformed Episcopal Church, however, does not believe evangelism to be the end, but rather the beginning of her divinely given vocation. Thus, she is deeply committed to discipleship, the work of training evangelized men and women in Christian living (St. Matthew 28:20). This inescapably means that the Reformed Episcopal Church sets a high priority on biblical worship. When the Gospel is truly proclaimed and the mercies of God are made known, redeemed men and women must be led to offer their bodies as a living sacrifice, which is their spiritual service of worship (Romans 12:1). Thus, the Reformed Episcopal Church understands the Christian life to be necessarily corporate. The Gospel call of salvation is not only to a Saviour, but also to a community of those who have been saved (I Cor. 12:27), which community, being indwelt by Christ's Spirit, transcends both temporal and geographic bounds. Therefore, the Reformed Episcopal Church is creedal, following the historic Christian faith as it was affirmed by the early undivided Church in the Apostles' Creed (A.D. 150) and Nicene Creed (A.D. 325), sacramental, practicing the divinely ordained sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper as outward and visible signs of His inward and spiritual grace, confessional, accepting the doctrines and practices of the English Reformation as found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, and episcopal, finding unity with the Church of the earliest Christian eras through submission to the government of godly bishops. In this fashion, by embracing the broad base of doctrine and practice inherent in the historic Church of the Reformation, the Reformed Episcopal Church has a foundation for effective ministry in the name of Christ to a world which is lost and dying without Him.

The Declaration of Principles of the Reformed Episcopal Church
Adopted, December 2, 1873

I. The Reformed Episcopal Church, holding "the faith once delivered unto the saints," declares its belief in the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the Word of God, as the sole rule of Faith and Practice; in the Creed "commonly called the Apostles' Creed;" in the Divine institution of the Sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper; and in the doctrines of grace substantially as they are set forth in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.

II. This Church recognizes and adheres to Episcopacy, not as of Divine right, but as a very ancient and desirable form of Church polity.

III. This Church, retaining a liturgy which shall not be imperative or repressive of freedom in prayer, accepts The Book of Common Prayer, as it was revised, proposed, and recommended for use by the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, A.D. 1785, reserving full liberty to alter, abridge, enlarge, and amend the same, as may seem most conducive to the edification of the people, "provided that the substance of the faith be kept entire."

IV. This Church condemns and rejects the following erroneous and strange doctrines as contrary to God's Word:
First, that the Church of Christ exists only in one order or form of ecclesiastical polity:
Second, that Christian Ministers are "priests" in another sense than that in which all believers are a "royal priesthood:"
Third, that the Lord's Table is an altar on which the oblation of the Body and Blood of Christ is offered anew to the Father:
Fourth, that the Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper is a presence in the elements of Bread and Wine:
Fifth, that regeneration is inseparably connected with Baptism.


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