Eastern Synod. Reformed Church in the United States.

Eastern Synod. Reformed Church in the United States.

The Synod of the High German Reformed Church in the United States of America (Der SYNOD der Reformirten Hoch Deutschen Kirche in Den Vereinigten Staaten von America) was the new name adopted at the April 1793, meeting held at Lancaster, PA. It met annually. In 1816 the President of the Synod raised the issue of whether the Synod should be divided into Classes. This issue was pursued at the 1817 meeting, and led to the first nearly complete statistical report of pastors and charges being collected for the 1818 meeting. With this report in hand the 1819 meeting divided the charges into eight regional groupings that were authorized to be recognized as classes and appointed to meet on the fourth Sunday after Easter in 1820 to organize and choose names to differentiate themselves from other classes. From 1820 this Synod was often referred to as a "General Synod" but in 1824 it voted to drop that usage and conform to the Synod name. In 1836 it approved a welcoming back into the Synod those who had been part of the Free Synod. In 1863, with the formation of the General Synod, this Synod became a particular Synod under the General Synod. It took the name Eastern Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States in 1889. In 1932 it united with the German Synod of the East at St. John's Church in Schuylkill Haven, PA, under this Synod's name. It continued as an active judicatory to 1939.

Reformed Church Synods. Eastern Synod, Ref. RG 2018.002, E&R Library & Archives.

E&R Library & Archives.

Eastern Synod. Reformed Church in the United States.