A Brief Introduction to our History and Tradition St. Clement's Episcopal Church is an active congregation in the Diocese of Atlanta which is comprised of congregations in the northern half of Georgia.  Our diocese is a part of a confederation of other dioceses which make up the Episcopal Church in the United States.  The Episcopal Church, in turn, is a part of an international fellowship of faith known as the Anglican Communion made up of independent national Churches related historically to the Church of England. The churches of the Anglican Communion share a common ecclesiastical structure, a common tradition of prayers and worship, and a common doctrine of reformed catholic  belief. The English reformation of the 16th century separated the English church from the authority of the Bishop of Rome and, seeking to restore the ancient structure and teachings of the early church, established a church based on what has come to be called the “via media” (the “middle way”).  This via media resulted in the kind of worshiping community you find at St. Clement’s today (as well as other Episcopal and Anglican churches):  a church both  “catholic” and “reformed.”  As a result, those who have come to our church family from other traditions, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, have found it both new and familiar. Our common worship is based on the tradition of The Book of Common Prayer.  The first English prayer book came from the best available scholarship and drew from across the Christian tradition, both East and West, by the leaders of the English Reformation in 1549.  Subsequent editions, including the American prayer books (the current 1979 Book is the fourth since 1789), all stand as a testimony to the importance of common worship in expressing the belief and practices of our tradition.  Worship is very important at St. Clement’s because it expresses what we believe and what we are called to do and be in the world. Anglican doctrine is also found in various historical forms (the 39 articles, for example, found in the back of the Prayer Book).  There are four fundamental expressions basic to the Anglican tradition and shared by all members of the communion:  (1) that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are “the revealed word of God,” contain “all things necessary to salvation,” and is “the rule and ultimate standard of faith;” (2) that the creeds, Apostles’ and Nicene, are a “sufficient statement of the Christian faith;” (3) the centrality of the two sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, “ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution and of the elements ordained by him” and; (4) the Historic Episcopate, “locally adapted to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.”  (See The Book of Common Prayer, pp. 876-878.) Who was St. Clement? “. . . graciousness and humility and gentleness are with those who are blessed by God.  Let us therefore cling to his blessing and let us explore what are the ways of his blessing . . . ,” from Clement’s Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians, c. 95 AD. “According to early traditions, Clement was a disciple of the Apostles and the third Bishop of Rome.  He is generally regarded as the author of a letter written about the year 96 from the Church of Rome to the Church in Corinth, known as “First Clement” in the collection of early documents called ‘The Apostolic Fathers’. “  (From Lesser Feasts and Fasts, p. 436.) There are also many stories about the life and death of this important figure in the early church.  It is recounted that the Roman Emperor sent him into a labor camp along the Black Sea and was so successful in those circumstances in bringing people to Christ that he was ordered executed by being flung into the sea attached to an anchor.  In the 9th century, relics attributed to him were brought back to Rome and placed in the Basilica of San Climente where they rest today. The feast day of Clement is November 23rd.  His symbol is an anchor-cross draped with a pallium, a bishop’s stole.