Our History
One hundred and twenty-five years of independent Anglican witness.
Founded in England on 2 November 1897 from the union of three smaller churches, the Communion has carried the historic apostolic faith through schism, reconciliation, and continual renewal — to four continents and twenty-five provinces today.
From the beginning two convictions held the work together: that bishops must stand within the apostolic succession, and that the Communion must be recognised as a lawfully constituted religious body. Both were vindicated by 1917, when an archdeacon of the Communion was exempted from wartime conscription on grounds of his clergy status — a quiet but unambiguous civil recognition.
For much of the twentieth century the Communion remained small. Many clergy passed through it to receive valid orders before moving on to other bodies. Yet the line was kept; the faith was guarded; and in our own time the Communion has grown to twenty-five provinces in different states and nations.
Born in 1848 in the ancient Armenian city of Malatya, Leon Chechemian was raised within the Armenian Catholic Church and blessed as a vardapet — a teaching monk and scholar — on 23 April 1878 by Bishop Leon Chorchorunian. For three years he served in a leadership role at Malatya before turning toward the Reformed faith, a decision that would set the course of his life and, in time, give birth to the Communion we serve today.
In 1885 Chechemian emigrated to the United Kingdom. He travelled first to Scotland, where he lived modestly on charity, studied at New College, Edinburgh, and worked with the Scottish Reformation Society. From Edinburgh he moved to Belfast and quickly became a sought-after lecturer in the city's Protestant pulpits, drawing crowds with the witness of an Eastern cleric who had embraced the Gospel afresh.
Around 1889 he gathered the faithful of Belfast into a new congregation he named the Free Protestant Church of England — a meeting place broad enough to welcome evangelical believers of several denominations under one episcopal roof. On 4 May 1890 he was consecrated bishop for the Ancient British Church by Mar Theophilus I (Charles Isaac Stevens), assisted by Alfred Spencer Richardson of the Reformed Episcopal Church in England — securing for his young church a recognised place within the historic episcopate.
Later that same year, on 15 August 1890, he founded the United Armenian Catholic Church to give his fellow Armenian refugees in Britain a non-Roman home; and shortly after he was received into the Church of Ireland and licensed by Archbishop Plunket of Dublin — an extraordinary breadth of ministry for a single year.
His crowning work came on 2 November 1897, at St Stephen's Church in East Ham, London, when his Free Protestant Church united with Stevens' Ancient British Church and James Martin's Nazarene Episcopal Church to form the Free Protestant Episcopal Church. Chechemian was appointed its first Primus, and that same day he and Martin consecrated George Maaers and Frederick Boucher to share in the leadership of the new body.
After three years guiding the Communion through its fledgling life, Chechemian resigned the primacy on 30 December 1900, handing the office to Mar Theophilus I. He was naturalised as a British subject the following year while still resident in Edinburgh, and continued in quiet ministry until his death on 3 December 1920.
More than a century later, hundreds of bishops across the world still trace their orders through Mar Leon — a witness to one Armenian scholar's conviction that the apostolic faith belongs not to one nation or jurisdiction, but to the whole Church of Christ.
Lines of Consecration
Armenian Catholic line
Through Leon Chorchorunian (1822–1897), consecrated 1861 by Cardinal Patriarch Antony Hassun (Antoine-Pierre IX) of the Armenian Catholic Church.
Syriac Orthodox line
Through Mar Theophilus I (Stevens, 1890), via Richard Williams Morgan and Jules Ferrette to Mar Ignatius Peter IV — Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch.
Reformed Episcopal line
Through Bishop Alfred Spencer Richardson, co-consecrator in 1890 from the Reformed Episcopal Church in England — itself drawn from the Church of England.
Ancient British line
Through the Ancient British Church under Mar Theophilus I, gathering older insular successions into the founding union of 1897.
Charles Isaac Stevens was born on 28 November 1835 at Clerkenwell, London, the son of Isaac Thomas and Anna (Morgan) Stevens, and was baptised in the parish church of St Luke on 5 June 1836. He came to ordained ministry through the Reformed Episcopal Church of England, serving as one of its presbyters until 1879 — a Reformed Anglican formation that would mark his churchmanship for the rest of his life.
On 6 March 1879 he was consecrated bishop by Richard Williams Morgan, assisted by Frederick George Lee and Dr John Thomas Seccombe — the consecration that drew Morgan's Syriac Orthodox line, by way of Jules Ferrette and Mar Ignatius Peter IV of Antioch, into the wider stream of British independent Catholic orders. By this single act Stevens entered an apostolic succession that the Communion still preserves today.
In 1889 he was raised to the patriarchate of the Ancient British Church as Mar Theophilus I, second Patriarch of that body. The following May, on 4 May 1890, it was Mar Theophilus who, with Bishop Alfred Spencer Richardson, consecrated Leon Chechemian for the Ancient British Church — the act that would, in time, make the founding union of 1897 possible.
When the Free Protestant Episcopal Church was constituted at St Stephen's, East Ham, on 2 November 1897, Stevens stood beside Chechemian and James Martin as one of its three founding bishops. Three years later, on 30 December 1900, upon Chechemian's resignation, he was appointed second Primus of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church, holding together the offices of Patriarch and Primus until his death.
Stevens governed the Communion through the long Edwardian years and into the early storms of the First World War. He died on 2 February 1917, having served the FPEC as its Primus for sixteen years and the Ancient British Church as Patriarch for almost three decades. Mar Jacobus I Antipas (James Martin) succeeded him in both offices.
If Mar Leon Chechemian was the Communion's founder, Mar Theophilus I was its bridge — the bishop in whose person the ancient streams of Britain met the witness of Eastern Armenia, and through whom both passed safely into the twentieth century.
Apostolic Succession
Four ancient lines, one unbroken ministry.
The orders of our bishops are derived from the four apostolic streams gathered into the founding union of 1897, and preserved through every consecration since.
Armenian Catholic Church
Through Bishop Leon Chechemian.
Syriac Orthodox Church
Received through the Ancient British Church.
Roman Catholic Church
Drawn from historic Western consecrations.
Church of England
Through the Reformed Episcopal Church of the United States.
An Interactive Timeline
From Chechemian to the present.
Select an era, then hover or tap a year to revisit the moments that shaped the Communion.
In the year of
1890
Free Protestant Church of England
Bishop Leon Chechemian — formerly a vardapet of the Armenian Catholic Church and consecrated bishop in England — establishes the Free Protestant Church of England.
Names Borne Through the Years
One Communion, several names.
Through more than a century of life the Communion has been known under several titles, each marking a stage of its journey while the faith and orders remained constant.
- Free Protestant Episcopal Church1897 – 2012
- The Anglican Free Communionfrom 2012, Bolivia synod
- Episcopal Free Communionfrom 2020, after the schism
- Free Protestant Episcopal Church — Worldwide Communionrecovered title, 2025
- Episcopal Apostolic Church of Englandearlier secondary name
- Ecumenical Church Foundationearlier secondary name
Succession of Primates
Bearers of the apostolic mantle.
From Mar Leon Chechemian in 1897 through every Primate who has followed, an unbroken line has shepherded the Communion across two centuries — and after the 2020 division for the sake of orthodoxy, Archbishop Ronald Lee Firestone and now Archbishop Raul Toro, Jr. carry that mantle forward.
- 01
Leon Chechemian (Mar Leon)
1897 – 1900
First Primus · founder
- 02
Charles Isaac Stevens (Mar Theophilus I)
1900 – 1917
Patriarch of the Ancient British Church
- 03
James Martin (Mar Jacobus I Antipas)
1917 – 1919
- 04
Andrew C. A. McLagan (Mar Andries I)
1919 – 1928
- 05
Herbert J. Monzani-Heard (Mar Jacobus II)
1930 – 1939
- 06
William Hall
1945 – 1959
- 07
Charles Dennis Boltwood
1959 – 1978
- 08
Albert John Fuge
1978 – 1982
- 09
Charles Kennedy Moffatt
1982 – 1989
- 10
Edwin Duane Follick
1989 – 2015
Reunited the Communion in 2011
- 11
Richard Arthur Palmer
2015 – 2020
- 12
Ronald Lee Firestone
2020 – 2022
Took up the mantle after the 2020 division for orthodoxy
- 13
Raul Toro, Jr.
2022 – present
Current Primate