Another early church denomination in Virginia was the Methodist Church, which originally developed as a reform movement within the Anglican Church. The leader in this was John Wesley. At the time when disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Virginia was being considered in 1776, the "Methodists" opposed the idea. They thought of themselves as a religious society in communion with the Church of England. From small societies held together by periodic visits from circuit riders, they grew to become congregations organized as churches. Throughout the nineteenth century divisions occurred, but in the present century the branches reunited and finally merged with other bodies. A famous leader of the late eighteenth century was Bishop Francis Asbury whose autocratic control led to break away movements by those who did not agree.
In the assessment of the churches made by the Virginia State Library, the German Lutheran and German Reformed Churches are put together. This is because there was generally a harmonious relationship between the Reformed churches and Lutherans, which often led to their sharing of a building and, on some occasions, sharing of a minister. As a consequence, records were often combined, making it almost impossible to identify the specific congregation to which records may refer. Of the records for thirty-seven German churches, all include some entries for infant baptisms, and commonly they include confirmation and communicant lists. Most of the records are in German. The first Reformed congregation was Rev. Haeger's in the First Germanna Colony for which no records remain. The first Lutheran congregation was for the Second Colony, and their records start with 1750. In general, the Anglican Church leaders did not regard the German churches as dissenters, nor did the German churches put down the Anglican Church. In fact, the Lutherans, as represented by the Hebron church and Rev. Klug, often filled in for the Anglicans when the Anglicans had no minister and vice versa.
In the eighteenth century, the Catholic Church, the Jewish congregations, the Disciples of Christ, and the Unitarians were not significant.
The Anglican Church was brought over with the first settlers at Jamestown and became the established church of the colony. Special duties were assigned to it and in return it enjoyed the taxing power of the state. After the Revolution, it was reorganized as the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, without any special recognition by the state.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.