October 3 Today in OPC History

On Friday, October 3, 1997, Second Parish Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Portland, Maine, used the occasion of its annual Harvest Supper to celebrate the congregation’s 210th anniversary. The speaker for the evening was its former pastor, the Rev. Dr. John Skilton, who had brought the church into the OPC in 1936. Skilton used the occasion to encourage the church to build on its heritage by reaching out with the gospel of Christ.

In September of 1787, several members of First Parish Congregational Church drew up a charter for the formation of Second Parish. As Pastor John Hilbelink explained in New Horizons: “Formed partly in protest to the growing liberalism of First Parish, Second Parish called pastors who were decidedly Reformed in their doctrine, beginning with Elijah Kellogg, who served from 1787 to 1811.”

In 1923, the church united with First Presbyterian Church of Portland (which had been formed in 1885). At the time it joined the OPC in 1936, Second Parish was the only Presbyterian church in the state of Maine, and it was active in the church planting efforts of the Society for the Propagation of the Reformed Faith in New England. Orthodox Presbyterian pastors who have served Second Parish include Arthur Olsen, Calvin Busch, Herbert DuMont, Leslie Dunn, Stanford Sutton, John Hilbelink, and its present pastor, Daniel Patterson.

Picture: John Hilbelink