Religion in early America will be the topic of a presentation at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 13, at Kingston Parish House in Mathews. The lecture is sponsored by the Mathews County Historical Society.

Robert Teagle, education director and curator at the Foundation for Historic Christ Church in Weems, will show slides and discuss the topic “Church and State in Revolutionary Virginia.”

He will trace the story of how Virginia moved from a royal colony with few dissenters and a well-established Church of England to an independent commonwealth that declared religious freedom to be a natural right of mankind.

Established by law and supported by taxation, the Church of England was the official religion of colonial Virginia, a press release stated. Church life revolved around the parish, a geographical area that supported a minister and functioned as a unit of local government.

All Virginians were members of one parish or another, said the release. Governed by a group of 12 men ...