The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church had its beginnings in the Church of Scotland in the 1500's. Due in part to controversy over state control of the church, a pastor by the name of Ebenezer Erskine led a group of Christians in forming a separate Associate Presbytery in 1733 (from thence comes the first part of our name). Ten years later another group organized themselves into the Reformed Presbytery. Both churches spread to Northern Ireland and North America. Formal union talks between the "Associates" and the "Reformed" began in 1777 and, in 1782, the Associate Reformed Synod came to be in Philadelphia. The Canadian Presbytery, of which we are a member, has churches in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.