The 1609 wreck of the flagship of the Virginia Company, the "Sea Venture", resulted in the settlement of Bermuda by the Company. This was made official in 1612 when the town of St. George's, now the oldest surviving English settlement in the New World, was established. It is the location of St. Peter's Church, the oldest-surviving Anglican church outside of the British Isles (Britain and Ireland) and the oldest surviving non-Roman Catholic church in the New World, also established in 1612. It remained part of the Church of England until 1978 when the Anglican Church of Bermuda was formed. The Church of England was the state church in Bermuda and a system of parishes was set up for the religious and political subdivision of the colony (they survive, today, as both civil and religious parishes).