Episcopal Church

I. INTRODUCTION

, Christian denomination, organized in Philadelphia in 1789. The Episcopal Church derives its orders (ministry), doctrine, liturgy, and traditions from the Church of England, with which it is in communion (see Anglican Communion). In the early 1990s the Episcopal Church reported some 2.5 million members and about 7400 separate congregations in the United States.

II. DOCTRINE AND WORSHIP

Both Roman Catholic and evangelical traditions are represented in practices of the Episcopal Church. The doctrinal position of the church is, with certain modifications, the same as that of the Church of England. The Bible, interpreted in accordance with the findings of modern biblical scholarship, is the sole criterion in matters of dogma. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are accepted as statements of faith. Similarly, the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles of Religion are held to be of historic interest, but not essential expositions of doctrine. Unlike the Church of England, the Episcopal Church does not use the Athanasian Creed.

Like the Church of England, however, it believes only two sacraments, baptism and the Eucharist, were ordained by Christ; the other five sacraments, although honored, are not universally accepted as divinely instituted in the New Testament. The church as a whole accepts the standards of worship set forth in the revised Book of Common Prayer, but the separate congregations are permitted wide latitude in the observance of ceremonial. The church supports many religious orders of men and women.

III. ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVITIES

The government of the Episcopal Church is democratic. Groups of parishes form dioceses, which may bear city, state, or regional names. The supreme policymaking body is a triennial general convention, consisting of a house of bishops and a house of deputies. Bishops and deputies, the latter including both laity and clergy, are elected by diocesan conventions to which the constituent parishes of each diocese send lay and clerical representatives.

The orders of ministry in the Episcopal Church are deacons, priests, and bishops. All members of the church recognize the apostolic origin of the episcopate, but they do not necessarily accept the claim that the episcopate in its present form is identical in function with that found in the New Testament.

As a member of the Anglican Communion, the denomination participates, through its bishops, in the decennial Lambeth Conferences held in London. It is a member of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America and of the World Council of Churches.

The educational, missionary, and welfare activities of the Episcopal Church are administered by a presiding bishop, who is elected by the house of bishops, and by an executive council, the members of which are elected by the general convention and by units under the executive council. Headquarters of the presiding bishop and executive council is in New York City.

Besides supporting home missions, the church maintains missionaries in the territories of the United States and in many parts of Africa, Asia, and South America. The benevolent work of the denomination includes the operation and support of numerous orphanages, homes, hospitals, and other welfare institutions and the relief and resettlement of victims of war and natural disasters. Many educational institutions, including secondary schools, were founded under the auspices of the Episcopal Church. Several unofficial periodicals are published for Episcopalians; among them are the monthly newspaper, Episcopal Life,The Witness, and The Living Church.

IV. HISTORY

The Anglican tradition was brought to America by the settlers of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Throughout the colonial period the Church of England remained weak in New England, but strong in New York and Pennsylvania. In the South, where it was the preferred church of the ruling group, it was not numerically strong; however, most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence belonged to it. The majority of its clergy in New York favored Great Britain during the American Revolution, but the loyalty to the colonies of such men as Samuel Provoost, bishop of New York, secured for the church the vast holdings left to it by Queen Anne. (The enormous wealth of Trinity Church in New York City has been used to found, build, or endow over 1500 institutions.)

When political independence was achieved, the ties that had bound the Anglican congregations to the Church of England were severed. In order to survive, the church needed a national organization and a native episcopate. These ends were not easily attained, for divergent views on lay representation in church government divided the congregations, and English law required bishops consecrated by Church of England prelates to swear allegiance to the British crown. In September 1785 a convention of delegates from the various Anglican congregations, most of which had adopted by this time the name Protestant Episcopal (an adaptation of the 17th-century Maryland phrase Protestant Catholic), petitioned the archbishop of Canterbury to obtain parliamentary permission to consecrate American bishops. This permission was finally granted, and on February 4, 1787, bishops of the Church of England consecrated Provoost the first Episcopal bishop of New York, and William White the first of Pennsylvania. At the same time, a noted clergyman from Connecticut, Samuel Seabury, had accepted consecration from nonjuring bishops of Scotland (1784), thus becoming the first bishop of Connecticut. Although the method of his consecration was at first a cause of friction with churchmen outside Connecticut, Seabury was eventually recognized as the first Episcopal bishop in the U.S.

In 1789 all the congregations sent delegates to the first general convention, which was held in Philadelphia. At this convention the Episcopal Church was formally organized as an independent denomination but with the explicit statement that the new church did not intend to depart "in any essential point of doctrine, discipline, or worship" from the Church of England. The convention also ratified a constitution and adopted, with minor variations, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. In 1801 the church approved a version of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion modified to conform with the political changes in the new nation.

The Oxford movement, which began in Great Britain in 1833, had a strong impact on the Episcopal Church in the 1840s. As in the Church of England, the movement resulted in the formation of a High Church party favoring Roman Catholic traditions and elaborate ceremonial, as opposed to a Low Church party leaning toward evangelical traditions and a minimum of ceremonial. On slavery, the greatest political and moral issue of the century, the Episcopal Church maintained an official position of neutrality, thus avoiding a permanent schism. In the 1870s the movement known as ritualism, which grew out of the earlier Oxford movement, gave rise to bitter differences of opinion among Episcopal congregations. The movement resulted in 1873 in the organization of an independent denomination, the Reformed Episcopal Church. A later movement, known as Modernism, influenced the formation of a strong party that favored a broad, or liberal, interpretation of the Bible in opposition to the literalism of Fundamentalists.

V. THE CHURCH AND CURRENT ISSUES

The Episcopal Church has been a vigorous proponent of ecumenism, and it has joined with other Protestant denominations in an attempt to achieve a more unified Christian church. It has proposed that any reunified church be based on the following: (1) the Holy Scriptures; (2) the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds; (3) the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist; and (4) the historic episcopate. Its requirements have largely become the basis of all Christian discussion on church union (see Ecumenical Movement). Recently, much interest has also been shown in closer relationships with non-Christian bodies. The admission of women to holy orders during the 1970s brought considerable division in the church, as did a totally unrelated matter: the adoption (1979) of a revised Book of Common Prayer. Divisions also emerged over social issues, including the church's position on various matters relating to human sexuality. During the same period, the church engaged in a serious reexamination of the nature of ministry and the place of the laity. The denomination's first woman bishop, Reverend Barbara C. Harris, was consecrated in 1989.

"Episcopal Church". Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
http://encarta.msn.com (9 Sept. 2001)

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