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What
is the Episcopal Church?
1st BCP
service in New World, aboard “Golden Hinde” of Sir Francis Drake:
Christmas 1607 in San Francisco Bay.
First Bishop Samuel Seabury
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Historical
basis—how did we
get here?
Brought
to these shores by British colonists, our church was then known, of
course, as The Church of England, used the “reformed” English
Prayerbook of 1663, and was nominally subject to the oversight of the
Bishop of London. There were, however, no bishops in America, and
Anglicans functioned primarily in Virginia, as the Established Church
of that colony, and in the vicinity of New York, where missionaries of
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel founded and pastured a
string of parishes—many continuously worshipping till today.
With the
War of Independence prayer could no longer be offered for the King, as
was required by the Prayer Book, and Anglicans were looked upon with
considerable mistrust and disdain by other protestant and independent
church founders and supporters of the infant nation. A large
majority of Tories, indeed, emigrated to Nova Scotia or returned “home”
to England, unable to continue within a rabidly iconoclastic and
republican society and business world. Those remaining,
steadfastly American but indefatigably Anglican, rewrote their own
American Book of Common Prayer, modeling it closely of course upon its
“reformed catholic” precursor. Many church leaders were also
participants in the Philadelphia consortium which adopted and signed
the Declaration of Independence and later drafted the Constitution,
framing a national government bi-camerally yet maintaining state-level
practical autocracy… at least initially. Interestingly, many of
those Founding Fathers shared common heritage within the Anglican
Church and the dilemma of how to worship in the new nation.
Following the adoption of the federal Constitution in 1789, they turned
to the issue of religion and engaged in protracted discussion and
debate, moderated primarily by the Rev. William White, Rector of the
Church of Christ and Saint Peter in Philadelphia, who served as
Chaplain of the Continental Congress from 1777 to 1789, and then as
Chaplain of the Senate. These Anglican Founders gathered in convention
and in 1789 established The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States of America (PECUSA). Together they framed our church government
parallel to that established federally, with national decisions
effective only by concurrence of the House of Bishops (in Greek
episkopoi) and the House of Deputies (diocesan clergy and lay persons
elected locally) and sitting in a General Convention every three years.
But
since the first Anglican colonists arrived there had been no American
bishops. Finally, in March 1783, ten clergy in Connecticut
elected Samuel Seabury, the Rector of St. James Church, New London, to
be their bishop and sent him off to England to seek consecration from
Bishops of the Church of England. However, since British law and
parliament still required an Oath of Conformity and Allegiance to the
King be sworn, a special act of parliament was required to dispense
with the Oath for the consecration of such a colonial insurgent. After
two years’ waiting upon parliamentary action to dispense the Oath,
Seabury went north to the Non-Juring Bishops in Scotland, and they
delightedly consecrated him Bishop in the ancient succession, as
maintained in that declining Scottish branch of historic
Catholicism. In exchange for sharing their episcopacy with the
new American Church, the Non-Jurors asked that their form of the Prayer
of Consecration be adopted in the new American Prayerbook.
Bishop Seabury then sailed back to Connecticut, for the first time
bringing Episcopacy to American soil, where in 1784 he was reluctantly
acknowledged by the General Convention as the First American
Bishop. In 1792 he joined with Bishops William White and Samuel
Provoost, who had received English consecration in 1787, and James
Madison (1749-1812), who had received English consecration in 1790, in
the consecration of Bishop Thomas J. Claggett of Maryland in 1792, thus
uniting the Scottish and the English successions here in the new-born
Episcopal Church.
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Anglican
"Compass Rose"
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International
and national
affiliations—how do we relate to other churches?
The
Episcopal Church is one branch of the Anglican Communion, the “family”
of all national churches descendent from the Church of England.
Each national church is structurally (sc. in legislation and
discipline) independent; however, the bishops of all Anglican churches
meet every decade in the Lambeth Conference--so-named because the
bishops meet in Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who is esteemed and respected as spiritual head of the Anglican
Church. In this way, we Episcopalians (Anglicans) wear on our
sleeves the heritage of “protestant individualism”—as compared to the
incontrovertible international hierarchy of the other major catholic
church, headed by the appointed Curia and its pope, so-called Vicar of
Christ. We are “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic” by heritage,
but persistently individualistic by persuasion; each believer is
personally and directly related to Christ through the Spirit, is guided
in understanding and empowered in ministry, and is committed to sharing
in the community of the Sacrament and the Fellowship of faith.
For some
years The Episcopal Church has enjoyed “intercommunion” with many, smaller
national catholic churches (Lusitanian Catholic Church, Nippon Sei Ko
Kai, Polish National Catholic Church of the USA, and others). We
respect each others’ ordained orders and sacraments, and members of
either church may participate fully in the other. In recent years
our Church has entered into dialog with several other protestant
churches (Lutheran, Methodist, and others), and our General Convention
has authorized “intercommunion” with the Lutherans and is considering
it with Methodists. For several decades joint study groups of
conciliatory Anglican and Roman Catholic scholars have been working to
define and respect each others’ “Catholicism,” unfortunately with no
concessions from the central authorities… yet.
Current
structures—how does
the Episcopal Church work?
Leadership
models
Faith
Worship
Membership |
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