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Summary
- An Episcopalian is a member of the Episcopal Church, the American church of the Anglican Communion; “episcopal” comes from the Greek episkopos, overseer or bishop.
- Its full legal name is the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and it calls itself “a Protestant denomination”; since 1967 “The Episcopal Church” has been an approved alternate name.
- It keeps bishops, priests and deacons, the Book of Common Prayer and apostolic succession, and its constitution places it “within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” which is why Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians have long objected to the Protestant label.
- Samuel Seabury, its first bishop, was consecrated at Aberdeen on 14 November 1784, and the church adopted its constitution and first Prayer Book in Philadelphia in 1789.
- Its Prayer Book names two sacraments of the Gospel, baptism and the Eucharist, and five other sacramental rites.
- It approved women’s ordination in 1976 and marriage rites for same-sex couples in 2015, and it has been in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 2001.
- The Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Anglican church in Japan, grew partly from Episcopal missionary work begun in Nagasaki in 1859.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture is quoted from the King James Version: Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:5, 7; Acts 20:17, 28. Text from Bible Gateway.
- The Episcopal Church, What Kind of Christians Are We?
- The Episcopal Church, Who We Are and What We Believe
- The Episcopal Church, Sacraments
- The Episcopal Church, Timeline of The Episcopal Church
- The Episcopal Church, An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: entries for Seabury, Samuel; Via Media; Bishop; Apostolic Succession; Anglican Communion
- The Episcopal Church, Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations, with its pages on the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Moravian Church and the Presbyterian-Episcopal dialogue
- Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, otherwise known as The Episcopal Church (2022), Preamble; compared with the 1967 and 1964 editions
- The Book of Common Prayer (1979), An Outline of the Faith, commonly called the Catechism
- The Book of Common Prayer (1979), Historical Documents of the Church: the Articles of Religion (1801) and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (1886, 1888)
- The Book of Common Prayer (1979), The Preface (1789), The Ratification (1789), Preface to the Ordination Rites, Holy Baptism: Concerning the Service and Confirmation: Concerning the Service
- Episcopal News Service, Historic American-Scottish roots celebrated through Presiding Bishop’s visit to Aberdeen, 6 November 2017
- Episcopal News Service, General Convention approves marriage equality, 1 July 2015
- The Scottish Episcopal Church, Introduction
- Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, home page
- Nippon Sei Ko Kai, Diocese of Chubu, About our Diocese: The History of Nippon Sei Ko Kai
- Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Presbyterian Polity
- The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapters 1, 27, 28 and 29 (Orthodox Presbyterian Church edition); the Augsburg Confession, article X (Book of Concord); the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (Southern Baptist Convention)
- Strong’s Greek 1985, episkopos, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and Thayer’s Greek Lexicon (Bible Hub)
- The Episcopal Church, An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: Episcopal Church, The and Anglo-Catholicism
- Charles Jarvis Harriman, Loyalty to the Church, address to the Third Annual Catholic Congress, Albany, 1927 (Project Canterbury)
- Title pages of the Book of Common Prayer: 1979 (bcponline.org) and 1928 (justus.anglican.org)
- The Book of Common Prayer (1979), The Ordination of a Priest
- Called to Common Mission (Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America)
- The United Methodist Church, Book of Discipline, para. 403: The Role of Bishops and District Superintendents
- Moravian Church in North America, The Moravian Church
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