What is
the Episcopal Church?
The Episcopal
Church is the American branch of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion
is an inheritor of 2000 years of catholic and apostolic tradition dating
from Christ himself, rooted in the Church of England. When the Church of
England spread throughout the British Empire, sister churches sprang up.
These churches, while autonomous in their governance, are bound together
by tradition, Scripture, and the inheritance they have received from the
Church of England. They together make up the Anglican Communion, a body
headed spiritually by the Archbishop of Canterbury and having some 80 million
members, making it the second largest Christian bodyin the world.
The Episcopal
Church came into existence as an independent denomination after the
American Revolution. Today it has between two and three million members
in the United States, Mexico, and Central America, all of which are
under jurisdiction of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church,
Frank Griswold.
Bishops
in the American Episcopal Church are elected by individual dioceses
and are consecrated into the Apostolic Succession, considered to witness
to an unbroken line of Church leadership beginning with the Apostles
themselves. For more than two decades the American Episcopal Church
has ordained women to the priesthood. In 1988 the Diocese of Massachusetts
elected the first Anglican woman bishop, Barbara Harris.
Although
it subscribes to the historic Creeds (the Nicene
Creed and the Apostles' Creed), considers the Bible to be divinely
inspired, and holds the Eucharist or Lord's Supper to be the central
act of Christian worship, the Episcopal Church grants great latitude
in interpretation of doctrine. It tends to stress less the confession
of particular beliefs than the use of the Book of Common Prayer in
public worship. This book, first published in the sixteenth century,
even in its revisions, stands today as a major source of unity for
Anglicans around the world.
The
Church of England has always valued the life of the mind and dialogue
with fields of secular study. Isaac Newton was an Anglican clergyman
and theologian as were several of the founders of the Royal Society,
the earliest institution organized for the promotion of science. The
Episcopal Church maintains this tradition, routinely requiring its
clergy to hold university as well as seminary degrees and supporting
many university chaplains.
Info
source: The Rev. Jane S. Gould, MIT Episcopal Chaplain, jsgould@mit.edu.
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