What's
the difference between "Episcopal" and "Anglican"?
When the Church of England
first asserted its independence from the jurisdiction
of the Pope (during the reign of Henry VIII), it
didn't claim to be starting a new denomination the
way we think of such things today: they didn't want
to have more than one "branch" of the Christian
church, they just wanted to be sure that the Church
they did have was "independent"--by which
they meant, under the power of the King in Parliament.
So they just called it, in English, the Church of
England, implying that there could be only one. People
still thought a lot in Latin in those days, though,
and even in the Act of Parliament which declared
the English independence from the Pope, the Church
of England is also called, in Latin, "Ecclesia
Anglicana," which could be translated "the
English Church," but tended to get only half-translated,
as "the Anglican Church." This was handy,
in its own way, because it allowed you to talk about "Anglican" and "Roman" Churches
with a sort of rhetorical elegance. So Anglican and
Church of England originally were synonyms and co-extensive.
The Church of England could also be called, most
of the time, an "episcopal" church, in
the sense that it was governed by bishops (or, at
least, through bishops, by the King or Queen); at
the time of the English Civil War, "presbyterians" (= "rule
by presbyters," i.e. by elders, though "presbyter" is
also the formal word for "priest") and "congregationalists" ("each
local congregation rules itself") took over
the Church of England for a while, so at those stages
it was briefly Anglican but not episcopalian. (In
Scotland, which was originally a separate kingdom,
the Church of Scotland is not Anglican, and has always
been presbyterian, except for one brief attempt to
make it episcopal, which helped start the Civil War
in the first place).
As the British Empire grew, it carried the Church
of England with it, and, at the same time, other
denominations grew up--Presbyterians, Congregationalists,
Baptists and so on; when the American colonies revolted,
the members of the Church of England in the new United
States had to decide what to do. There had never
been any bishops in the colonies, so they were in
an awkward position if they wanted to be an "episcopal" church;
at the same time, Methodism, which had started off
as a movement inside the Church of England, was on
the brink of splitting off to form a new denomination,
and the American ex-Church of England had to decide
whether to follow the Methodists, try to keep them,
or just ignore the problem. Eventually, the Americans
decided to go ahead and have bishops, and to let
the Methodists go, so they called themselves the "Protestant
[i.e., not Roman Catholic] Episcopal Church in the
United States," which is the beginning of "Episcopal" and "Episcopalian" as
capital e- proper words. But the new Episcopal Church
was obviously tied somehow to the Church of England,
whose Prayer Book and so on it used. What adjective
could be used to describe the two taken together?
As the Empire granted various forms of self-government
to its constituent parts, the problem grew worse,
since English law provided that the "Church
of England" only operated in a colony until
that colony got its own constitution. Once the country
had its own legal basis, then the former "Church
of England" was, well, whatever the locals decided
it was: but it wasn't the Church of England anymore.
"Anglican," then, became the adjective to describe the whole family
of former Church of England churches, whatever their new self-governing names
might be. So our church in this country is "The Episcopal Church" or "The
Protestant Episcopal Church": but it's the local branch of "The Anglican
Communion," so all Episcopalians are also Anglicans. All Anglicans are also "episcopalians" in
the original sense (i.e., they all have bishops), but they're not all Episcopalians
(members of the particular American church). For the worldwide Anglican Communion
website, see:
At the moment, much of the Anglican Communion is
shocked by the Episcopal Church's decision to ordain
a non-celibate gay man as a bishop, and it may yet
happen that the Episcopal Church and the rest of
the communion part company over the issue.
Why
do you call the Presiding Bishop "Most Reverend"?
Anglicans have a hierarchy
of "reverends":
Deacons and Priests: The Reverend John Smith
Deans (priests with some sort of jurisdiction over
a group of other priests, often on the staff of a
Cathedral): The Very Reverend ....
Bishops: The Right Reverend.... [this is "right" in
the sense of "that baked possum was right good,
maw"]
Archbishops and other Primates: The Most Reverend...
The two English Archbishops--of York and of Canterbury,
Canterbury being the senior--are, by virtue of their
offices, members of Her Majesty the Queen's Privy
Council [a largely ceremonial body], and Privy Councillors
are (like various other British dignitaries) styled "Right
Honorable"--or, rather, "Right Honourable," in
their spelling. There are also Honourables and Most
Honourables, but we don't need to get into that.
The American "Presiding Bishop and Primate" (for
various political reasons, the Americans have never
wanted to call this person an Archbishop) is the
head of a "Province," like Canterbury and
York, and so is also called "Most Reverend" (though
that usage is a relatively new development).
Notice, by the way, that Episcopalians feel that "Reverend" is
an adjective, like "Honorable." Just as
a politician would be called "The Honorable
Mr. Smith," rather than just "Honorable
John Smith," so too Anglicans would insist on
caling somone the Reverend
Mr. Smith, not just "Reverend John Smith."
