"Anglican" and "Episcopal" - What's the difference?

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Yesterday in a fit of nostalgia I drove out into the rural area where I was raised and noticed an old Lutheran Church that had been abandoned when I was a child when a new Lutheran Church was built. However, the old church had been beautifully restored and is now an Anglican Church. I’m familiar with the Episcopal Church and the Church of England and in the news there has been reference to the Anglican Communion. What would be the differences between an Anglican and an Episcopal Church in America?

The church had a strikingly beautiful icon-like painting of St. Michael the Archangel on its sign. There was also a statue of St. Michael in a small flower garden. All in all, everything was quite calming and peaceful.
 
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searcher:
Yesterday in a fit of nostalgia I drove out into the rural area where I was raised and noticed an old Lutheran Church that had been abandoned when I was a child when a new Lutheran Church was built. However, the old church had been beautifully restored and is now an Anglican Church. I’m familiar with the Episcopal Church and the Church of England and in the news there has been reference to the Anglican Communion. What would be the differences between an Anglican and an Episcopal Church in America?

The church had a strikingly beautiful icon-like painting of St. Michael the Archangel on its sign. There was also a statue of St. Michael in a small flower garden. All in all, everything was quite calming and peaceful.
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The world-wide Anglican Communion is a group of 38 self-governing Churches, all of which originated in some fashion with the Church of England, and all of which are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. In this group are about 3 Churches that use the word "Episcopal in their names. The official representative Church of the Anglican Communion in the United States is one of these and that Church is the Episcopal Church, USA, or ECUSA. Most of the Churches in the Anglican Communion use the term “Anglican” in their names, as in the Anglican Church of Canada, or the Anglican Church of Australia.

To find the term “Anglican” attached to a chuch, or group of churches in America, rather than the name “Episcopal” would suggest that it is one of the Continuing or traditional churches that broke from ECUSA, over issues like females in collars, sexually unique bishops, or similar matters, in order to retain traditional orthodoxy. There are a number of such groups, around the world, collectively referred to, as I said, as Continuing or Traditional Anglican Churches though they have official names such as the Anglican Church in America, or the Anglican Province of Christ the King. If you visited my parish, for example, the (rather new) signs proclaim that we are the Anglican Church of the Epiphany. Such groups are not in communion with the Achbishop of Canterbury, and hence are not part of the official Anglican Communion,

If you can say where it was located, I might find it in one of the Continuing Anglican Churches parish listings. Or, maybe not.

GKC
 
Thanks for your responses. I found the Church’s website and it said that it was a traditional Church using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and affiliated with the Diocese of the Holy Cross and Forward in Faith(UK). Is this one of the groups you were referring to? This Church seems much more “Catholic” than the Episcopal Churches I’m familiar with.
 
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searcher:
Thanks for your responses. I found the Church’s website and it said that it was a traditional Church using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and affiliated with the Diocese of the Holy Cross and Forward in Faith(UK). Is this one of the groups you were referring to? This Church seems much more “Catholic” than the Episcopal Churches I’m familiar with.
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Yes, indeed, that is one of the Traditional Anglican groups.In fact, the Diocese of the Holy Cross is the jurisdiction my parish belongs to (Continuing Anglicans have lots of jurisdictions. Way too many). So, though I don’t know where this parish is, I probably know its rector. And we have the same bishop.

Forward in Faith (UK) is one of several associations of traditional Anglican Churches (including parishes still in communion with Canterbury). There is a FiF (USA), but the UK group is more traditional minded, and we are associated with it.

Anglicans, including Episcopalians, are not a monolithic group (and this is without reference to the current state of whether the Anglican Communion is doctrinally orthodox anymore). Running back into its history, Anglicanism has had a spectrum of doctrinal beliefs, and a spectrum of liturgical styles, ranging from more reformed and low church, to Anglo-Catholic and high church. When the current movement to separate from ECUSA and other official Anglican churches began, about 30 years ago, the first departees were primarily on the Anglo-Catholic side, since the first offenses that ECUSA perpetrated were against the liturgy and Holy Orders, things that were of particular interest to the Anglo-Catholics (many of whom consider themselves part of that same One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church as is the RCC and the Eastern Churches). And so, the “flavor” of the Traditional Anglican movement was, and to an extent, is, Anglo-Catholic. This is by no means an absolute. Anglo-Catholics, particularly ones using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and the Anglican Missal, do look a lot like the old Tridentine RCs. Of course, Rome considers all Anglican orders to be invalid, but that’s not a real issue with us.

I’m glad that we have another parish church in the diocese and that apparently it is an attractive one. Thanks for letting me know.

GKC
 
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