Episcopal/Anglican/Church of England

[BeluvdLily]

Are Episcopal and Anglican the same thing? If not, what is the difference? Also, which would be the American equivalent of the Church of England?

Amie

 

[LaMar]

Are Episcopal and Anglican the same thing? If not, what is the difference? Also, which would be the American equivalent of the Church of England?

Amie

My understanding is that Anglican encompasses all the worldwide branches of the Church of England.

The Protestant Episcopal church of the U.S. is one of these affiliated branches. They call it the Anglican Communion. The Church of England is another member of the Anglican Communion.

I’m not a member, but I do love the rector of my own local cathedral. She’s an awesome lady and we have a lot of conversations. She’s the one who explained all this to me.

 

[GKC]

My understanding is that Anglican encompasses all the worldwide branches of the Church of England.

The Protestant Episcopal church of the U.S. is one of these affiliated branches. They call it the Anglican Communion. The Church of England is another member of the Anglican Communion.

I’m not a member, but I do love the rector of my own local cathedral. She’s an awesome lady and we have a lot of conversations. She’s the one who explained all this to me.

With the excpetion of the fact that worldwide, there are no branches of the Church of England (though there are off-spring), this is correct. The official world-wide Anglican Communion is made up of 38 self-governing, independent jurisdictions, in the Communion, and thus in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the titular and symbolic figurehead. The Episcopal Church is the official representative jurisdiction of the Communion, in the US, as the Church of England is, in England. Of course, it all started with the Church of England, back when that was all there was.

This does not exhaust the wolrd of Anglicanism, though. There are many schismatic jurisdictions that split from various parts of official Anglicanism, over the recent tendency in the official world to put collars on females, and miters, ditto, and to engage in creative contemplation of sexual issues, and such things. These orthodox and split-off Anglicans are often referred to collectively as Continuing Anglicans, or Continuers, and the group collectively is sometimes referred to as the Continuum. These sorts of Anglicans are not in communion with Canterbury (though, curiously, they may be in communion with orthodox bishops in the CoE).

I’m one of that sort of Anglican.

GKC

**posterus traditus Anglicanus **