Anyone know why the Anglican Church (aka Church of England) is known as the Episcopal Church in the United States?
Simple question, but I didn’t have much luck looking around the Episcopal web site.
Because when the U.S. became independent, the country decided not to have state-sponsored churches, as the C of E was at the time (and still is since the Queen is the titular head of that church). So, adherents to that religion needed a new name. It didn’t make sense to call the church Anglican, because this isn’t England.
Episcopal makes the most sense. The highest ranking clerical member of the church is a bishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury oversees the Episcopal Church in the U.S., but with not the same level of authority as the Pope has over Catholic Churches.
As we Catholics like to call it, Episcopalian Churches are “Catholic Light” or “Catholics Who Can Sing Well.”
It’s the Anglican church in Canada as well, even though Canada is not England.
However, the Queen is the Sovereign in Canada as well, so this is a good question. Is the Queen the head of the Anglican Church in Canada? I don’t think the Anglican Church gets any support form the Canadian government…
For comparison, English coins have ELIZABETH II, D. G. REGINA, F. D.; Canadian coins omit the F. D., which is the abbreviation for Defender of the Faith (in Latin).
A further reason is that, although the term ‘Anglican’ in its current sense did exist earlier, it did not become widely used in England until the nineteenth century.
Just one problem: there are “Anglican” churches here in America. One quick example:
http://users.churchserve.com/tx/stjosephaca/
From where we can link to the site for the “Anglican Church in America”:
However, at that site, I can’t find anything that specifically explains why they call themselves “Anglican” instead of “Episcopal”. I do note that they use the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer; does the “official” Episcopal church use a more recent edition, in which case American Anglicans may be some sort of reactionary splinter group from American Episcopalians and are just using the new-old name to set them apart?
Just speculation. The actual point of this post is that there ARE Anglican churches in the US apparently in addition to Episcopal churches.
You know, if I’d just clicked one more link at that site, I’d have had the answer:
My guess would be that the Episcopal Church in the US was one of the first to separate organisationally from the Church of England. They needed to find a name for themselves, and there were few, if any, precedents to follow. Any name which emphasised their English roots and connections was not going to play very well at the time. So they chose “Episcopal” because having bishops was something which was important to them, and which served to distinguish them from most of the other churches in the US – Congregationalists, Presbyterians and so on. At the time, I think, Methodists in the US did not have bishops either.
In addition, if I recall correctly, the first bishops of the new church were consecrated not by Church of England bishops (who, under English law, could only consecrate people willing to take an oath of allegiance to the British king) but by bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church (so called to distinguish it from the Church of Scotland, which is a Presbyterian church and has no bishops). That may be where they got the “Episcopal” idea.
There are a number of other churches in the Anglican communion which do not use the word “Anglican” in their title. The Church of England is the most obvious example, but there are also the Church of North India, the Church of Bangladesh and so forth. Quite a number use the term “Episcopal” including the Episcopal Church of Cuba, the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church and of course the Scottish Episcopal Church.
So, in summary; member churches of the Anglican communion may use names which contain the word “Anglican”, the word “Episcopal”, or neither. Not much turns on the name, although in each case there is probably a historical and/or cultural explanation for the particula choice of name.
His Grace doesn’t have any overseeing functions for any of the Anglican Churches, other than the C. of E. The Archbishop does have a symbolic role as the preeminent bishop of the Anglican Communion worldwide, but each national church in the Anglican Communion is fully autonomous.
Her Majesty is not head of the Anglican Church of Canada. Bishops at the local level are elected by the clergy and representatives of the laity of the diocese. The national leader of the Church, the Primate, is elected at the national synod composed of representatives of the clergy and laity nation-wide.
Although our coins omit the F.D., Her Majesty’s Canadian titles include “Defender of the Faith.” See the Royal Styles and Titles Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. R-12.
Or it may have both. The Anglican Church of Canada’s name en français is “L’Église épiscopalienne du Canada.”
Oh, forgot to mention. The U.S. Episcopal church wasn’t the first in the Anglican communion separate from the C. of E. The Episcopal Church of Scotland was a separate entity, and I believe the Church of Ireland was as well, although it was established. All of the colonial churches were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. After the U.S. revolution, I believe that the Bishop of Quebec was the first overseas bishop of the C. of E.
Surprisingly enough, the first detailed account that popped up in my search was the Catholic Encyclopedia. It pretty much confirms most of what UDS stated, except to note that Episcopalians were already known as such prior to the Revolution.
Speaking as one who was originally baptised an Episcopal (but who has now found the true path of Atheism) and as one with LOTS of Catholic friends (I grew up just south of Boston) - I thought Episcopalians were “Catholics without the guilt-trip” 