Protestant Episcopal Church

Protestant Episcopal Church: see Episcopal Church.

also called Episcopal Church in the United States of America or Protestant Episcopal Church

Descendant of the Church of England in the U.S. Part of the Anglican Communion, it was formally organized in 1789 as the successor of the Church of England in the former British colonies. The church accepts both the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed, as well as a modified version of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. The highest authority in the church is the General Convention, which is headed by the presiding bishop (elected by the House of Bishops). The Reformed Episcopal Church broke away from the main body in 1873. The church accepted the ordination of women in 1976. In 1988 the church elected its first woman bishop, and in 2003 an openly gay man was consecrated bishop of New Hampshire. These steps generated controversy within the church as well as among other churches of the Anglican Communion.

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The Free Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States (FPEC) began as an overseas outreach of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England. The English group was formed on November 2, 1897 from the merger of three smaller churches; others were to join later. The ordination of bishops from within the apostolic succession was of major importance to this group, as also was having the church recognized as a lawfully constituted denomination. The latter event occurred, at least tacitly, when an Archdeacon from the group was exempted from World War I conscription in 1917 due to his status as a clergyman, which would not have been permitted had the group not been considered a lawfully constituted denomination.

This church has traditionally been quite small. There are various reasons for this, but one of them seems to be that clergy have tended to pass though it as a church in which to be ordained by bishops from the historic apostolic succession before moving on to other, larger church bodies.

While maintaining apostolic succession, the Free Protestant Episcopal Church generally has held to the position of the Evangelical or Low-Church end of the Anglican spectrum, in opposition to the growth of Anglo-Catholicism. The FPEC has known much internal dissension, some based on theological disputes and some on personalities, as is common to many small denominations.

External links

• Free Protestant Episcopal Church - General History