Session 2 Introduction to the Episcopal Church

Introduction to the Episcopal Church

Session 2 

Who are we?  How did we get to be who we are? 

Our Name: The Episcopal Church

We have other names: The Episcopal Church in the USA.  The Protestant Episcopal in the USA and we have a legal name: Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

Are we Catholic?  Are we Protestant?

The common street language use of the word Catholic really means Roman Catholic.  But we are catholic in the sense that we use the Creed of the undivided church, the Nicene Creed and we say, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”  The word catholic comes from the Greek words “kata holos” meaning “on the whole.”  In the Apostles Creed (an ancient creed and used at baptism) we say, “I believe in the holy catholic church.”  So we believe in one church even though we know that in historical disagreements we have come to meet in separate churches or communions.

We are Protestant in the sense that we are not Roman Catholic.  The Reformation had its own unique pattern when Roman Catholic Christians in England in various ways expressed their disagreements with certain practices that arose in the Roman Catholic Church.  English Roman Catholics were influenced by Reformation movements that included the use of native language for the prayers instead of Latin.  Mutual disagreement and mutual reaction and retaliation between the Papacy and the English Crown along with a body of clergy in England who were influenced by the Reformation led to the gradual separation between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, but the separation was not fully finalized until 1896 when a Papal document declared that Anglican ordinations were not valid (canonically proper according to how the papacy defined validity).  We are Protestant in that we embraced a tradition that affirmed a greater role for the Bible, we believe prayer should be in the common language of the people who gather to pray, we allow clergy to marry and we believe that the Pope could serve as a “first among equals of all bishops” but not as an infallible spokesperson for the entire church.  As we shall see, we believe that God’s Spirit is active in our age too and can lead us to see the wisdom to change some ancient practices that seem to be unreasonable and promote ancient bias against people who dearly love God and want to follow Christ and have the full rights of all of the Church’s sacraments.

The Episcopal Church: What does our name tell us about ourselves?

Episcopal comes from the Greek word episkopos   ἐπίσκοπος.   It literally means “over seer” and from Latin we have the word supervisor(not a word that we use in the church).  The English word for episkopos is bishop.  So Episcopal means, “having bishops.”  This tells us something about our polity or church structures.  Other churches have bishops too:  the Roman Catholics, the Methodists, the Lutherans, the various Orthodox churches and there are similarities and differences in how bishops are appointed/elected/function and are defined in the various Christian bodies.

In the Episcopal Church in the United States we have a bishop in each diocese.  A diocese is a geographical area where a bishop has over sight.  The State of California has six Episcopal Dioceses and St. Mary's-in-the-Valley is located in the Diocese of San Diego.  And our bishop is The Right Reverend Susan Snook.

Exercise:

Ponder the difference stated above between catholic and Roman Catholic.  Is it scandalous that people who follow Christ are divided into so many different “churches” even while we say there is “one holy catholic church?”    Could we also understand the division into different churches as having diversity so that we can appeal to many more people?  If we had a “one size fits all” approach, would not lots of people feel left out and not part of the body of Christ?  Diversity allows us checks and balances since structural unity can be like a heavy handed “Empire.”  Diversity helps us to expand our hearts to appreciate differences.

Father Phil