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The
mission of the Episcopal Church is "to restore all people to unity with God
and each other in Christ." In terms of beliefs, the Episcopal Church subscribes
to the historic Creeds (Nicene and Apostles), considers the Bible to be divinely
inspired, holds the Eucharist to be the central act of Christian worship and considers
baptism to be the way that people become full members of the Christian Church.
Episcopal and Anglican theology depends on scripture, tradition, and reason, in
perpetual dialogue with one another.
The Episcopal Church grants great
latitude in the interpretation of doctrine. In that the church is a liturgical
church which sees worship at the center of its identity, it tends to stress the
use of the Book of Common Prayer in public worship over the confession
of particular beliefs. The Book of Common Prayer, first published in the
sixteenth century and last revised in 1979, stands today as a major source of
unity for Anglicans around the world. |
 Trinity
Church is a parish in the Diocese of Maine, a part of the Episcopal Church, which
in turn is affiliated with the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church
came into existence in 1789 after the American Revolution as an independent branch
of the Church of England. It was and is a church rooted in the Holy Catholic Church
and profoundly influenced by the religious Reformation of the 16th Century.
Today
the Episcopal Church has between two and three million members in the United States,
Mexico, and Central America. The Most Reverend Katherine Jefferts-Schori is Presiding
Bishop of the Episcopal Church, with The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint
Paul, also known as Washington National Cathedral, functioning as the Presiding
Bishop's seat.
The Most Reverend Rowan Williams serves as the 104th Archbishop
of Canterbury and the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Anglican
Communion is comprised of 38 provinces in communion with the See of Canterbury,
a total of about 70 million members throughout the world.
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Anglicanism
grew out of the unique historical circumstances of late 16th and 17th century
England, which was marked by a powerful sense of national identity and whose populace
was split between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Long before the Protestant
 Reformation,
the English church was notorious for its sense of independence. Finally severed
from Rome under Henry VIII, the Anglican Church took shape theologically under
Henry's three children: Edward VI, a firm Protestant who reigned for six years,
long enough to institute the first Book of Common Prayer, a decidedly Protestant
document; Mary I, a devout Roman Catholic who reigned for five years, long enough
to reinstate certain Catholic practices that Edward had proscribed; and finally
the pragmatic Elizabeth, who in her forty-year reign labored brilliantly to forge
not only a society but an established church that was broad enough to include
all but the most extreme Catholics and Protestants.The result was and is a church
of astonishing theological breadth. But it is not breadth in a lax, anything-goes
sense. The Anglican Church, when truest to its own theological traditions, views
the mind not as a potential instrument of the devil but as a gift from God. And
it takes seriously the idea of the community of faith as the context within which
people from different backgrounds and with varying perspectives can openly share
their experiences of God, can attend to one another in a spirit of love, and can
thereby gain insights that may help every member of the community to move somewhat
closer to God's truth.
(From
Stealing Jesus by Bruce Bawer)
Links
to Episcopal Sites:
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