Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is considered by some Christian denominations to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Those of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Scandinavian Lutheran, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Hussite, Moravian, and Old Catholic traditions maintain that "a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this apostolic succession". These traditions do not always consider the episcopal consecrations of all of the other traditions as valid.
A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role or office of the bishop is called episcopacy. Organizationally, several Christian denominations utilize ecclesiastical structures that call for the position of bishops, while other denominations have dispensed with this office, seeing it as a symbol of power. Bishops have also exercised political authority within their dioceses.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. The word "bishop" here is derived via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term *ebiscopus/*biscopus, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος epískopos meaning "overseer". It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anabaptist, Lutheran, and Anglican churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages. Many Methodist denominations have a form of episcopal polity known as connexionalism.
In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders include the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic and some Lutheran churches. Except for Lutherans and some Anglicans, these churches regard ordination as a sacrament.
Presbyterianism is a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders. Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that formed during the English Civil War.
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
Presbyterianpolity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session, though other terms, such as church board, may apply. Groups of local churches are governed by a higher assembly of elders known as the presbytery or classis; presbyteries can be grouped into a synod, and presbyteries and synods nationwide often join together in a general assembly. Responsibility for conduct of church services is reserved to an ordained minister or pastor known as a teaching elder, or a minister of the word and sacrament.
The Church of Scotland is a Presbyterian denomination of Christianity that holds the status of the national church in Scotland. It is one of the country's largest, having 259,200 members in 2023. While active membership in the church has declined significantly in recent decades, the government Scottish Household Survey found that 20% of the Scottish population, or over one million people, identified the Church of Scotland as their religious identity in 2019. The Church of Scotland's governing system is presbyterian in its approach, therefore, no one individual or group within the church has more or less influence over church matters. There is no one person who acts as the head of faith, as the church believes that role is the "Lord God's". As a proper noun, the Kirk is an informal name for the Church of Scotland used in the media and by the church itself.
The Scottish Episcopal Church is a Christian denomination in Scotland. Scotland's third largest church, the Scottish Episcopal Church has 303 local congregations. It is also an ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion.
The Free Church of England (FCE) is an Episcopal Church based in England. The church was founded when a number of congregations separated from the established Church of England in the middle of the 19th century.
In Anglican Christianity, the term low church refers to those who give little emphasis to ritual, often having an emphasis on preaching, individual salvation and personal conversion. The term is most often used in a liturgical sense, denoting a Protestant emphasis, whereas "high church" denotes an emphasis on ritual, often Anglo-Catholic.
The history of the Anglican Communion may be attributed mainly to the worldwide spread of British culture associated with the British Empire. Among other things the Church of England spread around the world and, gradually developing autonomy in each region of the world, became the communion as it exists today.
The Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) is an Anglican Church. It was founded in 1873 in New York City by George David Cummins, a former bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
Ecclesiastical polity is the government of a church.
George David Cummins was an American Anglican bishop and founder of the Reformed Episcopal Church.
The history of the Scottish Episcopal Church is traced by the church to ancient times. The Church today is a Christian denomination in Scotland and a member of the Anglican Communion. It has enjoyed a distinct identity and is neither Roman nor English. It is therefore not a Daughter Church in the Anglican communion.
Anglican interest in ecumenical dialogue can be traced back to the time of the Reformation and dialogues with both Orthodox and Lutheran churches in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, with the rise of the Oxford Movement, there arose greater concern for reunion of the churches of "Catholic confession". This desire to work towards full communion with other denominations led to the development of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, approved by the Third Lambeth Conference of 1888. The four points were stipulated as the basis for church unity, "a basis on which approach may be by God's blessing made towards Home Reunion":
Presbyterianism in England is practised by followers of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism who practise the Presbyterian form of church government. Dating in England as a movement from 1588, it is distinct from Continental and Scottish forms of Presbyterianism. The Unitarian historian Alexander Gordon (1841–1931) stated that, whereas in Scotland, church government is based on a meeting of delegates, in England the individual congregation is the primary body of government. This was the practice in Gordon's day, however, most of the sixteenth and seventeenth century English theoreticians of Presbyterianism, such as Thomas Cartwright, John Paget, the Westminster Assembly of Divines and the London Provincial Assembly, envisaged a Presbyterian system composed of congregations, classes and synods. Historically Presbyterians in England were subsumed into the United Reformed Church in 1972. In more recent years the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales and the International Presbyterian Church have seen modest growth in England.
Presbyterianism has had a presence in the United States since colonial times and has exerted an important influence over broader American religion and culture.
