The Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian communion after the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Founded in 1867 in London, the communion has more than 85 million members within the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The traditional origins of Anglican doctrine are summarised in the Thirty-nine Articles (1571). The Archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, recognised as primus inter pares, but does not exercise authority in Anglican provinces outside of the Church of England. Most, but not all, member churches of the communion are the historic national or regional Anglican churches.
Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held 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. Christians of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic, Moravian, Hussite, Anglican, Church of the East, and Scandinavian Lutheran 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 clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. 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, Anglican, and Lutheran churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages.
This is a directory of patriarchs, archbishops, and bishops across various Christian denominations. To find an individual who was a bishop, see the most relevant article linked below or Category:Bishops.
The Continuing Anglican movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion.
The Free Protestant Episcopal Church (FPEC), later named The Anglican Free Communion and now entitled the Episcopal Free Communion, was formed in England on 2 November 1897 from the merger of three smaller churches. Others were to join later.
The Anglican Church of Mexico, originally known as Church of Jesus is the Anglican province in Mexico and includes five dioceses. The interim primate is Enrique Treviño, Bishop of Cuernavaca. Although born in Mexico and not being the result of any foreign missionary effort, the shield of the denomination uses the colors representing Mexico as well as those of the United States-based Episcopal Church recognizing its historical connection with the US church since obtaining the apostolic succession from that church.
The Anglican Catholic Church (ACC), also known as the Anglican Catholic Church , is a body of Christians in the continuing Anglican movement, which is separate from the Anglican Communion led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This denomination is separate from the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada.
The Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, formerly known as Episcopal Church of Sudan, is a province of the Anglican Communion located in South Sudan. The province consists of eight Internal Provinces and 61 dioceses. The current archbishop and primate is Justin Badi Arama. It received the current naming after the inception of the Province of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, on 30 July 2017.
The African Orthodox Church (AOC), registered as the Holy African Orthodox Church, is an Episcopalian, primarily African-American denomination which was founded in the United States in 1918 by the joint collaboration of its first Patriarch George Alexander McGuire and Marcus M. Garvey. It has approximately 15 parishes and 5,000 members, significantly down from its peak membership.
The Christian Episcopal Church (XnEC) is a Continuing Anglican jurisdiction consisting of parishes in Canada and the United States and with oversight of several parishes in the Cayman Islands. Its bishops are in apostolic succession through the Right Rev. A. Donald Davies (deceased). Davies was formerly the bishop-in-charge of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe and the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas.
The historic or historical episcopate comprises all episcopates, that is, it is the collective body of all the bishops of a church who are in valid apostolic succession. This succession is transmitted from each bishop to their successors by the rite of Holy Orders. It is sometimes subject of episcopal genealogy.
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":
The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is a Christian denomination in the Anglican tradition in the United States and Canada. It also includes ten congregations in Mexico, two mission churches in Guatemala, and a missionary diocese in Cuba. Headquartered in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, the church reported 30 dioceses and 1,037 congregations serving an estimated membership of 134,593 in 2017. In 2020, the denomination reported 972 congregations and 126,760 members. The first archbishop of the ACNA was Robert Duncan, who was succeeded by Foley Beach in 2014.
George Alexander McGuire is best known for his prominence in Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). McGuire was elected in 1920 as Chaplain-General of the UNIA and wrote important documents about black ritual and catechism, drawing from his knowledge of religion and African history. Both he and Garvey were immigrants to the United States from Caribbean islands who had a vision of Pan-African goals.
William Wesley Millsaps is a Continuing Anglican bishop. He is bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church. He is the rector of Christ Church in Monteagle, Tennessee, and Presiding bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church. He had served previously from 2001-2010. He was elected again in December 2014 at a Synod held at Christ Church, Warrenton, Virginia.
The Bartonville Agreement came from a meeting held in May 1999 by bishops representing both the Anglican Communion's American province and a number of Continuing Anglican jurisdictions in North America. As such, it was an early effort made by conservative Episcopal bishops and Continuing Anglican bishops to voice a common set of principles which might become the basis of future cooperation between their churches or dioceses. The schism that had divided these church bodies had occurred in 1977 at the Congress of St. Louis when "Continuers" met and formed a new Anglican church in reaction to changes in doctrine and practice that had been approved by The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Archbishop of Dublin is an archiepiscopal title which takes its name after Dublin, Ireland. Since the Reformation, there have been parallel apostolic successions to the title: one in the Catholic Church and the other in the Church of Ireland. The archbishop of each denomination also holds the title of Primate of Ireland.
Archibald Donald Davies was an American Anglican bishop. A. native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he became the fourth Episcopal bishop of Dallas and subsequently the first Episcopal bishop of Fort Worth. Davies was also a founder of the Evangelical and Catholic Mission, and later founded the Episcopal Missionary Church, after which he became Archbishop and Primate of the Christian Episcopal Church (XnEC).
