Episcopal Overview

[Rex]

The Episcopal Church or the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is the American Church of the Anglican Communion. It includes dioceses in the United States, the US Virgin Islands, Haiti, Taiwan, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Honduras, and has an extra-provincial relationship with the dioceses of Puerto Rico and Venezuela. It is sometimes known as the Episcopal Church in the USA, abbreviated ECUSA.

The Episcopal Church was founded in the late 18th Century after the American colonies proclaimed independence from Great Britain. Prior to the American Revolutionary War, the Episcopal Church was part of the Church of England, whose clergy are required to accept the supremacy of the British monarch. When the clergy of Connecticut elected Samuel Seabury as their bishop, he sought consecration in England. The oath of supremacy proved too difficult a problem, however, and he came to Scotland, where the Scottish bishops (at the time being persecuted by the state) consecrated him in Aberdeen on November 14, 1784, the first Anglican bishop outside the British Isles.

The American bishops thus descend in the Apostolic succession from the bishops of Scotland, and to this day the nine crosses which symbolise the nine provinces in the arms of the American Episcopal Church form a St Andrew's cross, commemorating the Scottish link. In Scotland, the Episcopal Church is so known because unlike the national state Church of Scotland (which is Presbyterian, i.e. governed by Elders), it is governed by bishops (in Latin episcopi). The word "Anglican" comes from the Latin word Anglicana which literally means English.

Other than the name difference the national churches are roughly the same, however the different groups (i.e. High Church, Broad Church, & Low Church) within the national branches of the Church may be proportionally different in numbers. Like many other Anglican churches, it has entered into a full communion relationship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

In the United States the Church has a membership of approximately 3 million, and has had such notable members as more than a quarter of all presidents of the United States and Supreme Court chief justices as well as roughly half of the members of Congress and Supreme Court associate justices.

The full incorporated name of the denomination in the United States is "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America," but this name is not used to refer to the church as an ecclesiastical whole.

The Episcopal Church has published its own Book of Common Prayer (1979) which is public domain.

The Church holds its General Convention every three years, the most recent taking place in 2003.

 

[Pah]

Episcopal church administration is governed by the Constitution of the General Covention. and the canons of the General Convention.

The Constitution, canons, and the Rules of Order are available in .pdf format at Church Publishing

 

[Pah]

LaSalle County Episcopal Ministry

The Episcopal Church

The Episcopal Church is a part of Christ’s Church, and as such, it has had a continuous and unbroken existence since the founding of the Church by Christ.

The Episcopal Church is a part of the great branches of One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. It arrived on American shores as the Church of England, brought along by the early colonists and settlers. Following the War of Independence it adopted the name of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America — also known as the Episcopal Church — and it made such modifications in its liturgy and practices as seemed necessary to life in the new nation and in newer times.

We know, from the presence of its bishops at the Council of Arles, that the Church in England has had an individual and continuous life since A.D. 314. The first missionaries from Gaul came to the British Isles prior to that time so the popular assertion that the English Church was founded by King Henry VIII has no real basis in fact. Resistance to the increasing domination of the Roman pontiff and to his usurpation of ecclesiastical and political authority had existed since the seventh century. Under Henry, finally, the nation and the Church were able to renounce papal supremacy and to eliminate abuses which had crept into the doctrine and discipline of the Church during the medieval centuries of papal influence.

Under Queen Mary, Henry’s elder daughter, the English Church reverted briefly to papal authority; but with Elizabeth I as queen, it gained complete freedom from all Roman claims and has remained free ever since — a Church profoundly influenced and revitalized by the great religious movements of the Reformation but whose essential worship, ministry, and doctrine continued to be what they had always been in historic Church of Christ.

Thus, the Church remains both catholic and apostolic — catholic in standing for the wholeness of the faith and life of the Christian community, apostolic because it continues in unbroken succession from the time of the Apostles.


The Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is made up of 38 self-governing — and largely self-supporting — provinces located in more than 164 countries. Linked by tradition and a common worship, they are in full communion with the See of Canterbury. The membership of the Communion is more than 75 million people and is growing rapidly, especially in Africa.

The Gospel

The church exists to continue the ministry Jesus began. That ministry was, and is, simply the announcement of the Gospel — the Good News of Christ.

The Good News is that God is the Lord of all life; that although sinful humanity cannot earn or deserve God’s love, that love is freely given; that the company of forgiven people, living together as the church, forms a community in which they and others who join with them receive new live and power; that in Jesus the Christ, God has raised humanity’s distorted nature to what it was intended to be so distorted nature to what it was intended to be so that insofar as any person lives in Christ, that person is freed from the slavery of sin and is assured of the Kingdom of God.

To say this by proclamation and by witness, in its corporate life and in the lives of its individual members, is the church’s reason for being.

Baptism

Membership in the church is bestowed by God’s action through the sacrament of Holy Baptism in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Baptism, one’s life is initially and deliberately opened — by oneself or, in the case of an infant, by those who bear responsibility for a child during his or her early years — to the care and sustaining of one’s Heavenly Father, to God’s action in one’s early life as the Incarnate Son, to God’s presence and strengthening power as the Holy Spirit. Baptism is into the Body of Christ, a fellowship of people guided, taught, and strengthened by the presence of God the Holy Spirit in their relationship with each other.

People of any age may be baptized. The first converts to Christianity were naturally adults, but the church has always understood a loving God as willing that all would be his, and therefore the baptism of infants was an early Christian tradition and one the Episcopal Church continues to practice. Faith is basic to Baptism. While a baby in a Christian family does not yet have the ability to make a personal decision, that baby is a participant in the community of faith just as he or she is a participant in the secular community that accepts him or her in the cradle as a loyal citizen. The climate or environment in which that faith is nourished and matures is in the supporting life of Christian fellowship, the church.

If a person has been baptized by water (symbolizing spiritual washing and renewal) in the Name of the Trinity through the ministry of any Christian body, the Episcopal Church recognizes that baptism and does not require, or even permit, rebaptism unless there is strong doubt of earlier baptism.

Confirmation

The word “confirmation” is derived from confirmare, which means “to strengthen.” The Rite of Confirmation, the laying of apostolic hands on baptized believers, strengthens persons through the action of the Holy Spirit at the time they assume personal responsibility for their baptismal vows. In the early days of the church, when most of the new members were adults, this “Laying on of Hands” was a part of the service of Holy Baptism and was immediately followed by First Communion. The same procedure is used today when adults are baptized at a service presided over by a bishop. In addition to laying hands on the newly baptized adults, the bishop may anoint them with holy oil (chrism).

As infants were brought into the fellowship through Baptism, the Western Church lengthened the period between Baptism and the Laying on of Hands. It recognized that one’s growth from a child, primarily nourished by the Christian family, into a mature adult member of the Body of Christ is a process extending through a number of years. In Confirmation persons do not “join the Church.” They joined — or, better, “were joined to” — the church in Baptism. But now they renew their promise to obey Jesus as their Lord and accept for themselves the responsibility for Christian belief and life previously accepted by others on their behalf. Then through the sacramental action of the laying on of the bishop’s hands, their status as mature and responsible members of the Christian community is signified and the special gifts of the Holy Spirit for adult Christian life and ministry become theirs.

Candidates for Confirmation must have been baptized, must be penitent for their sins, must be ready to affirm their confession of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and must have received such instruction as will guide them in being intelligent, loyal, and regular members of the Christian community and effective ambassadors for Christ in daily life.

In addition to the Rite of Confirmation for those baptized as children, the church provides special forms for the bishop to use when admitting to the Episcopal Church persons who were baptized in another denomination and for blessing persons who desire to re-affirm their baptismal vows.

 

[Pah]

LaSalle County Episcopal Ministry

The Sacraments

The Episcopal Church is a sacramental church. Its central rites of worship are sacraments — visible signs and effectual means by which God’s grace works in us and by which our faith in God is strengthened. They express the church’s belief in the sacramental nature of the universe and life, that God is not divorced from his creation, but is present and always at work in all aspects of it. This was supremely expressed in God’s entering human history as a human being, in Jesus the Christ.

Jesus ordained the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist (Holy Communion) as the chief sacraments of his church.

By means of the water of Baptism, we are cleansed from sin, are united with Christ in his death and resurrection, are born again by the action of the Holy Spirit, and are adopted by God the Father as his sons and daughters. Through the bread and wine of the Eucharist we are fed by Christ’s Body and Blood and strengthened in our union with him and with one another. Without attempting to explain or define this “holy mystery,” the Episcopal Church has always held to the ancient Christian belief that not only is the Holy Eucharist celebrated in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice, but that he is really present in the Sacrament.

The other traditionally important rites, though not specifically ordained by Christ, but which the Episcopal Church recognized as having sacramental character, are Confirmation, Reconciliation of a Penitent (Penance or Confession and Absolution of sins), Marriage, Ordination, and Unction (Anointing or Laying on of Hands) for the sick.

The Creeds

The Episcopal Church is a believing church. Its answer to those who object to “ancient, old-fashioned creeds and dogmas” is that what a person does and stands for depends on what and in whom he or she believes. Everyone lives by some creed. To believe in a creedless church is to state a creed.

The Episcopal Church states its faith in the historic words of the two great creeds of Christendom, the Apostles’ and the Nicene creeds. These statements of belief have come down to us from the early church and have been the accepted statements of Christian faith for centuries. The Apostles’ Creed in almost its present form was in use in Rome in the middle of the second century to instruct candidates preparing for Baptism. Although it cannot actually be traced all the way back to the Apostles, and has never been used in the Eastern Church, it is the oldest Christian creed in continuous use. The Nicene Creed is the “ecumenical creed,” adopted by church Councils representing the whole of Christendom. It is the work of three such Councils — Nicea in A.D. 325, Constantinople in A.D. 381, and Chalcedon in A.D. 451.

Recognizing, however, that there is always more in the continuous revelation of the nature of God than can be set forth in any human statement, the Anglican Communion encourages fearless and open-minded pursuit of truth in every area of life. The Episcopal Church, which places no limitation on any honest human endeavor to study and investigate, stands for the use of the mind and reason as God-given faculties that will enrich and widen the understanding of God’s revealed truth. It trusts the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us into newly revealed truth and believes that the same Holy Spirit enable the church to relate all truth to God’s truth in Jesus the Christ.


The Bible

The Episcopal Church is a Bible church. The early church recognized the writings we know as the books of the Old and the New Testaments as inspired by God and as being crucial to our knowledge of God in Christ, and it brought them together in the “Canon of Scripture,” the Holy Bible. Leaders of the English Church were in the forefront of the long struggle to have the Bible printed in the language of the people, to give everyone the right to read the Gospel record and hear it publicly read in a language they understood. Although many modern and distinguished translations exist, probably the greatest achievement in the English language is the King James translation of the Bible, the Bible translation the Anglican Communion gave to the world.

The Episcopal Church believes the Holy Scriptures contain all doctrine necessary for salvation and that nothing that cannot be read in or proved by Scripture shall be required as an article of the faith or as necessary for salvation.

The Prayer Book

The Book of Common Prayer has been called The Bible in Worship. It also contains doctrine the church requires to be taught and believed.

Next to the King James Version of the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer has probably had a wider influence than any other book in the English language. It is a product and development of the service books used in the church for many hundreds of years, and it also contains elements form the Jewish services held in the synagogues and in the homes of the faithful at the time of our Lord.

Almost every province of the Anglican Communion has revised and updated the Prayer Book according to its particular needs. The first completed contemporary revision of the Prayer Book for the Episcopal Church in the United States was published in 1979. (Previous revisions in the United States took place in 1789, 1892, and 1928.) In addition to preserving the best materials from previous Prayer Books, the 1979 revision provides services in contemporary English and special services for use on Ash Wednesday and in Holy Week. The three-year Lectionary (plan for reading the Scriptures on Sundays) is an Episcopal version of the one many other Western churches have adopted.

Common prayer is the prayer and worship used “in common” when members of the fellowship are gathered together. It does not supplant the private prayers and devotions of the individual Christian, but is equally part of the worshiping life. Neither approach to God is complete without the other: In Christ we are both individuals and “members one of another.

The Book of Common Prayer is one of the finest collections of great prayers ever offered by human beings to God. In it are prayers suitable to every need and occasion. It is a devotional manual by which the worshiper may, in concert with others and with beauty and dignity, participate actively in the services of the church. It is also a magnificent guide for private prayer and meditation.


The Church’s Worship

The most frequently used of the church’s services are the Holy Eucharist (which is the principal act of Christian worship on Sundays and other major feasts) and the daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayers. These are printed in The Book of Common Prayer together with services for special times of the year and for different occasions in one’s life.

The Prayer Book is so arranged that a person, by noting the rubrics, or directions, may easily follow and participate in the services. The rubrics receive their name form the Latin word meaning “red.” They were printed in red as guides for the conduct of worship. In altar editions of the Prayer Book they are still printed in red.

One of the great Anglican principles is that the church’s worship is corporate affair, an activity of the whole fellowship. Thus, great emphasis is placed on congregational participation in the services, and the Prayer Books is designed to be used by both clergy and laity.

Instruction

The Episcopal Church is teaching church. It has cherished customs, a rich history, and a great tradition, all of which stem from the earliest days of the Christian church. Great emphasis is placed upon the teaching of all three.

But over and above customs, tradition and history, all members of the church need to be informed about the great body of Christian belief. The church wants all persons to know in whom they believe and to be convinced that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Every Episcopal congregation strives to provide opportunity for instruction for people of all ages. At the present time, increasing attention is being given to Christian education for adults, both for members of the church and inquirers, and for catechumens (adults preparing for Baptism).

 

[Pah]

LaSalle County Episcopal Ministry

The Ordained Ministry

The Episcopal Church teaches that all its members share in Christ’s ministry to the world and to one another. Within the church, however, from the time of the Apostles, there have been three orders of ordained ministers: bishops, priests, and deacons.

The chief pastors of the church are bishops, persons ordained and consecrated to proclaim the Good News to the world, to be the chief pastor and sacramental minister of a diocese, and to ordain others to the ministries of a diocese, and to ordain others to the ministers of bishop, priest, and deacon. Bishops are ordained through the Laying on of Hands of other bishops whose authority has come down in an unbroken line from the Apostles. The very word episcopal means “of or relating to bishops,” and the bishops, by virtue of their historic office, are both a visible symbol of Christian unity in the church’s life and a link with the church of all the ages. Like the Apostles, the bishops are the church’s accredited witnesses to the Resurrection and have special responsibilities for maintaining the integrity of the church’s faith in its risen Lord.

Priests (also known as presbyters) are ordained and consecrated to assist the bishop in the overseeing of the church. They usually serve as pastors of congregations, teaching and preaching God’s word, celebrating the sacraments, and pronouncing absolution and blessing in God’s name. When vested, they wear a stole (a band of fabric representing the yoke of Christ) about the neck, over both shoulders.

Deacons are ordained and consecrated to assist the bishop in the ministry of service, particularly to those in need. They also help in public worship, proclaiming the Gospel and assisting in the celebration of the sacraments. Another of their duties is to take Holy Communion to the sick and shut-in. When vested, they wear a stole over the left shoulder.


Church Government

The Episcopal Church is both constitutional and democratic in its government. Some of the men who played leading roles in the framing of the Constitution of the United States had responsibility for drawing up the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. The two governments have many similarities.

Every parish church has a body of laypersons called the vestry, elected by the congregation to be its legal representatives in all matters concerning its corporate properties and to perform other duties prescribed by church law. After consultation with the bishop, the vestry calls a priest to serve as rector of the parish. A priest serving a chapel or mission congregation is know as a vicar and is appointed either by the bishop or the rector involved.

A diocese is geographical containing no fewer than six parishes and is under the jurisdiction of a bishop. It is governed by it bishop and a diocesan convention composed of the clergy of the diocese and laypersons elected by the parishes. A Diocese elects its own bishop or bishops, subject to the consent of the majority of the bishops and diocesan standing committees of the church.

The dioceses are grouped geographically into areas known as provinces.

The governing body of the Episcopal Church is the General Convention, which meets every three years. It is composed of two Houses: the House of Deputies, whose members are laity and clergy elected in equal numbers from the dioceses, and the House of Bishops. Between meetings, the program of the General Convention is administered by a smaller elected body of bishops, clergy, and lay people called the Executive Council.

The laity, who comprise more than 99 percent of the Episcopal Church, share extensively and responsibly in its government and internal affairs, but their responsibility goes beyond that: The laity must also represent the church in the affairs of the world.



Symbols and Vestments

The Episcopal Church believes that God is the Creator and is therefore constantly being revealed through the materials of creation. The church expresses this truth in the enrichment of its worship by the use of many of God’s earthly gifts: splendid buildings and beautiful music, a great variety of material symbols, vestments worn by clergy, choir, and others.

The central symbol in Episcopal churches is the altar, or holy table, a visible testament of the presence of the living God, whose Son was sacrificed that we might find new life. Here, in Holy Communion, we are made one with him and with one another.

Candles and flowers about the altar serve to beautify it and the church. They are symbolic of the church’s joy in the Resurrection of the Lord and in the Light of Christ.

The colors displayed in altar hangings and vestments of the clergy symbolize various great emphases of the Gospel and the church year. Common usage is worship is:

White or gold — symbolizing victory and purity. Christmas season, the Epiphany (though the following Sunday), Easter season, the Transfiguration, and other joyous festivals and saints’ days, Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination.

Violet — signifying seasons of preparation: Advent and Lent. In some churches, in place of violet, unbleached linen in used during Lent. Deep red (crimson) is frequently used in Holy Week.

Red — symbolizing the Holy Spirit (the tongues of fire at Pentecost) and martyrdom. The Day of Pentecost and days of saints known to be martyrs.

Green — signifying universality and growth (the most frequent color in nature). The season after Epiphany and the long season after Pentecost, seasons during which the texts of the Gospels and Epistles are read sequentially from Sunday to Sunday.

Other equally proper traditions of color usage and symbolism may be found in certain parishes.

Clergy, choir members, and others wear vestments in obedience to long-standing church custom. Vestments symbolize the sacred nature and function of the office rather than the importance of the person. They are also reminders of the democratic nature of Christ’s church as those who occupy the same office are dressed in like manner. Vestments are worn for the sake of dignity, beauty, and uniformity.

Each emblem, sign, vestment, word, and act has meaning and purpose. Yet many of these could be eliminated, even the church building itself, and a person praying by the side of another (for example a chaplain in the field with a soldier) would still be the Christian Church at worship in the presence of God.


The Congregation

We have stated a basic principle of Anglican worship: The congregation is made up of participants, not spectators. Members of the Episcopal Church attend services to worship God, not to be lectured or entertained. Congregational participation in worship is expressed in such actions as standing, sitting, or kneeling as liturgical or psychological needs require.

Many people practice other customs — such as bowing low when approaching the altar, genuflecting (bending the knee) before the Sacrament, bowing the head at the name of Jesus, making the sign of the cross, or bowing the head as the cross goes by in procession — as expressions of reverence. All outward actions in worship are signs of and aids to inward devotion.

Visitors and strangers are not required to observe any particular customs, but many people find that as they become familiar with them, the traditional ways of worship are increasingly helpful and meaningful.

The Creeds

The Episcopal Church is a believing church. Its answer to those who object to “ancient, old-fashioned creeds and dogmas” is that what a person does and stands for depends on what and in whom he or she believes. Everyone lives by some creed. To believe in a creedless church is to state a creed.

The Episcopal Church states its faith in the historic words of the two great creeds of Christendom, the Apostles’ and the Nicene creeds. These statements of belief have come down to us from the early church and have been the accepted statements of Christian faith for centuries. The Apostles’ Creed in almost its present form was in use in Rome in the middle of the second century to instruct candidates preparing for Baptism. Although it cannot actually be traced all the way back to the Apostles, and has never been used in the Eastern Church, it is the oldest Christian creed in continuous use. The Nicene Creed is the “ecumenical creed,” adopted by church Councils representing the whole of Christendom. It is the work of three such Councils — Nicea in A.D. 325, Constantinople in A.D. 381, and Chalcedon in A.D. 451.

Recognizing, however, that there is always more in the continuous revelation of the nature of God than can be set forth in any human statement, the Anglican Communion encourages fearless and open-minded pursuit of truth in every area of life. The Episcopal Church, which places no limitation on any honest human endeavor to study and investigate, stands for the use of the mind and reason as God-given faculties that will enrich and widen the understanding of God’s revealed truth. It trusts the guidance of the Holy Spirit to lead us into newly revealed truth and believes that the same Holy Spirit enable the church to relate all truth to God’s truth in Jesus the Christ.

 

[Pah]

LaSalle County Episcopal Ministry

The Bible

The Episcopal Church is a Bible church. The early church recognized the writings we know as the books of the Old and the New Testaments as inspired by God and as being crucial to our knowledge of God in Christ, and it brought them together in the “Canon of Scripture,” the Holy Bible. Leaders of the English Church were in the forefront of the long struggle to have the Bible printed in the language of the people, to give everyone the right to read the Gospel record and hear it publicly read in a language they understood. Although many modern and distinguished translations exist, probably the greatest achievement in the English language is the King James translation of the Bible, the Bible translation the Anglican Communion gave to the world.

The Episcopal Church believes the Holy Scriptures contain all doctrine necessary for salvation and that nothing that cannot be read in or proved by Scripture shall be required as an article of the faith or as necessary for salvation.

The Prayer Book

The Book of Common Prayer has been called The Bible in Worship. It also contains doctrine the church requires to be taught and believed.

Next to the King James Version of the Bible, The Book of Common Prayer has probably had a wider influence than any other book in the English language. It is a product and development of the service books used in the church for many hundreds of years, and it also contains elements form the Jewish services held in the synagogues and in the homes of the faithful at the time of our Lord.

Almost every province of the Anglican Communion has revised and updated the Prayer Book according to its particular needs. The first completed contemporary revision of the Prayer Book for the Episcopal Church in the United States was published in 1979. (Previous revisions in the United States took place in 1789, 1892, and 1928.) In addition to preserving the best materials from previous Prayer Books, the 1979 revision provides services in contemporary English and special services for use on Ash Wednesday and in Holy Week. The three-year Lectionary (plan for reading the Scriptures on Sundays) is an Episcopal version of the one many other Western churches have adopted.

Common prayer is the prayer and worship used “in common” when members of the fellowship are gathered together. It does not supplant the private prayers and devotions of the individual Christian, but is equally part of the worshiping life. Neither approach to God is complete without the other: In Christ we are both individuals and “members one of another.

The Book of Common Prayer is one of the finest collections of great prayers ever offered by human beings to God. In it are prayers suitable to every need and occasion. It is a devotional manual by which the worshiper may, in concert with others and with beauty and dignity, participate actively in the services of the church. It is also a magnificent guide for private prayer and meditation.


The Church’s Worship

The most frequently used of the church’s services are the Holy Eucharist (which is the principal act of Christian worship on Sundays and other major feasts) and the daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayers. These are printed in The Book of Common Prayer together with services for special times of the year and for different occasions in one’s life.

The Prayer Book is so arranged that a person, by noting the rubrics, or directions, may easily follow and participate in the services. The rubrics receive their name form the Latin word meaning “red.” They were printed in red as guides for the conduct of worship. In altar editions of the Prayer Book they are still printed in red.

One of the great Anglican principles is that the church’s worship is corporate affair, an activity of the whole fellowship. Thus, great emphasis is placed on congregational participation in the services, and the Prayer Books is designed to be used by both clergy and laity.

Instruction

The Episcopal Church is teaching church. It has cherished customs, a rich history, and a great tradition, all of which stem from the earliest days of the Christian church. Great emphasis is placed upon the teaching of all three.

But over and above customs, tradition and history, all members of the church need to be informed about the great body of Christian belief. The church wants all persons to know in whom they believe and to be convinced that Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Every Episcopal congregation strives to provide opportunity for instruction for people of all ages. At the present time, increasing attention is being given to Christian education for adults, both for members of the church and inquirers, and for catechumens (adults preparing for Baptism).

The Ordained Ministry

The Episcopal Church teaches that all its members share in Christ’s ministry to the world and to one another. Within the church, however, from the time of the Apostles, there have been three orders of ordained ministers: bishops, priests, and deacons.

The chief pastors of the church are bishops, persons ordained and consecrated to proclaim the Good News to the world, to be the chief pastor and sacramental minister of a diocese, and to ordain others to the ministries of a diocese, and to ordain others to the ministers of bishop, priest, and deacon. Bishops are ordained through the Laying on of Hands of other bishops whose authority has come down in an unbroken line from the Apostles. The very word episcopal means “of or relating to bishops,” and the bishops, by virtue of their historic office, are both a visible symbol of Christian unity in the church’s life and a link with the church of all the ages. Like the Apostles, the bishops are the church’s accredited witnesses to the Resurrection and have special responsibilities for maintaining the integrity of the church’s faith in its risen Lord.

Priests (also known as presbyters) are ordained and consecrated to assist the bishop in the overseeing of the church. They usually serve as pastors of congregations, teaching and preaching God’s word, celebrating the sacraments, and pronouncing absolution and blessing in God’s name. When vested, they wear a stole (a band of fabric representing the yoke of Christ) about the neck, over both shoulders.

Deacons are ordained and consecrated to assist the bishop in the ministry of service, particularly to those in need. They also help in public worship, proclaiming the Gospel and assisting in the celebration of the sacraments. Another of their duties is to take Holy Communion to the sick and shut-in. When vested, they wear a stole over the left shoulder.


Church Government

The Episcopal Church is both constitutional and democratic in its government. Some of the men who played leading roles in the framing of the Constitution of the United States had responsibility for drawing up the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. The two governments have many similarities.

Every parish church has a body of laypersons called the vestry, elected by the congregation to be its legal representatives in all matters concerning its corporate properties and to perform other duties prescribed by church law. After consultation with the bishop, the vestry calls a priest to serve as rector of the parish. A priest serving a chapel or mission congregation is know as a vicar and is appointed either by the bishop or the rector involved.

A diocese is geographical containing no fewer than six parishes and is under the jurisdiction of a bishop. It is governed by it bishop and a diocesan convention composed of the clergy of the diocese and laypersons elected by the parishes. A Diocese elects its own bishop or bishops, subject to the consent of the majority of the bishops and diocesan standing committees of the church.

The dioceses are grouped geographically into areas known as provinces.

The governing body of the Episcopal Church is the General Convention, which meets every three years. It is composed of two Houses: the House of Deputies, whose members are laity and clergy elected in equal numbers from the dioceses, and the House of Bishops. Between meetings, the program of the General Convention is administered by a smaller elected body of bishops, clergy, and lay people called the Executive Council.

The laity, who comprise more than 99 percent of the Episcopal Church, share extensively and responsibly in its government and internal affairs, but their responsibility goes beyond that: The laity must also represent the church in the affairs of the world.

 

[Pah]

LaSalle County Episcopal Ministry

Symbols and Vestments

The Episcopal Church believes that God is the Creator and is therefore constantly being revealed through the materials of creation. The church expresses this truth in the enrichment of its worship by the use of many of God’s earthly gifts: splendid buildings and beautiful music, a great variety of material symbols, vestments worn by clergy, choir, and others.

The central symbol in Episcopal churches is the altar, or holy table, a visible testament of the presence of the living God, whose Son was sacrificed that we might find new life. Here, in Holy Communion, we are made one with him and with one another.

Candles and flowers about the altar serve to beautify it and the church. They are symbolic of the church’s joy in the Resurrection of the Lord and in the Light of Christ.

The colors displayed in altar hangings and vestments of the clergy symbolize various great emphases of the Gospel and the church year. Common usage is worship is:

White or gold — symbolizing victory and purity. Christmas season, the Epiphany (though the following Sunday), Easter season, the Transfiguration, and other joyous festivals and saints’ days, Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination.

Violet — signifying seasons of preparation: Advent and Lent. In some churches, in place of violet, unbleached linen in used during Lent. Deep red (crimson) is frequently used in Holy Week.

Red — symbolizing the Holy Spirit (the tongues of fire at Pentecost) and martyrdom. The Day of Pentecost and days of saints known to be martyrs.

Green — signifying universality and growth (the most frequent color in nature). The season after Epiphany and the long season after Pentecost, seasons during which the texts of the Gospels and Epistles are read sequentially from Sunday to Sunday.

Other equally proper traditions of color usage and symbolism may be found in certain parishes.

Clergy, choir members, and others wear vestments in obedience to long-standing church custom. Vestments symbolize the sacred nature and function of the office rather than the importance of the person. They are also reminders of the democratic nature of Christ’s church as those who occupy the same office are dressed in like manner. Vestments are worn for the sake of dignity, beauty, and uniformity.

Each emblem, sign, vestment, word, and act has meaning and purpose. Yet many of these could be eliminated, even the church building itself, and a person praying by the side of another (for example a chaplain in the field with a soldier) would still be the Christian Church at worship in the presence of God.


The Congregation

We have stated a basic principle of Anglican worship: The congregation is made up of participants, not spectators. Members of the Episcopal Church attend services to worship God, not to be lectured or entertained. Congregational participation in worship is expressed in such actions as standing, sitting, or kneeling as liturgical or psychological needs require.

Many people practice other customs — such as bowing low when approaching the altar, genuflecting (bending the knee) before the Sacrament, bowing the head at the name of Jesus, making the sign of the cross, or bowing the head as the cross goes by in procession — as expressions of reverence. All outward actions in worship are signs of and aids to inward devotion.

Visitors and strangers are not required to observe any particular customs, but many people find that as they become familiar with them, the traditional ways of worship are increasingly helpful and meaningful.

Episcopalians and Their Church

Episcopalians show great reverence for God’s house as a hallowed place where his people gather to worship and pray. This is sometimes mistaken by visitors and newcomers as coldness or lack of cordiality on the part of the church’s members. It means simply the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him. This is a holy place.

But Episcopalians also find great joy in their church and its fellowship. They have a deep affection for the church and awareness of the privilege of being members of it. A person coming to church will generally leave with a deepened sense of “one-ness,” of belonging to one great family. Exceptions to this no doubt occur, but they do not express the spirit of the Episcopal Church.

Episcopalians are humbly grateful for their church. Wherever they may go in the world, church with its life of common prayer ministers in the same familiar manner. To Episcopalians it offers a way to God that fully reveals the mind, the spirit and the love of Jesus.

As they give themselves to the church and to its ongoing concern for God’s world, they find their lives are richly blessed by God through the holy church that is their heritage.