The Episcopal Church is the Anglican church of the United States, formed after independence in 1789.
American Anglicans, cut off from the crown by independence, organised as a self-governing church in 1789, with bishops consecrated in Scotland and England and a prayer book of their own.
The tree's references for this branch: Britannica: The Episcopal Church · The Episcopal Church: Episcopal Dictionary of the Church · Wikipedia: Episcopal Church (United States).
Lineage: Israel and Judah: the First Temple›Second Temple Judaism›The early, undivided Church›Catholic Church›Church of England (Anglican)›Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Church is the American Anglican church. It kept bishops and the prayer book after the American Revolution had cut the link to the English crown, and it has governed itself by convention and vote ever since, with no archbishop over it 1,2.
Independence left American Anglicans stranded. Their clergy had sworn allegiance to the king, their bishop had been the Bishop of London, and after 1783 there was no bishop who could ordain anyone in the United States. The clergy of Connecticut elected Samuel Seabury and sent him to England, where the bishops could not consecrate a man who would not swear the oath. He went north instead, and in November 1784 three bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church consecrated him at Aberdeen. The church's own dictionary records the rest of him too: a former loyalist and a slaveholder 5,25.
In 1789 a general convention meeting at Philadelphia adopted a constitution, a body of canons and an American Book of Common Prayer, and the church took the name the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. William White, who had been chaplain to the Continental Congress and was consecrated in England in 1787, presided over much of the work. What was built there is what the church still runs on: bishops, priests and deacons on one side, and on the other a convention of bishops and elected deputies, clergy and lay, who together decide what the church will do 4,24.
Women's ordination came the hard way. Eleven women were ordained priests at Philadelphia in 1974 without canonical authority and four more at Washington in 1975; the ordinations were held to be irregular and the women were attacked and in places refused. In 1976 General Convention changed the canon so that the provisions for ordination applied equally to men and women, and the Philadelphia ordinations were recognised 19,26.
See it on the family treeThe Book of Common Prayer expresses Episcopal teaching through worship, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds and an official catechism. It also includes the Thirty-nine Articles among its historical documents; their role should not be assumed to be identical across Anglican provinces 9,30.
The plainest statement of what holds Anglicans together is the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, drawn up by the American bishops at Chicago in 1886 and adopted in amended form by the Lambeth Conference of 1888. It is printed in the prayer book among the historical documents and lists four things: the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing all things necessary to salvation, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the two sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and the historic episcopate, locally adapted. These points were proposed as a basis for Christian reunion, not as an exhaustive account of Anglican teaching 12,27.
The other load-bearing text is newer. The 1979 prayer book puts a baptismal covenant at the centre of the baptism service, in which the whole congregation is asked, along with the creed, whether they will persevere in resisting evil, proclaim the good news by word and example, seek and serve Christ in all persons, and strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being. Each answer is I will, with God's help. Episcopalians quote those last words constantly, on all sides of their arguments, because both sides were baptised with them 9,11.
Sunday in an Episcopal church means the Eucharist, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer. Everyone has the text; the congregation says its parts aloud; the shape does not change from parish to parish even when the music and the ceremony differ a great deal. Rite One keeps the older English of Cranmer's tradition and Rite Two uses contemporary language, and many parishes offer both 3,13.
Beside the Sunday service runs the daily office, Morning and Evening Prayer, which any Episcopalian can say alone or with others and which carries the whole Psalter through in a fixed cycle. The church year of seasons, holy days and saints' commemorations governs the colours, the readings and the collects. Bishops, priests and deacons are ordained in the historic succession 10, and since the canon change of 1976 those orders have been open to women as well as men 19. The General Convention meets every three years, in two houses, and Executive Council carries the work between conventions 15.
The Episcopal Church uses the Revised Common Lectionary for Sunday worship and a separate Daily Office lectionary for daily prayer. Both select readings from Scripture; the daily cycle should not be understood as simply covering everything omitted on Sundays 29.
Which translation may be read is settled by canon, and the list is unusually long. Canon 2, Of Translations of the Bible, begins with the King James or Authorized Version, which it calls the historic Bible of this Church, and then authorises the Revised Versions of 1881, 1901 and 1952, the Jerusalem Bible, the New English Bible with the Apocrypha, the Good News Bible, the New American Bible, the RSV Common Bible, the New International Version, the New Jerusalem Bible, the Revised English Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, the Contemporary English Version, the Common English Bible and the Revised New Jerusalem Bible, along with translations in other languages a diocesan bishop approves 14. Most parishes now hear the New Revised Standard Version. The verses below are given in the King James Version with the Apocrypha, the version the canon still names first, because the Anglican Old Testament has always included those books.
Free to read here: King James Version, KJV with the Apocrypha, WEB British Edition, Berean Standard Bible. The full note on which Bible Episcopal Church use, with sources ›
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the King James Version + Apocrypha and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
Justice, mercy and a humble walk. The line Episcopalians reach for when asked what the baptismal promise about justice and peace actually means.
And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
The opening of the Magnificat, said or sung at Evening Prayer every day of the year.
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
Teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers. Four things, and an Episcopalian will recognise all four in a single Sunday morning.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
From the psalm appointed for Ash Wednesday, and part of the Psalter that the daily office carries through in its regular cycle.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
The blessing at the end of the Eucharist. For most Episcopalians these are the last words spoken over them before they go out.
The Episcopal Church counts itself carefully and publishes the result, which makes its decline easier to read than most. The parochial report is the oldest continuous data-gathering in the church, required of every congregation by canon and overseen by the General Convention office 15,16. Its 2023 edition reported total average Sunday attendance of 410,912 and about 1.4 billion dollars in plate and pledge giving, and noted that while membership has dropped steadily over the past decade the year-to-year rate appears to be stabilising, with Sunday attendance recovering after the pandemic. The same report found 44 percent of congregations with full-time clergy, down from 63 percent in 2010, and just under a thousand parishes receiving support from their dioceses 17.
The church is not only American. Its dioceses include Haiti, which has long been among the largest of them, along with Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Taiwan and the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe 16,24. It is one of the churches of the Anglican Communion. Sean Rowe, presiding bishop since November 2024, has set about restructuring the church's central staff and budget rather than waiting for the numbers to turn 18,28.
This church has also spoken formally about its own past. General Convention resolution A123 of 2006 declared that slavery was and is a sin, acknowledged the church's own participation in it, apologised, and directed every diocese to document its own complicity; the work that resolution began continues under the church's racial reconciliation ministries 20,21,22.
Almost none, in substance. Episcopal is what American Anglicans called themselves after independence, from the Greek word for bishop, reflecting the church's organization after independence. The Episcopal Church is a member church of the Anglican Communion. The word Anglican is now also used in the United States by bodies outside the Communion, chiefly the Anglican Church in North America, so the two words no longer sort people neatly 4,23,24.
No. The presiding bishop is elected by the House of Bishops, confirmed by the House of Deputies, and serves a fixed nine-year term as chief pastor and chief executive; the title is not archbishop and carries no power to overrule a diocesan bishop 18. Doctrine, worship and canons are settled by General Convention, where lay deputies vote alongside clergy and bishops 15. The Archbishop of Canterbury is a focus of unity for the Anglican Communion but has no jurisdiction in the United States.
In practice, all baptised Christians are welcome to receive, whatever church they were baptised in, and many parishes say so from the front. The prayer book's own rule ties communion to baptism; whether to invite the unbaptised as well is argued about in the church and decided differently from parish to parish 11,13.
Because it is the church's doctrine in the form of words people actually say. Anglicans have no confession of faith of the kind Lutherans and Presbyterians have, so what the church believes is chiefly found in what it prays. That is why revisions of the prayer book, in 1789, 1892, 1928 and 1979, have been fought over as hard as any doctrinal dispute, and why the 1979 book's baptismal covenant now shapes so much Episcopal argument 9,11,12.
Most parishes hear the New Revised Standard Version, but the canons authorise a long list, beginning with the King James Version, which Canon 2 calls the historic Bible of this Church, and running through the Revised Versions, the Jerusalem and New Jerusalem Bibles, the New English and Revised English Bibles, the New International Version, the Contemporary English Version and the Common English Bible, with other languages authorised by the diocesan bishop 14. Anglican Bibles include the Apocrypha, which the Thirty-nine Articles say the church reads for example of life and instruction of manners though not to establish doctrine.
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Episcopal Church: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-09, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/episcopal/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-09. Years before the common era are written BC, and later years plainly, as the site's Christian pages do.
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The last words said over an Episcopal congregation before it goes out the door, every Sunday, in the same book, in every parish.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.