Family Forum / Marriage / Marriage / December 2005

"La Mer" asked about "Episcopalian" and "Protestant" and what they have
to do with each other.  "DrLith <drlith@nospamhotmail.com>" wrote a good
three-paragraph summary, which I'll fill in just a few details of:

The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church each claim
authority based on an unbroken chain of ordinations back to the original
12 Apostles.  So far as I am aware, each group, while they dispute the
correctness of the other's teaching, does recognise the Apostolic
Succession of the other.  (But I Could Be Wrong.)

The Anglican Communion (in the UK, the Church of England; in the USA,
the Episcopal Church) *also* claims apostolic succession, on the grounds
that their bishops were ordained by bishops who were ordained ... by the
original 12 Apostles.  The Vatican says that Anglican Orders are NOT
valid, because the wording of the consecration ceremony was changed and
that broke the succession.  (The Eastern Orthodox have no opinion, so
far as I know.)

Note: Rome's claim about Anglican Orders has nothing to do with the way
in which they separated, or with Henry 8%, or anything of the sort.  The
standard Christian view is that sacraments do not depend on the personal
holiness of the person officiating, or the king, or any of that.  The
question is about *intention*, which is why a marriage in a movie isn't
real: the people involved do not really intend to get married.  Rome
claims that the alternate wording used by Anglicans revealed a defect of
intention.
--
% To be fair, Henry had a serious problem: no male heir could have meant
 decades of civil war, making a wreck of the country as happened on
 previous occasions.  I think his solution was a bad one -- but until
 I've been responsible for an entire country, I won't complain too loud.

This puts Anglicans in an overlap between "Protestant" and "Catholic".
Most Protestant denominations have relatively independent congregations
without a lot of central oversight.  The Church of England has a church
heirarchy that includes bishops (in Greek, "episkopos", hence the
"Episcopal" church: they've got bishops).  Episcopal services follow a
fancy liturgy, have formal vestments, and in other ways run things more
like Roman Catholic churches do than like Baptist churches do.  (There
are "high church" Anglicans who do things really fancy, and "low church"
Anglicans who do things more simply.  Some churches have several
services on Sunday, so you can choose the fanciness level you like.)

Some Protestant groups consider Anglicans to be essentially Catholics.
Roman Catholics, of course, consider Anglicans to be "separated
brethren" along with the Baptists and so on.  If you ask an Anglican
whether she considers herself Protestant or Catholic, there's a good
chance she'll say "Yes".

Worldwide, the Anglican Communion is the #3 Christian denomination; in
the USA, it's quite small (just a few million people).

For more information than any human should ever know about church
history, you might see _The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity_.

Darren Provine ! kilroy@elvis.rowan.edu ! http://www.rowan.edu/~kilroy
"Schism is the oldest of Christian traditions." -- Michael L. Siemon

What are you amazed about?

Thanks.

I just need a short version in order to not sound illiterate in a
report.  I don't typically have much interest on the topic :-)

No I didn't.  I sent a link about Hanukkah.