The Episcopal Church owes its foundation to Jesus Christ. It is organically related to the Church of England. Christian missionaries arrived in England in the second century and planted a church there. That early church affiliated with Rome beginning in the sixth century, when Augustine became the first archbishop of Canterbury. When the English church severed its relationship with Rome in the 16th century, Protest and Orthodox ideas were also incorporated in the English church. The Church of England’s faith is that of the earliest undivided Christian church, but practices and customs also incorporate ideas from more recent Christian movements.

Our tradition is a blending of evangelical and catholic (Eastern and Western) Christianity in which Christians of all traditions may find a home and where each tradition enriches and fulfills the others. The Episcopal Church is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion “a fellowship within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, of those duly constituted regional churches in communion with the see of Canterbury” in England. We “uphold and propagate the catholic and apostolic faith and order as set forth in the The Book of Common Prayer…bound together not by a central authority, but by mutual loyalty sustained by the common counsel of the bishops in conference.” Those words are from a resolution by the Lambeth Conference of 1930, a gathering of Anglican and Episcopal bishops from throughout the world.

Anglicans — also known in the United States and some other places as Episcopalians — are Christians who practice their faith in the context of the 38 autonomous member churches, or provinces, of the Anglican Communion, which spans 164 countries worldwide with 77 million members. One of these provinces is the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, with 2.4 million members in 112 dioceses, or geographic regions. Anglicans and Episcopalians are persons of many ethnic and cultural heritages. Anglicans are known for welcoming diversity of opinion and inquiry.

Clergy within the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion are men and women who are ordained as bishops (after being elected in local dioceses), priests and deacons. Clergy often have spouses while others are single.

Many church members, or laity, hold various leadership positions that range from election to local parish vestries (or boards of directors) or as deputies to General Convention, the Episcopal Church’s bicameral legislative structure.

Anglicans and Episcopalians practice a faith that is liturgically and theologically a bridge between Catholicism and Protestant traditions. Anglicans and Episcopalians value a balance of scripture, reason and tradition as set forth by 16th-century English theologian Richard Hooker.