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The Episcopal Diocese of Vermont
The
Episcopal Diocese of Vermont is the diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in the state of Vermont. It was the
first diocese in the Episcopal Church to elect a woman, Mary Adelia McLeod, as
diocesan bishop. St James Episcopal Church is a parish within this
diocese and Mac McLeod (Mary Adelia's husband) once served as priest to the
parish.
The Episcopal Church
The
Episcopal Church is the official name of the Province of the Anglican Communion
in the United States.
The Church was organized shortly after the American Revolution when it was
forced to break with the Church of England on penalty of treason as Church of
England clergy were required to swear allegiance to the British monarch, and
became, in the words of the 1990 report of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Group
on the Episcopate, "the first Anglican Province outside the British
Isles". Today it is divided into nine provinces and has dioceses outside
the U.S. in Taiwan, Central and South America, the Caribbean
and Europe. The Episcopal Diocese of the Virgin Islands encompasses both American and British
territory.
In
keeping with Anglican tradition and theology, the Episcopal Church considers
itself a via media, or middle way, between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
The Episcopal Church was active in the Social Gospel movement of the late
nineteenth century and since the 1960s and 1970s has played a leading role in
the progressive and liberal movements on church and state issues. For example,
in its resolutions on state issues the Episcopal Church has opposed the death
penalty, and supported the civil rights movement and affirmative action. Some
of its leaders and priests marched with demonstrators. Some dioceses ordain
openly homosexual men and women; in others, same-sex unions are celebrated. However,
on other issues such as abortion, the church has taken both sides of the
debate.
In most dioceses, women are ordained to the priesthood and episcopate, as well
as the diaconate. The current Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church is
Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female primate in the Anglican Communion.
The Anglican Communion
The
Anglican Communion is a world-wide affiliation of Anglican Churches. There is
no single "Anglican Church" with universal juridical authority, since
each national or regional church has full autonomy. As the name suggests, the
Anglican Communion is an association of these churches in full communion with
the Church of England (which may be regarded as the "mother church"
of the worldwide communion), and specifically with its primate, the Archbishop
of Canterbury. With approximately 77 million members, the Anglican Communion is
the third largest communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church and
the Eastern Orthodox Churches.
The status of full communion means that all rites conducted in one church are
recognised by the other. Some of these churches are known as Anglican,
explicitly recognising the link to England
(Ecclesia Anglicana means "Church of England"); others, such as the
American and Scottish Episcopal churches, or the Church of Ireland,
prefer a separate name. Each church has its own doctrine and liturgy, based in
most cases on that of the Church of England; and each church has its own
legislative process and overall episcopal polity, under the leadership of a
local primate.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, religious head of the Church of England, has no
formal authority outside that jurisdiction, but is recognised as symbolic head
of the worldwide communion. Among the other primates, he is primus inter pares,
or "first among equals".
The Anglican Communion considers itself to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic,
and Apostolic Church and as being both Catholic and
Reformed. For some adherents it represents a non-papal Catholicism, for others
a form of Protestantism though without a dominant guiding figure such as
Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli or Wesley. For others, their self-identity
represents some combination of the two. The communion encompasses a wide
spectrum of belief and practice including evangelical, liberal, and catholic.
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