The belief remained in the North that bishops were needed. The clergy in Connecticut chose one of their own, Samuel Seabury, to go to England and seek consecration as a bishop. Seabury quickly discovered that English bishops could do nothing for him. At the very least, consecration in England required an oath of allegiance to the king, which Seabury could not take. Secondly, the bishops could not send someone into a territory where the government of England had no control. They could not imagine that people would support bishops with the crown.

Seabury did, however, have an alternative in the church in Scotland. The Scots had discovered that it was possible to continue to live Anglican lives with bishops and without state taxation. Most importantly, they agreed to consecrate Samuel Seabury. Their one prerequisite was that he must do all in his power to shape the American Prayer Book like that of the Scots, who had taken practices from the Eastern Orthodox Church, which were perceived to be truer to Christian worship. Therefore, the American Prayer Book not only has English roots, but Scottish and Eastern roots, as well.

When Seabury returned, there remained debate on whether or not old Church of England clergy could be united to form an all new national church. It wasn’t easy. Southerners were accustomed to living without bishops and being governed by laity. Northerners had been governed by clergy and missionary societies from England. The very first General Convention included no separate House of Bishops, but Connecticut refused to join under those conditions. Northern Anglicans seemed to have no desire to enter a church that offered laity any role in leadership, and Southern Anglicans were not happy if the church offered any role to bishops. Fortunately, there was a slight buffer between the North and the South. The Middle Colonies of the Mid-Atlantic region, led by a William White of Pennsylvania, served as a mediator, and through fiery debate, the North and the South worked out their early differences: a separate house of Bishops with a right to review and veto, but not initiate, and a lower house, where all the dioceses could be represented in equal numbers of laity and clergy. That left one question: what should bishops do between conventions?

In the early days, the bishops served as rectors to large parishes and visited smaller parishes for confirmations. Slowly, the bishops were given more and more roles, and they were freed from the pulpit of parishes. As time progressed, bishops gained a place for themselves as leaders and pastors, but their administrative power remains balanced by elected clergy and lay representatives. American bishops may were vestments that look authoritative, but they function differently than bishops of other traditions. And that is a result of the America’s early colonial experience.

Many did not think the American church would become a success. Very few thought that, following the revolution, Americans would turn out to a church so steeped in English tradition. They were partly right. The church had noticeably diminished numbers. The belief that the church would slowly fade away was not an uncommon one. That it didn’t was the workmanship of church leadership, who not only saw an opportunity to exist, but to grow.

By the mid-Nineteenth Century, the Episcopal Church was not only flourishing, but was ready to send out missionaries. In fact, the desire for evangelism was obvious from the start. The new church had said so in its name: The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The General Convention of 1835 further brought home that point by declaring that the entire church was a missionary society, and sought to send missions into territories west of the Mississippi River, and even as far away as Greece. This led to another American first: bishops in territories where there were no churches.

The Nineteenth Century

Throughout the Nineteenth Century, the Episcopal Church followed in its mother’s footstep, sending missionaries around the globe, sometimes even working jointly with the churches of England and Canada to establish national churches in far off places. The Far East and Africa were always popular destinations. From these missionary adventures, marvellous stories were born, which helped to shape the church’s reputation and character.

As more churches were established, these new national churches, with the precedence of the U.S. church, did not see themselves as American or English, but as an Anglican church in their own right and culture. The Church in China called itself Chung Hua Sheng Kung Hui, and the church in Japan, Nippon Sei Ko Kai. The Catholic Church of China and Japan. In other parts of the world, churches that had also broken from Rome came to the Episcopal tradition for help in establishing their own brand of Anglicanism. Though, again, these churches did not consider themselves English in heritage or tradition, but native churches in their own right, their own culture, and nationality.

Within one century, the Church of England had gone from being a state church in the most powerful country in the world, to giving birth to churches in an Anglican Communion, with a common pattern of worship and Episcopal ministry, around the globe.

Change on the Horizon

By the beginning of the Twentieth Century, a church that many thought was so associated with England that it would not survive the American Revolution had become such an integral part of American life that some began to see it as a national church. Certainly, most of the nation’s leaders had proven to be Episcopalian, and from that, Episcopal worship and thought shaped national policy and politics.

In 1946, the church chose its first full-time national leader in Henry Knox Sherill. He brought the church into new homes and lives by taking Episcopalianism into the average American home. He appeared on radio and television, and called Episcopalians to work together and pray together. Under Sherrill’s leadership, the church saw a boom in activity, as cities and parishes sprung to life with the growth of American post-war suburbs. The boom, though, was short-lived.

Soon, the church was caught up in controversy. First, the church got involved in the civil rights movement, followed by the movement to ordain women. Then, it decided to revise the prayer book. Many saw the church as too closely involving itself in the politics of the day.

The new generation of women, those who had kept the home front during World War II, were ready to step out of masculine shadows and into careers outside the home. Volunteerism in the church was no longer deemed adequate, and once change began, it continued rapidly. Women began to serve on parish vestries, and by the 1970’s, the first woman had served as a delegate to the National Convention. In 1976, the convention voted to allow women into the priesthood. Such brisk changes, though, were not accepted easily.

Parishes began to break away from the church, and several diocese resisted the ordination of women for many, many years. The breakaway churches found that they were no more sure of who they were than they had been on the controversies in the church, and the bishops who denounced women in the priesthood were eventually placed by bishops who favored the progressiveness. By 1988, women were named bishops in Massachusetts, Vermont, Indianapolis, Utah, and Rhode Island.

Many Episcopalians failed to see the changes that were taking place around them in society, and blamed the declining numbers of parishioners on the church’s decisions to change the prayer book and ordain women. For the first time, the church was seeing itself recognized as “liberal.” But the new found stand of the church not only caused decline, it brought new faces to the pews.

By 1982, it was estimated that 60% of the church’s membership were not “cradle Episcopalians.” By this time, the declining numbers of the church seemed to be reversing. The church again showed signs of growth. Blacks and Hispanics began to take their place in a church that had been seen as “WASP-y.”

The controversy of the church was not through. Leaders of the church began to think of the future of American Christianity. Creatively, they looked toward sexuality and liturgical changes.

By the dawn of the Twenty-First Century, the church had survived much. It was no longer the church of the WASP alone. It had begun to reflect the melting pot of American society. Seminaries are once again returning to the church’s roots of evangelism. English no longer is the official language of every diocese and parish. Members of English ancestry are on the verge of becoming the minority. Through the many controversies, the church has found similarity. The Holy Eucharist is now the main service every week in most parishes, and the ceremony from which it is celebrated are not far more similar from one church to another than they were a generation ago.

In 2006, the church elected its first, and the only female Anglican primate in the world, in Katharine Jefferts Schori.