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Mitre Without Sceptre: An Eighteenth Century Ecclesiastical Revilution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Frederick V. Mills
Affiliation:
professor of history inLa Grange College, La Grange, Georgia

Extract

The American revolution caused the Anglican churches in America to separate from their parent body: the Church of England. This threw the Episcopalians upon their own resources to rebuild their church. In the process of reorganization, the former Anglicans accomplished an ecclesiastical revolution in respect to episcopacy. For the first time since the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Episcopalians in America made a bishop of a major religious body the elected official of a convention of clergy and laymen. In the second place, the office of bishop in a major denomination was completely separated from the state for the first time since Emperor Constantine officially recognized Christianity in 313 A.D.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1970

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