A

ANGLICAN

The word "Anglican" just means "English" or "of England." It is rarely used to describe anything besides the Anglican Church, and there it just means that our branch of the church began in England. In England, the Anglican Church is referred to as the Church of England.

ANGLICAN COMMUNION

For full detail see the Anglican Communion page devoted to an explanation of this term. It is a concept by which Anglican churches are unified: a church either is, or is not, a member of the Anglican Communion. Those that are not are often called "continuing" churches, and sometimes called "breakaway" churches.

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION

The original bishops were by legend consecrated by one of the 12 apostles, to be their successors. These successor bishops later consecrated more bishops, so that there would always be bishops. This chain of consecration is called "apostolic succession." There is documentation tracing the chain of consecration back to the early 2nd century, to people who were no doubt the successors of the Twelve, but no scholarly proof exists to document the chain of succession during the very earliest days of the church.

See also "BISHOP."

ARCHBISHOP

An Archbishop is a Bishop who has additional responsibilities. Some archbishops have "metropolitan authority" over other bishops, while other archbishops are simply the chairman of the House of Bishops, with no special powers. This term is becoming less widely used, in favor of the term "Presiding Bishop."

ARCHDEACONRY

See "Deanery".

ARCHDIOCESE

The word "archdiocese" is not used in the Anglican church. It is a Roman Catholic word. An Anglican Archbishop is in charge of a diocese.

AUTONOMOUS CHURCH

An autonomous church is a church that governs itself. The Anglican Communion consists of about 40 autonomous churches, most of which are associated with specific countries and are therefore often called "national churches."

B

BISHOP

A Bishop is a successor to one of the Twelve Apostles, who has been consecrated by other Bishops. The unbroken chain of consecration of Bishops reaching back to the Twelve is called Apostolic Succession. The word "Episcopal" is derived from the Greek word for "Bishop," which is "Episcopos." The phrase "epi skopos" in Greek means "over sight." In Latin it became "episcopus", in Old English it was "biscop," which came to be pronounced "bishop" and later spelled that way too.

BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

The Book of Common Prayer is the primary source of worship material and liturgy in the Anglican church. The first Book of Common Prayer was written in 1549 by Thomas Cranmer. See http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/ for more information.

C

CANON

A Canon, in the singular, is either a law or rule (see below) or a person. A person referred to as a Canon may be a member of a chapter or college of priests, typically the chapter of a cathedral. It is sometimes used as an honorary title bestowed on a person who is not a priest but who does faithful work in support of the church.

CANONS

The canons of the church are its laws or rules. See the section on church governance for more information.

CATHEDRAL

A Cathedral is a Church that is the home church, or "see," of the bishop of a diocese. Cathedrals are usually administered by a priest who is referred to as the Dean of that Cathedral. In some places the Dean of a Cathedral is known instead as its Provost.

A Cathedral is the church that contains the official stall or seat of the diocesan bishop. This stall is called the throne or cathedra, from which derives the adjective "cathedral" as in "cathedral church," which later in common usage became a noun.

COMMUNION

The word "Communion" has two different but related meanings here. The most common meaning is as the name of the Christian sacramental meal, equivalent to the Lord's Supper; often called eucharist. The second meaning is as part of the phrase Anglican Communion. The link between these two meanings of the word is that in order to be "in communion with" someone you must be willing to share communion with them.

D

DEACON

Being a deacon is the initial level of being ordained in the Anglican Church. In some churches Deacon is a lay order; in the Anglican Church, deacons are ordained. Deacons often have special clerical duties; by tradition the Gospel is read by the deacon if one is available.

DEANERY

A deanery is an organizational unit that is larger than a parish and smaller than a diocese. Not every diocese is divided into deaneries, but some are. If a diocese has more than one bishop, sometimes each bishop is responsible for a separate deanery.

DIOCESE

The Diocese is the fundamental unit of structure of the Anglican church. Every diocese is the seat of a Bishop. In general a diocese contains many parishes and churches, and normally dioceses are combined into larger administrative units called Provinces and National Churches.

E

EPISCOPAL

The Episcopal Church is the official U.S. name for the Anglican church. It was certainly in use as an unofficial descriptor for the kind of church that we had, long before there was a need to have an official name for the church.

After the 1776 war of independence from England, and the subsequent war in 1812, any word that reminded people of England was unpopular in the U.S., so the church was called "Episcopal" rather than "Church of England."

The U.S. is once again friendly with England and the UK, but the name "Episcopal" has remained in preference to the more-recent "Anglican." In Scotland the church is also called Episcopal; this is probably based on times when the Scots noticed that they were at war with the English, and wishing for similar reasons to avoid a word that reminded people of England.