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Rev Canon Arthur Sinclair (Guest) |
15/06/2007 14:31 |
Your comment that the Scottish Episcopal Church is "in effect the equivalent of the Church of England" is historically inaccurate. The Scottish Episcopal Church existed separate and apart from the Church of England. And history tells us that by the disestablishing of the Episcopal Church as the Church in Scotland, and the implimentation of Penal Laws against Episcopal worship in Scotland, by the titular head of the Church of England, that 'equivalent' almost destroyed the Episcopal Church. Yes, it is true that we are an independent part of the Anglican Communion, as are all the component part that make up the communion. But our part is a very special - we are, along with the Episcopal Church of the USA, c0-founders of that Communion (by virtue of the fact that we consecretated Samuel Seabury as the first bishop of the church in the USA. there is no way that the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has any voice or authority within the Scottish Episcopal Church, except, as the head of the Anglican Communion and, even then, each Province of the Communion is independent and free to makes its own decision within its own Synod.
But it has to be said that the diocese of Moray, Ross and Caithness does welcome the election of Mark Strange as its next bishop.
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Editor |
15/06/2007 18:35 |
Without getting into semantics regarding the word "equivalent", I trust that the comparison is one that those who find the variety of ecclesiastical forms a bit of a mystery will understand. And the (intentionally-brief) footnote was inserted in a spirit of "trying to be helpful".
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