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 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 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.