The Episcopal Church
The Episcopal Church is a daughter of The Church of England. We were established as an independent Church following the American Revolution, and we are part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The Church in England existed even before the offical missionaries arrived from Rome in the seventh century. Its beginnings are shrouded in mystery. However, the English church thrived and grew. By the time of the European Reformation in the early 16th century, there was already a strong English tradition that was distinct from the Roman Church. When the break with Rome occurred over personal and political conflicts of King Henry VIII, the internal polity, worship, and practices of the English Church remained the same as they had been before the fracture. The English simply did not recognize that the Bishop of Rome had any authority in England.
Over time Protestant ideas began to take root: worship in English rather than Latin, married clergy, and other reforms were adopted. But the basic structure (polity) of the Church of Rome was retained. The orders of ordained ministry are still Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Geographical demarcations are Dioceses headed by bishops, and parishes led by vicars (in the U.S. we call our lead parish clergy "rectors").
Although the English Church was a reformed Church, the changes from the previous Roman hegemony were rather slow in coming and not as radical as in the Continental Reformation. Therefore, the Anglican Church became a kind of bridge church, a via media (middle way) between the Roman Catholic world on the one hand and the Protestant world on the other.
A crisis in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I was resolved in what is called the Elizabethan Settlement. The extreme Protestants affirmed that Scripture (Bible) was the only guide to faith. The Romanists insisted that the hierarchy and Church tratdition should predomindate. Elizabeth's genius was to insist that common worship was the glue that could and would hold the two sides together. And so The Book of Common Prayer became both the symbol and the reality of Anglican unity along with our common ties to the Archbishop of Canterbury and mutual regard.