ULTRAMONTANISM). At the Vatican Council of 187o episcopacy made its last stand against papalism, and was vanquished (see VATICAN COUNCIL). The pope still addresses his fellow-bishops as "venerable brothers"; but from the Roman Catholic Church the fraternal union of coequal authorities, which is of the essence of episcopacy, has vanished; and in its place is set the autocracy of one. The modern Roman Catholic Church is episcopal, for it pre serves the bishops, whose potestas ordinis not even the pope can exercise until he has been duly consecrated ; but the bishops as such are now but subordinate elements in a system for which "Episcopacy" is certainly no longer an appropriate term.
fact, since the Reformation, been more especially associated with those churches which, while ceasing to be in communion with Rome, have preserved the epis copal model. Of these by far the most important is the Church of England, which has preserved its ecclesiastical organization essen tially unchanged since its foundation by St. Augustine, and its daughter churches (see ENGLAND, CHURCH OF). The Church of England since the Reformation has been the chief champion of the principle of Episcopacy against the papal pretensions on the one hand and Presbyterianism and Congregationalism on the other. As to the divine origin of Episcopacy and, consequently, of its universal obligation in the Christian Church, Anglican opinion has been, and still is, considerably divided. The "High Church" view, is practically identical with that of the Gallicans and Febronians, and is based on Catholic practice anterior to the division of East and West, especially as expounded and defended by Cyprian (q.v.). So far as this view, however, is the outcome of the general Catholic movement of the 19th century, it can hardly be taken as typical of Anglican tradition in this matter. The whole issue has, in fact, become confused with the confusion of functions of the Church and State. According to the historic tra dition of the Church of England, the ultimate governance of the Christian community, in things spiritual and temporal, was vested not in the clergy but in the "Christian prince." It was the trans ference to the territorial sovereigns of modern Europe of the theocratic character of the Christian heads of the Roman world empire ; with the result that for the reformed Churches the unit of church organization was no longer the diocese, or the group of dioceses, but the Christian state which could dictate its subjects' faith (see ENGLAND, CHURCH OF). With the constitutional changes of the 18th and 19th centuries, however, a correspond ing modification took place in the character of the English episcopate ; and a still further change resulted from the multi plication of colonial and missionary sees having no connection with the state. The consciousness of being in the line of apostolic succession helped the English clergy to revert to the principle Ecclesia est in episcopo, and the great periodical conferences of Anglican bishops from all parts of the world resemble, though they do not claim the oecumenical authority, the general councils of the early Church (see LAMBETH CONFERENCES).
see LUTHERAN CHURCH (especially in Scandinavia) ; in the Methodist Episcopal Church of America, see METHODISM ; also articles MORAVIAN CHURCH, OLD CATHOLICS and ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH. On the ,subject of Episcopacy in the Anglican and Roman communions see ENGLAND, CHURCH OF, and ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
