SCOTLAND, EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF, a Scottish Episcopal church in communion with, but historically distinct from, the Church of England, and composed of seven dioceses: Aberdeen and Orkney; Argyll and the Isles; Brechin; Edin burgh, Glasgow and Galloway ; Moray, Ross and Caithness; and St. Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane. All, except Edinburgh, founded by Charles I., are pre-Reformation sees. The bishops constitute the episcopal synod, the supreme court of appeal, whose president, elected by the members from among themselves, has the style, not the functions, of a metropolitan, being called primus. The legislature is the provincial synod, consisting of the bishops, at whose discretion it is summoned, and a lower chamber of pres byters. The canons have the authority of this synod. The repre sentative church council, including laymen, administers finance. Each diocese has its synod of the clergy. Its dean is appointed by the bishop, and, on the voidance of the see, summons the clerical and lay electors, at the instance of the primus, to choose a bishop, who is presented to the episcopal synod for confirmation and to the primus for consecration. There are cathedrals at Perth, In verness, Edinburgh and Cumbrae ; the sees of Aberdeen, Brechin and Glasgow have no cathedrals. The Theological College was founded in 181o, incorporated with Trinity College, Glenalmond, in 5848, and re-established at Edinburgh in 1876.
The bishops of the Episcopal Church are direct successors of the prelates consecrated to Scottish sees at the Restoration. After the Revolution, the Comprehension Act of 1690 allowed episcopalian incumbents, on taking the Oath of Allegiance, to retain their benefices, though excluding them from any share in the government without a further declaration of presbyterian 'principles. The extruded bishops were slow to organize the epis
copalian remnant under a jurisdiction independent of the state, regarding the then arrangements as provisional, and looking for ward to a reconstituted national kirk under a "legitimate" sov ereign. But at length the hopelessness of the Stuart cause and the growth of congregations outside the establishment forced the bishops to dissociate canonical jurisdiction from royal prerogative and to reconstitute for themselves a territorial episcopate. The act of Queen Anne (1712), which protects the "Episcopal Com munion," marks its virtual incorporation as a distinct society. But matters were still complicated by a considerable, though de clining, number of episcopalian incumbents holding the parish churches. Moreover, the Jacobitism of some of the clergy pro voked a state policy of repression in 1715 and 1745, and fostered the growth of new Hanoverian congregations, served by clergy episcopally ordained but amenable to no bishop, who qualified themselves under the act of 1712. These causes reduced the Episcopalians, who included at the Revolution a large section of the people, to what is now, save in a few corners of the west and north-east, a small minority; but the chief bar to progress had been removed by the official recognition of George III. on the death of Charles Edward in 1788. Statistics show 421 churches and mission stations, 321 clergy, and 60,495 communicants.