ENGLAND, CHURCH OF, the official name of that body of Christians who have a formal head in the person of the hereditary ruler of England. This des ignation is used in two senses: first, a general one signifying the Church re garded as continuous, which, from the first triumph of Christianity till now, has been that of the English people; secondly, in a more specific sense, the Protestant Church now established in England as distinguished from the Church of Rome.
The evangelistic zeal of Whitfield, Wesley, and various other clergymen, in the 18th century, awoke the Church to new life, which did not pass away even when the followers of these two great preachers ceased to belong to the Eng lish Church. The evangelical party, still the most numerous in the Establishment, is, in large measure, the fruit of 18th century revival effort. In the 19th, the movement was in other directions. With 1833, just after the passing of the first Reform Bill, the first of a series of "Tracts for the Times" came forth, and 90 in all were issued within the next eight years. The ritualistic party, at a .later date, carried on the work which the tractarians had begun. In 1860 the "Essays and Reviews," and in 1862 a work by Bishop Colenso on the Penta teuch, gave prominence to the opposite pole of thought, being what theologians call strongly rationalistic. Church con gresses, bringing the representatives of these three parties face to face, softened their antagonisms, and fear of common danger renders them more united than they otherwise would be.
In the English Church there are 3 archbishops (Canterbury, York, and Wales) and 143 bishops, and 39 suffra gan and assistant bishops, 2 of the arch bishops and 24 of the bishops having seats in the House of Lords; subordinate to these are 30 deans, 100 archdeacons, 613 rural deans, and about 13,500 bene ficed clergy, the whole clerical staff of all grades being about 23,000. The total membership throughout the world in 1919 was estimated at over 6,000,000, of whom about 2,400,000 were in Eng land and Wales, about 576,000 in Ireland, about 56,000 in Scotland, and about 3,000,000 in other parts of the world. Previous to 1871, the English Church and the Established Church of Ireland, constituted but a single body, called the United Church of England and Ireland. It is powerful also in the colonies, and by means of its two great societies, the Propagation and the Church Missionary Societies, acts powerfully on nearly every part of the heathen world. The Church in Wales and Monmouthshire was dis established and disendowed by an act passed in 1914 which came into force in 1920.
Under the National Assembly of the Church of England (Powers) Act of 1919 there is, in England, a National As sembly, consisting of a House of Bishops, a House of Clergy, and a House of Laymen, and having power to legislate regarding Church matters.