In the British colonies the first bishop ric created was that of Nova Scotia, in 1787, and the number of bishops in the colonies has been increased by a number of recent creations of sees to fifteen. [BISHOPRIC.] In 1841 a bishop of the United Church of England and Ireland was appointed for Jerusalem. The king of Prussia was the first to suggest the appointment to Queen Victoria, and the right of appoint ment will be alternately enjoyed by the crowns of Prussia and England ; but the archbishop of Canterbury has a veto on the Prussian appointment. The bishop of Jerusalem is for the present a suffragan of the archbishop of Canterbury's; but he cannot exercise any of his functions in the dominions of Great Britain, nor can the persons ordained by him. The act 5 Viet. c. 6, was passed to enable the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and such bishops as they might select, to consecrate a foreign bishop.
On the separation of the North Ame rican colonies from the mother-country, a difficulty was felt by those persons who were desirous of observing the forms of the Anglican Church, as persons ordained by the bishops of England are required to take the oath of allegiance, &c. An act was therefore passed (24 Geo. HI. c. 35) which relieved them from the necessity of taking such oaths, with the proviso that they could not legally officiate in any part of the British dominions. The American bishops, from the same obsta cle, were for some time consecrated by Scotch bishops ; but the act 26 Geo. Ill. e. 84, which dispensed with the oath of allegiance, and rendered only the king's licence necessary, enabled them to resort to the bishops of the Church of England.
At the present time there are twenty four bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America.
The Episcopal church of the United States of North America is said to be a complete picture of the Church of Eng land republicanized. The superior powers of church government are vested in a General or National Convention which meets triennially. The Convention con sists of two houses. The bishops sit as a body in their own right and form a sepa rate House. The lower House is com posed of lay and clerical delegates. Each diocese is represented by four laymen and four of the clergy, who are elected by local Diocesan Conventions. The lay members of the Diocesan Conventions are elected by their respective congregations or vestries. The General Convention, amongst other things, has the power of revising old or making new canons. It hears and determines charges against bishops ; receives and examines testi monials from Diocesan Conventions re commending new bishops, and decides upon their appointment ; without the cer tificate of the General Convention a bishop cannot be consecrated. The sit tings of a General Convention usually last about three weeks. At the Convention which assembled at Philadelphia in Oct. 1844, eleven committees were appointed for the transaction of business; there was one committee on matters relating to the admission of new dioceses ; and another on the consecration of bishops. At this Convention a canon was passed for regu lating the consecration of foreign bishops ; such bishops cannot exercise their func tions in the United States. At the
same Convention " sentence of suspen sion " was passed on a bishop by the House of Bishops. They adjudged him to be " suspended from all public exercise of the office and functions of the sacred ministry, and in particular from all exer cise whatsoever of the office and work of a bishop of the church of God." The resignation of a bishop must in the first instance be accepted by a majority of two-thirds of the lay and clerical deputies of the Convention of his diocese; and it then requires to be ratified by a majority of both Houses at a General Convention. The title assumed by a bishop in the United States is " Right Reverend." The bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States have no par ticular province or district. Their time is chiefly spent in attending the different annual conferences of the church.
The Roman Catholic hierarchy in the United States is composed of one arch bishop, fifteen bishops, and five coad jutors. The first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States was consecrated in 1790.
Bishops in is an ellip tical phrase, and is to be supplied with the word Afideliust. These are bishops who have no actual see, but who are con secrated as if they had, under the fiction that they are bishops in succession to those who were the actual bishops in cities where Christianity once flourished. Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and the northern coast of Africa, present many of these extinct sees, some of them the most ancient and most interesting in the history of Chris tianity. When a Christian missionary is to be sent forth in the character of a bishop into a country imperfectly Chris tianized, and where the converts are not brought into any regular church order, the pope does not consecrate the mission ary as the bishop of that country in which his services are required, but as the bishop of one of the extinct sees, who is supposed to have left his diocese and to be travelling in those parts. So, when England had broken off from the Roman Catholic Church, and yet continued its own unbroken series of bishops in the re cognised English sees, it was, for Roman Catholic ecclesiastical affairs, divided into districts,' over each of which a bishop has been placed, who is a bishop in partibus. When, in the time of King Charles I., Dr. Richard Smith was sent by the pope into England in the character of bishop, he came as bishop of Chalcedon. The London District is superintended by a bishop who is styled the Bishop of Diens ; the Eastern District by the Bishop of Ariopolis ; the Western District by the Bishop of Pella ; the Central District by the Bishop of Cambysopolis; the Lanca shire District by the Bishop of Ties; the District of York by the Bishop of Trachis ; the Northern District by the Bishop of Abydos ; and the Welsh District is under a vicar-apostolic, the Bishop of Apollonia. Scotland is divided in a similar manner. Each District in Great Britain is subdi vided into Rural Deaneries.