What we are
WHAT WE ARE
The Diocese in Europe is the biggest of the 42 dioceses that make up the Church of England. The others are across England, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
The Church of England is part of the worldwide Anglican/Episcopalian Church known as the Anglican Communion which includes tens of millions of members. It is divided into 42 provinces, each led by an archbishop who is known as a primate.
The Church of England is seen as the mother church of the Anglican Communion. Its spiritual head is the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is regarded as the first among equals within the primates. Each primate is responsible for bishops and each bishop for priests or chaplains.
Distinctive about the Anglican family of churches is what is known as the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888): the four reference points of Anglicanism - the Holy Scriptures, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the two Sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Holy Communion, and the historic episcopate.
Anglicans and Episcopalians might share aspects of their history, tradition and ways of worshipping. But no two churches are exactly alike even within a diocese, let alone a province or between countries. A service in an Anglican church can be as catholic as a tridentine mass or as evangelical as a Spring Harvest conference. It could be pentecostally charismatic or Quakerly silent. There might be learned preaching or contemplative meditation led by monks and nuns. All these expressions are seen as ways of opening heart, mind and soul to God, and of participating in the mutual conversation of love of the Trinity. This unity in diversity is one of the things that makes the Anglican Communion so special and such rich ground from which to change to world.