Whats the difference between “Episcopal” and “Anglican”?
When the Church of England first asserted its independence from the jurisdiction of the Pope (during the reign of Henry VIII), it didn’t claim to be starting a new denomination the way we think of such things today: they didn’t want to have more than one “branch” of the Christian church, they just wanted to be sure that the Church they did have was “independent”–by which they meant, under the power of the King in Parliament. So they just called it, in English, the Church of England, implying that there could be only one. People still thought a lot in Latin in those days, though, and even in the Act of Parliament which declared the English independence from the Pope, the Church of England is also called, in Latin, “Ecclesia Anglicana,” which could be translated “the English Church,” but tended to get only half-translated, as “the Anglican Church.” This was handy, in its own way, because it allowed you to talk about “Anglican” and “Roman” Churches with a sort of rhetorical elegance. So
