From “presiding Bishop” to “Presiding Bishop, Primate and Metropolitan”

In the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA (PECUSA) from the 1780s to 2001 there have been many developments and changes. One significant change has been the move from having a “presiding Bishop of the House of Bishops” to having a “Presiding Bishop of the PECUSA.”

Even as the PECUSA was the first Anglican Church in the world to call its new, official Prayer Book of Alternative Services (1979) by the hallowed name of “The Book of Common Prayer” so also the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA was the first National Church in the Anglican Communion to decide to have a “Presiding Bishop” who had to resign from his diocese in order to take upon himself this office.

From 1789 through to the twentieth century the House of Bishops of PECUSA appointed one of its members to be the “presiding Bishop” – primarily to be chairman of the meetings and the chief consecrator at ordinations of new bishops. These duties were added to his diocesan ones and he continued to live and work in his own diocese. Only from 1925 did the House of Bishops formally elect its “presiding Bishop.”

In the twentieth century, as the PECUSA grew in numbers and influence and felt a sense of not only being “a National Church” with a mission to the whole of the USA, but also a “bridge Church” between the various denominations, there was a felt sense of the need for the Church to have a visible, identifiable national “leader” – to be “a chief pastor,” or “ a chief executive,” or a “spokesman,” or a “prophet,” or “a symbol of unity” or all of these things and more.

So a variety of plans were discussed to set the “presiding Bishop” of the House of Bishops free from diocesan duties to have a national role as the Presiding Bishop of the PECUSA. One plan was to create a very small diocese of four parishes for him in Arlington, Virginia, with a seat in the National Cathedral. Another was to let him retain his diocesan position but hand over virtually all duties to a coadjutor bishop.

We may note that these and other proposals took seriously the doctrine that unless he is retired, a bishop to be a real bishop should have a diocese. Further, they were aimed at making sure that the “presiding Bishop” as a diocesan bishop would be invited to the Lambeth Conferences of Anglican Bishops.

In fact no diocese was ever created for the “presiding Bishop” but several Bishops (e.g., Bishop Tucker of Virginia, 1941-46) did become full-time “presiding Bishops” whilst retaining nominally their diocesan appointments and roles as a coadjutor bishop did the work.

It was at the Cleveland General Convention of 1943 that the decision was made to have a Presiding Bishop of the PECUSA who would have no diocesan responsibilities at all.

“Upon expiration of the term of office of the Presiding Bishop [Tucker of Virginia], the Bishop who is elected to succeed him shall tender to the House of Bishops his resignation of his previous jurisdiction…”

The first “Presiding Bishop of the PECUSA’ with no diocese was Henry Knox Sherrill, formerly Bishop of Massachusetts. (Since Sherill the PECUSA – now ECUSA – has had Lichtenberger, Hines, Allin, Browning and Griswold as its Presiding Bishops.)

At the time of his election in 1946 some argued that as Presiding Bishop Sherrill had a jurisdiction but not a territorial one – e.g., his presidency of the National Executive Council, his oversight of missionary districts and the episcopal churches in Europe, and his responsibilities in the consecration of new bishops. (They did not , however, claim that he had jurisdiction over the entire College of Bishops or the whole PECUSA!) Others still hoped that a small diocese near Washington DC would be created for him, but this hope seems to have faded away for nothing much has been heard of it since the 1940s. Further, William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, indicated that there would be no problem of inviting the Presiding Bishop of the PECUSA to Lambeth Conferences even if he had no diocese.

With the arrival of the salaried, full time Presiding Bishop, having offices near, and then in, New York City, and a large staff surrounding him, the Episcopal Church was organized in general terms like a corporation with all the possibilities of both efficiency and bureaucracy.

People began to refer to this central organization as “the National Church” for it had the task under its chief executive, the Presiding Bishop, of implementing the mind of General Convention between the triennial meetings of this body and, further, it was seen as the voice of the PECUSA to the nation and the world and the link to both the Anglican Communion of Churches and to the Ecumenical Movement.

The persons who were attracted to work at the headquarters of “the National Church’” were recruited to work there, increasingly reflected the left wing of the Church, which came to dominance during the massive social changes of the 1960s. They saw the Gospel primarily in terms of human liberation from the bondages of an unjust, patriarchal society. Thus it is not surprising that a felt sense of alienation has existed for a long time by many conservative clergy and laity in relation both to the Presiding Bishop and to “the National Church.”

To conclude, it seems a very odd thing that one of the major duties of the Presiding Bishop, who has no diocese, is to be the chief consecrator at ordinations of new Bishops and in doing so to use a Form of Service that supposes that a Bishop is to be the Pastor of a Diocese. He who has no diocese is placing others into that which he does not have! Further, it is also odd that Presiding Bishops, who have no territorial dioceses, have stood opposed in this century to the creation of non-territorial dioceses for others (e.g., for conservative parishes to have a “flying bishop”).

The Revd Dr. Peter Toon Sept 29, 2001