Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

Episcopal Church (disambiguation) Episcopal Church may refer to various churches in the Anglican, Methodist and Open Episcopal traditions. An episcopal church has bishops in its organisational structure (see episcopal polity). Episcopalian is a synonym for Anglican in Scotland, t ...

, any church with "Episcopal" in its name **

Episcopal Church (United States) The Episcopal Church, based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Protestant denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The presiding bishop o ...

, an affiliate of Anglicanism based in the United States *

Episcopal conference An episcopal conference, sometimes called a conference of bishops, is an official assembly of the bishops of the Catholic Church in a given territory. Episcopal conferences have long existed as informal entities. The first assembly of bishops to ...

, an official assembly of bishops in a territory of the Roman Catholic Church *

Episcopal polity An episcopal polity is a Hierarchy, hierarchical form of Ecclesiastical polity, church governance ("ecclesiastical polity") in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. (The word "bishop" derives, via the British Latin and Vulgar ...

, the church united under the oversight of bishops *

Episcopal see An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, mak ...

, the official seat of a bishop, often applied to the area over which he exercises authority *

Historical episcopate The historic or historical episcopate comprises all episcopates, that is, it is the collective body of all the bishops of a church who are in valid apostolic succession. This succession is transmitted from each bishop to their successors by the r ...

, dioceses established according to apostolic succession

See also