Andrew Melville upbraids a bishop at the court of James VI

There have not been bishops in the Church of Scotland since the Restoration Episcopacy of the 17th century, although there have occasionally been attempts to reintroduce episcopalianism. Like most

Reformed Churches Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calv ...

, the

Church of Scotland The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland. The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Reformation of 1560, when it split from the Catholic Church ...

has a presbyterian structure which invests in a hierarchy of

courts A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accorda ...

, that authority which other denominations give to

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 c ...

s. Nevertheless, the Church of Scotland does have the concept of a bishop, and there has been debate about widening this concept.

Historical background

The word ''bishop'' is derived from Greek ''episcopos'', meaning "overseer". The word is used in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

, but it is not certain what exactly the function of this office entailed in the Early Church. By the third century, however, both the Eastern ( Orthodox) and Western (

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

) Church had a system of bishops as spiritual rulers. After the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

, the

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

and Anglican traditions retained the episcopal system. The churches of the radical reformation, however, mostly rejected bishops, believing this concentration of power in the hands of a few individuals to be one of the causes of what they perceived as the corruption of the pre-Reformation Church. During the

Scottish Reformation The Scottish Reformation was the process by which Scotland broke with the Papacy and developed a predominantly Calvinist national Kirk (church), which was strongly Presbyterian in its outlook. It was part of the wider European Protestant Refor ...

, the reformer John Knox initially wanted bishops in the Church of Scotland, but the transparency of the Presbyterian system, where all decisions are made in public meetings, was ultimately preferred. During parts of the 17th century there were conflicts between the Presbyterian and Episcopalian tendencies in the Kirk (see Bishops' Wars), with Episcopalianism (patronised by the

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) sometimes in the ascendancy. Presbyterianians finally gained the upper hand, leading to the establishment of a separate Episcopal Church of Scotland in 1690. For a list of the 17th-century Church of Scotland bishops, see Bishop of Edinburgh,

Archbishop of Glasgow The Archbishop of Glasgow is an archiepiscopal title that takes its name after the city of Glasgow in Scotland. The position and title were abolished by the Church of Scotland in 1689; and, in the Scottish Episcopal Church, it is now part of ...

and

Bishop of Aberdeen The Bishop of Aberdeen (originally Bishop of Mortlach, in Latin Murthlacum) was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Aberdeen, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics, whose first recorded bishop is an early 12th-century cleric named Nec ...

Historical Recognition of Episcopal Ordination

On 10 February 1645 the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland approved a document produced by the Westminster Divines outlining the nature of Presbyterian governance. This document, '' The Form of Presbyterial Church Government'' did not include bishops within its recognition of church officers, listing the valid offices thusly: However, this lack of recognition for an office of episcopate distinct from that of a

presbyter Presbyter () is an honorific title for Christian clergy. The word derives from the Greek ''presbyteros,'' which means elder or senior, although many in the Christian antiquity would understand ''presbyteros'' to refer to the bishop functioning a ...

did not entail a rejection of the validity of

ordination Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform v ...

s by the Anglican Bishops of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

. This allowed for former ministers of the English church to be received into service of the Church of Scotland, following suitable examination, without reordination.

Use of the term "bishop" in the Church of Scotland today

Although the Church of Scotland had no bishops after 1690, the term "bishop" is Biblical and it is not surprising that a Presbyterian Church, with its focus on the Bible, should retain the word in its basic sense of "one who has oversight". Specifically, a minister who is placed in charge of a person training for the ministry is referred to as the student's bishop. This term is used in the context of theology students doing "student attachments" (work-experience placements) in parishes and later of graduates who must complete a probationary year in a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

prior to

. Most lay people in the Church of Scotland, however, would be unaware of this usage.

Proposals to reintroduce episcopacy

In the latter part of the 20th century, there were a number of moves to reopen the debate on episcopacy. Presbyteries may be more transparent than bishops in their wielding of power, but they have often proved rather less good at the pastoral care of parish ministers, a problem with which the Church has frequently wrestled. One proposed solution, under the catchphrase "incorporating episcopacy into our system", was for presbyteries to appoint full-time or part-time bishops to minister to the ministers on the presbyteries' behalf. These bishops would not have the power of bishops in other traditions, but would have analogous pastoral functions. Precedents for such a "mixed system" were to be found in the

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and elsewhere. The most serious presentation of such proposals came in the 1980s when a union between the Church of Scotland and the

Scottish Episcopal Church The Scottish Episcopal Church ( gd, Eaglais Easbaigeach na h-Alba; sco, Scots Episcopal(ian) Kirk) is the ecclesiastical province of the Anglican Communion in Scotland. A continuation of the Church of Scotland as intended by King James VI, and ...

was attempted. A precondition from the Episcopalian side was that the united church should have a form of episcopacy recognisable to their tradition. Negotiations for the proposed union were almost completed, and were ratified by the General Assembly, but were voted down by the Church of Scotland's presbyteries when referred to them under the

Barrier Act In the ecclesiastical law of the Church of Scotland, the Barrier Act of 1697 is a measure which compels the General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. S ...

. In the 1990s, the

Scottish Churches Initiative for Union Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

(SCIFU) aimed to unite the Church of Scotland, Scottish Episcopal Church, the Methodist Church (in Scotland) and the

United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2022 it has approximately 40,000 members in 1,284 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. Origins and history The United Reformed Church resulte ...

(in Scotland) by 2010. An element of the proposed structure was again a form of episcopal oversight, whilst retaining elders from the Presbyterian system. After considerable debate, the SCIFU proposals were rejected by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May 2003. The proposed structure of the post-union Scottish church was described by Albert H. Lee as:

Modern Declarations

In the 21st Century, the Church of Scotland has made two declarations between itself and the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church respectively in which the issue of oversight, ''episkope'' was recognised but not resolved into a common polity.

St Columba Declaration

The St Columba Declaration was written in 2015, by the work of the ''Church of England – Church of Scotland Joint Study Group'', in the aftermath of the "No" vote in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and building upon the 2010 report ''Our Fellowship in the Gosepel''.

St Andrew Declaration

The St Andrew Declaration emerged from the work of Our Common Calling Working Group of the Church of Scotland and the Scottish Episcopal Church and was approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May 2021 and by the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church in June 2021. Signed on 30 November 2021, this declaration is very similar in wording to the St Columba Declaration, from which the Scottish Episcopal Church was excluded, causing grave offence.