Although most Baptist groups are congregationalist in polity, some have different ecclesiastical organization and adopt an episcopal polity governance. In those churches the local congregation has less autonomy and the bishop oversees them, assigning pastors and distributing funds.

Evangelical Baptist Union of Georgia

The Evangelical Baptist Union of Georgia have an episcopal polity, with an archbishop as the primate. Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, pastor of the Cathedral of Tbilisi is a charismatic figure and social activist.

Union of Baptist Churches in Latvia

The Baptists of Latvia are result from a revival among German and Latvian Lutherans and organized their first church in 1861. The union is headed by a bishop.

Episcopal Baptist Church in Congo

The Église Épiscopale Baptiste is a Baptist denomination in Democratic Republic of the Congo. It began with evangelical missionaries who accepted the Baptist doctrines and organized this denomination retaining the episcopal polity. The Church became autonomous in 1956. J. Gordon Melton, Martin Baumann, ''Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices'', ABC-CLIO, USA, 2010, p. 671 In 2007 there were ten bishops, and 105,000 baptized members in 110 territorial parishes. Most of them were in the nine provinces of DRC and some in Angola and Zambia. The pastor are under supervision from the bishops, who assign them a church. The EPB is a member of the World Council of Churches and the

Église du Christ au Congo The Church of Christ in the Congo or CCC (in French, or ECC), is a union of 62 Protestant denominations, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is often simply referred to as the Protestant Chur ...

Among African-American Baptists

A few African-American Baptist congregations have ordained or started calling their senior minister bishop, but without changing congregational polity.

India

The uniting

Church of North India The Church of North India (CNI) is the dominant united Protestant church in northern India. It was established on 29 November 1970 by bringing together the Protestant churches working in northern India. It is a province of the worldwide Anglica ...

received Baptists when in its constitution and had the Baptist Samson Das ordained Bishop of Cuttack in 2006.

References

External links

Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia

Bishop ordained in Virginia
Baptist denominations Christian denominations established in the 19th century Christian denominations established in the 20th century Protestantism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Protestantism in Georgia (country) {{Baptists-stub