It is a forum for bishops of the Communion to reinforce unity and collegiality through manifesting the episcopate, to discuss matters of mutual concern, and to pass resolutions intended to act as guideposts.

The churches of the Anglican Communion have traditionally held that ordination in the historic episcopate is a core element in the validity of clerical ordinations.

Most Protestants deny the need for this type of continuity and the historical claims involved have been severely questioned ; Eric Jay comments that the account given of the emergence of the episcopate in chapter III of Lumen Gentium " is very sketchy, and many ambiguities in the early history of the Christian ministry are passed over " Their reasons are given in detail below.

Church, Ministry and Sacraments in the New Testament Paternoster Press: 1993, p. 94f </ ref > He also points out that when Ignatius writes to the Romans, there is no mention of a bishop of the Roman Church, " which we may suppose had not not yet adopted the monarchical episcopate.

In practice, " extraordinary " circumstance have included disagreeing with Episcopalian views of the episcopate, and as a result, ELCA pastors ordained by other pastors are not permitted to be deployed to Episcopal Churches ( they can, however, serve in Presbyterian Church USA, United Methodist Church, Reformed Church in America, and Moravian Church congregations, as the ELCA is in full communion with these denominations ).

Some within the ELCA argued that requiring the historic episcopate would contradict the traditional Lutheran doctrine that the church exists wherever the Word is preached and Sacraments are practiced.

* The term is used also to mean those Christian churches that maintain that their episcopate can be traced unbrokenly back to the apostles and consider themselves part of a catholic ( universal ) body of believers.

His episcopate, however, is chiefly remembered owing to its tragic close.

Since all trace their ordinations to an Anglican priest, John Wesley, it is generally considered that their bishops do not share in apostolic succession, though United Methodists still affirm that their bishops share in the historic episcopate.

The Catholic Church has an episcopate, with the Pope, who is the Bishop of Rome, at the top.

Anglicanism is the most prominent of the Reformation traditions to lay claim to the historic episcopate through apostolic succession in terms comparable to the various Catholic and Orthodox Communions.

Within Anglicanism, three bishops are normally required for ordination to the episcopate, while one bishop is sufficient for performing ordinations to the priesthood and diaconate.

Although Bede records that Æthelberht gave lands to support the new episcopate, a charter that claims to be a grant of lands from Æthelberht to Mellitus is a later forgery.

The earliest witness is Irenaeus, who in about the year 180 wrote: " The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate.

Linus is presented by Jerome as " the first after Peter to be in charge of the Roman Church ", by Eusebius, as " the first to receive the episcopate of the church at Rome, after the martyrdom of Paul and Peter " John Chrysostom says " This Linus, some say, was second Bishop of the

Bishops are usually drawn from the ranks of the archimandrites, and are required to be celibate ; however, a non-monastic priest may be ordained to the episcopate if he no longer lives with his wife ( following Canon XII of the Quinisext Council ) In contemporary usage such a non-monastic priest is usually tonsured to the monastic state, and then elevated to archimandrite, at some point prior to his consecration to the episcopacy.

Although there is very little authentic information about Fabian, there is evidence that his episcopate was one of great importance in the history of the early church.

* An ecumenical council is an irregular meeting of the entire episcopate in communion with the Pope and is, along with the Pope, the highest legislative authority of the universal Church ( can.

* Plenary councils, which are meetings of the entire episcopate of a nation ( including a nation that is only one ecclesiastical province ), are convoked by the national episcopal conference.

No official acts from his episcopate have survived, and there is just a brief death notice in the Leofric Missal, although no notice of his death occurs in the contemporary Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

The Abbey, which is located at the centre of the island, was founded in the 12th century during the episcopate of Gregoir, Bishop of Dunkeld.

The great monument of his episcopate is the eleven famous charges in which he from time to time reviewed the position of the English Church with reference to whatever might be the most pressing question of the day — addresses at once judicial and statesmanlike, full of charitable wisdom and massive sense.

It is no cause for surprise that Arsacius's episcopate was a brief one, and that a feeble character worn out by old age should have soon given way before a storm of opposition so universal.

Addressing the Polish authorities in the annexed area of his diocese Kaller declared that he wants to continue his episcopate within Poland, however, the officials said it was neither him nor them, but Warsaw to decide that.

The second group is that of those who, " under the pressure of particular circumstances, have consented to receive episcopal ordination without the pontifical mandate, but have subsequently asked to be received into communion with the Successor of Peter and with their other brothers in the episcopate "; in view of the existing confusion on the part of Chinese Catholics, the Pope said: " It is indispensable, for the spiritual good of the diocesan communities concerned, that legitimation, once it has occurred, is brought into the public domain at the earliest opportunity, and that the legitimized Bishops provide unequivocal and increasing signs of full communion with the Successor of Peter.

It is said he refused, however, believing that the Church of England was truly " Catholic " and should maintain the Catholic episcopate.

This does not mean that the episcopate, in the sense of the holder of the order or office of bishop, must have developed only later, or have been plural, because in each church the college or presbyter-overseers ( also called " presbyter-bishops ") did not exercise an independent supreme power ; it was subject to the Apostles or to their delegates.

Concerns over the historic episcopate have been sidelined since 2008, though they may re-emerge.

On one hand, the document says that non-Catholic Christian ecclesial communities that have not preserved a valid episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery are not Churches in the proper sense and that non-Christians are seriously deficient in terms of access to the means of salvation in comparison with those who in the Church have the full means of salvation.

This does not mean that the episcopate, in the sense of the holder of the order or office of bishop, must have developed only later, or have been plural, because in each church the college or presbyter-overseers ( also called " presbyter-bishops ") did not exercise an independent supreme power ; it was subject to the Apostles or to their delegates.

Meetings of the entire episcopate of a supra-national region have historically been called councils as well, such as the various Councils of Carthage in which all the bishops of North Africa were to attend.

In the same work the archbishop claims to have written his Chronicon januense in the second year of his episcopate ( 1293 ), but it extends to 1296 or 1297.

Towards the close of his episcopate, Nectarius abolished the office of presbyter penitentiary, whose duty appears to have been to receive confessions before communion.

The Eastern Orthodox episcopate seems to have disappeared after the 11th century.

St. Ambrose succeeded the Arian bishop Auxentius of Milan, during whose long episcopate ( 355 to 374 ) it would seem probable but unverified that Arian modifications may have been introduced into a rite the period of whose original composition is unknown.

More recent changes in the North American churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the priesthood and episcopate, have created further separations.

Other Catholic scholars have regarded the encyclical as " not a heatedly combative document " as the German episcopate entertained hopes of a Modus vivendi with the Nazis.

The doctrine of the collegiality of the bishops as a body was enunciated by the Second Vatican Council which " desired to integrate all the elements which make up the Church, both the mystical and the institutional, the primacy and the episcopate, the people of God and the hierarchy, striking new notes and establishing new balances which would have to be worked out and theologized upon in the lived experience of the Church.

" You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest.

His episcopate lasted 45 years ( c. 8 June 328 – 2 May 373 ), of which over 17 were spent in five exiles ordered by four different Roman emperors.

St Athanasius ' long episcopate lasted 45 years ( c. 8 June 328 – 2 May 373 ) of which over 17 years were spent in five exiles ordered by four different Roman Emperors, not counting approximately six more incidents in which he had to flee Alexandria for his own safety to escape people seeking to take his life.

His long episcopate lasted 40 years, four months, and 4 days from November 14, 1971 until his death on March 17, 2012.

Zeno's episcopate lasted for about ten years, and the date of his death is sometimes given as 12 April 371.