The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States consists "of thirty-four confederated dioceses, under the care of bishops, using the same liturgy, and yielding obedience" to the same canon law. [Footnote 48] The organic principle by which this confederation was originated and has been maintained is a written constitution. [Footnote 49] Its organic life is manifested through a general convention, in which the supreme legislative and judicial authority of the whole church resides.
[Footnote 48: Church Almanac for 1867, p. 17.]
[Footnote 49: Law writers define a "constitution" as either a "limitation" or a "grant" of power. Did the general convention of 1789, in adopting the constitution of the Episcopal Church, thereby grant to the church of Christ, or to any part thereof, powers of which it was previously destitute, or limit powers which Christ himself conferred upon it? Or, on the contrary, is not the idea of a "constitution" essentially repugnant to the idea of the Christian church?]
Each of these several dioceses consists of various parishes, united under one bishop, and yielding obedience to the same local law. The organic principle of the diocese is a written constitution; and its organic life is manifested in a diocesan convention, in which the supreme legislative and judicial authority of the diocese resides.
Each of the several parishes which compose a diocese consists of a greater or less number of lay-people, united under one pastor and occupying certain fixed and well-known territorial limits. Its organic principle is usually a written constitution; and its organic life is manifested through a body of vestrymen, to whom the management of its parochial affairs is entrusted.
With the exception that the church possesses no chief executive, corresponding to the President of the United States, her organic system is almost identical with the political order of the government under which she lives.
The general convention of the church is composed of two houses, a house of bishops and a house of clerical and lay deputies. The house of bishops consists of all the bishops of the various dioceses, as members ex officio. The house of deputies consists of four delegates—two clerical and two lay—from each diocese, appointed in diocesan convention. A concurrence of both orders in the lower house, and of both houses, is necessary to a vote of the convention. [Footnote 50]
[Footnote 50: See Constitution, appendix to Journal of 1865, arts. 2 and 3.]
The convention of each diocese is composed of the clergy, canonically resident within its limits, and of a certain number of lay-deputies, appointed by the various congregations of which the diocese consists.