The Episcopal Church (TEC), based in the United States with additional dioceses elsewhere, is a member church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It is a mainline Christian denomination and is divided into nine provinces. The Episcopal Church describes itself as “Protestant, yet Catholic”.

He believed God’s predestination was based on God’s foreknowledge of every individual’s merits, whether in their current life or a previous life. Later in the fourth and fifth centuries, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) also taught that God orders all things while preserving human freedom.

Calvin’s writings John Calvin taught double predestination. He wrote the foundational work on this topic, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1539), while living in Strasbourg after his expulsion from Geneva and consulting regularly with the Reformed theologian Martin Bucer.

TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: The U.S. Episcopal Church has always been part of the worldwide Anglican Communion tied to the Church of England. But U.S. Episcopalians are generally liberal on matters of sexuality, marriage and the role of women, in contrast to Anglicans in Africa, for example.

The overwhelming majority of ordained ministers in the Anglican Communion are priests (also called presbyters). All priests are entitled to be styled the Reverend, and many male priests are called Father. Some senior priests have other titles. Many member churches ordain women to the priesthood.

The Anglican Church originated when King Henry VIII split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, when the pope refused to grant the king an annulment. The Anglican Communion represents over 85 million people in over 165 countries.

Anglicans and Episcopalians make the sign of the cross from touching one’s forehead to chest or upper stomach, then from left side to right side of the breast, and often ending in the center.

Churches of the Anglican Communion have no restrictions on the marriage of deacons, priests, bishops, or other ministers to a person of the opposite sex. Early Anglican Church clergy under Henry VIII were required to be celibate (see Six Articles), but the requirement was eliminated by Edward VI.

Catholics should never take Communion in a Protestant church, and Protestants (including Anglicans) should never receive Communion in the Catholic Church except in case of death or of “grave and pressing need”.

No Anglican Church accepts belief in Mary as Co-Redemptrix and any interpretation of the role of Mary that obscures the unique mediation of Christ. Anglicans typically believe that all doctrines concerning Mary must be linked with the doctrines of Christ and the Church.

The wealthy erected proprietary chapels as they could afford to do this. Catholic (both Eastern and Western), Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Moravian, Anglican and Lutheran Christians generally use the crucifix in public religious services.

Anglicans believe the catholic and apostolic faith is revealed in Holy Scripture and the Catholic creeds and interpret these in light of the Christian tradition of the historic church, scholarship, reason, and experience.

Prayer is directed to God; one prays with and for the saints as they pray with and for us through Christ to God.

Anglican prayer beads, also known as the Anglican rosary or Anglican chaplet, are a loop of strung beads used chiefly by Anglicans in the Anglican Communion, as well as by communicants in the Anglican Continuum.