EPIMÈNIDE. – Greek poet, who lived in the sixth century B.C. According to legend, he was born at Cnosso, on the island of Crete, and was subsequently summoned to Athens by Solone to purify the city from the plague.
Historians, relying especially on Pistone (Laws, I, 642), regard him as an Athenian priest who lived a few decades before the Persian Wars. According to Diogene Laersio, he wrote, among other works, a Theogony connected with the legends of Hesiod and the Orphics.
Speaking of the Cretans, S. Paolo seems to quote a verse by E. in these terms: “One of them, their own prophet, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies” (Tit. 1:12). S. Giovanni Crisostomo declares that the verse is by E. (In Tit., 1:12: PG 62, 575); s. Girolamo adds the title of the work by E. that is quoted: Liber oraecularum (PL 26, 571 ff.). Teodoreto (PG 82, 681), however, thinks that s. Paolo is quoting from Callimaco (third century B.C.). For he too writes: “Cretans are always liars.” But Callimaco was not considered to be from Crete, but rather from Citenè.
Pietro De Ambrozzi
EPISCOPAL, PROTESTANT CHURCH. – The P. E. C. of the United States, not to be confused with the Methodist Episcopal Church, is the American branch of the Church of England, or Anglican Church. During the colonial period, the official Church of England became established in the North American colonies, chiefly in those not occupied by Puritans and Congregationalists.
After the peace of 1783, the Anglicans of Connecticut sent one of their ministers, S. Seabury, to Great Britain; he was unable, however, to obtain consecration from any bishop of England; instead, he obtained it in 1784 from three nou-jurora (v.) bishops of Scotland. In 1787, the Anglicans of the States of New York and Pennsylvania also succeeded in having two American ministers, S. Provost and W. White, consecrated, this time without difficulty, by bishops of England. From these three bishops derives the entire Protestant Episcopal hierarchy of the United States, and consequently also the invalidity of their ordinations. The P. E. C. experienced only two schisms: one temporary, during the Civil War, with the separation of the northern church from that of the south, which ended with the end of the war in 1865; the other, which continues to this day, the Reformed Episcopal Church, established in 1873 by the bishop of Kentucky, D. Dummings, who refused to admit that the episcopate was an order distinct from the priesthood. The various religious movements that have unfolded in the Church of England have had their repercussions in the P. E. C., in which there are adherents of the high, low, and broad churches. American Anglo-Catholics also consider suppressing the name “Protestant” and simply call their church “Episcopal Church.”
Its doctrine is the same as that of the Church of England, but of the 39 Articles of Religion the P. E. C. has modified or changed the 8th (instead of three Creeds, it admits only two: the Apostles’ and the Nicene); the 21st (the prince’s permission is not required for convening general councils); the 35th (the Homilies are not obligatory); the 36th (consecrations are to be performed not according to the educational ritual, but according to the American General Convention of 1792); and the 37th, concerning the authority of the king or queen in the Church, which has been replaced by another stating: “The authority of the civil magistrates extends to all, whether clergy or laity, in temporal matters, but they have no authority whatsoever in purely spiritual matters.” Some changes have also been made in the Book of Common Prayer.
The organization of the P. E. C. differs somewhat from that of the Church of England. Whereas in the latter the supreme head is the king or queen, in the P. E. C. supreme authority resides in the General Convention, which meets every three years and elects a presiding bishop, who during his term of office—that is, between one General Convention and the next—is assisted by a “national council,” upon which depend the “mission secretariat,” the religious education secretariat, and so forth. Moreover, whereas the Church of England has primates, archbishops, and metropolitans, the P. E. C. has bishops alone. In the former, bishops are elected by the government; in the latter, the government does not intervene at all. The dignity of primate of England is attached to the diocese of Canterbury, whereas the presiding bishop may be bishop of any diocese. The Episcopal Mission of Italy, which has churches in Florence and Rome, depends upon the presiding bishop.
Bms.: The living Church annual. The year book of the Episcopal Church. Milwaukee 1928–38: The book of common prayer... according to the use of the P.E.C. in the U.S.A., New York 1929; Catholic revival and the Kingdom of God. Sixth catholic congress of the Episcopal Church, Milwaukee 1933; Journal of the general convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Hammond Ind. 1934; C. Crivelli, I protestanti in Italia, I. Isola del Liri 1936, pp. 101–106. Camillo Crivelli