and grounds, after they have been duly consecrated according to law, cannot be diverted to any secular purpose except under the authority of an act of parliament.
The bishops of England have also jurisdiction to examine clerks who may be presented to benefices within their respective dioceses, and they are bound in each case by the 95th canon of 1604 to inquire and inform themselves of the sufficiency of each clerk within twenty-eight days, after which time, if they have not rejected him as insufficiently qualified, they are bound to institute him, or to license him, as the case may be, to the benefice, and thereupon to send their mandate to the archdeacon to induct him into the temporalities of the benefice. Where the bishop himself is patron of a benefice within his own diocese he is empowered to collate a clerk to it,—in other words, to confer it on the clerk without the latter being presented to him. Where the clerk himself is patron of the living, the bishop may institute him on his own petition. (See Benefice.)
As spiritual peers, bishops of the Church of England have (subject to the limitations stated below) seats in the House of Lords, though whether as barons or in their spiritual character has been a matter of dispute. The latter, however, would seem to be the case, since a bishop was entitled to his writ of summons after confirmation and before doing homage for his barony. Doubts having been raised whether a bishop of the Church of England, being a lord of parliament, could resign his seat in the Upper House, although several precedents to that effect are on record, a statute of the realm, which was confined to the case of the bishops of London and Durham, was passed in 1856, declaring that on the resignation of their sees being accepted by their respective metropolitans, those bishops should cease to sit as lords of parliament, and their sees should be filled up in the manner provided by law in the case of the avoidance of a bishopric. In 1869 the Bishops’ Resignation Act was passed. It provided that, on any bishop desiring to retire on account of age or incapacity, the sovereign should be empowered to declare the see void by an order in council, the retiring bishop or archbishop to be secured the use of the episcopal residence for life and a pension of one-third of the revenues of the see, or £2000, whichever sum should prove the larger. Other sections defined the proceedings for proving, in case of need, the incapacity of a bishop, provided for the appointment of coadjutors and defined their status (Phillimore i. 82).
In view of the necessity for increasing the episcopate in the 19th century and the objection to the consequent increase of the spiritual peers in the Upper House, it was finally enacted by the Bishoprics Act of 1878 that only the archbishops and the bishops of London, Winchester and Durham should be always entitled to writs summoning them to the House of Lords. The rest of the twenty-five seats are filled up, as a vacancy occurs, according to seniority of consecration.
Bishops of the Church of England rank in order of precedency immediately above barons. They may marry, but their wives as such enjoy no title or precedence. Bishops are addressed as “Right Reverend” and have legally the style of “Lord,” which, as in the case of Roman Catholic bishops in England, is extended to all, whether suffragans or holders of colonial bishoprics, by courtesy.
The insignia of the Anglican bishop are the rochet and the chimere, and the episcopal throne on the gospel side of the chancel of the cathedral church. The use of the mitre, pastoral staff and pectoral cross, which had fallen into complete disuse by the end of the 18th century, has been now very commonly, though not universally, revived; and, in some cases, the interpretation put upon the “Ornaments rubric” by the modern High Church school has led to a more complete revival of the pre-Reformation vestments.
In the Orthodox Church of the East and the various communions springing from it, the potestas ordinis of the bishop is the same as in the Western Church. Among his qualifications the most peculiar is that he must be unmarried, which, since the secular priests are compelled to marry, entails his belonging to the “black clergy” orOrthodox Eastern. monks. The insignia of an oriental bishop, with considerable variation in form, are essentially the same as those of the Catholic West.
Besides bishops presiding over definite sees, there have been from time immemorial in the Christian Church bishops holding their jurisdiction in subordination to the bishop of the diocese. (1) The oldest of these were the chorepiscopi (τῆς χώρας ἐπίσκοποι), i.e. country bishops, who were delegated by the bishops of the cities in the early Subordinate bishops. church to exercise jurisdiction in the remote towns and villages as these were converted from paganism. Their functions varied in different times and places, and by some it has been held that they were originally only presbyters. In any case, this class of bishops, which had been greatly curtailed in the East in A.D. 343 by the council of Laodicea, was practically extinct everywhere by the 10th century. It survived longest in Ireland, where in 1152 a synod, presided over by the papal legate, decreed that, after the death of the existing holders of the office, no more should be consecrated. Their place was taken by arch-presbyters and rural deans. (2) The Episcopi regionarii, or gentium, were simply missionary bishops without definite sees. Such were, at the outset, Boniface, the apostle of Germany, and Willibrord, the apostle of the Frisians. (3) Bishops in partibus infidelium were originally those who had been expelled from their sees by the pagans, and, while retaining their titles, were appointed to assist diocesan bishops in their work. In later times the custom arose of consecrating bishops for this purpose, or merely as an honorary distinction, with a title derived from some place once included within, but now beyond the bounds of Christendom. (4) Coadjutor bishops are such as are appointed to assist the bishop of the diocese when incapacitated by infirmity or by other causes from fulfilling his functions alone. Coadjutors in the early church were appointed with a view to their succeeding to the see; but this, though common in practice, is no longer the rule. In the Church of England the appointment and rights of coadjutor bishops were regulated by the Bishops’ Resignation Act of 1869. Under this act the coadjutor bishop has the right of succession to the see, or in the case of the archiepiscopal sees and those of London, Winchester and Durham, to the see vacated by the bishop, translated from another diocese to fill the vacancy. (5) Suffragan bishops (episcopi suffraganei or auxiliares) are those appointed to assist diocesan bishops in their pontifical functions when hindered by infirmity, public affairs or other causes. In the Roman Church the appointment of the suffragan rests with the pope, on the petition of the bishop, who must prove that such is the custom of the see, name a suitable priest and guarantee his maintenance. The suffragan is given a title in partibus, but never that of archbishop, and the same title is never given to two suffragans in succession. In the Church of England the status of suffragan bishops was regulated by the Act 26 Henry VIII. c. 14. Under this statute, which, after long remaining inoperative, was amended and again put into force by the Suffragans’ Nomination Act of 1888, every archbishop and bishop, being disposed to have a suffragan to assist him, may name two honest and discreet spiritual persons for the crown to give to one of them the title, name, style and dignity of a bishop of any one of twenty-six sees enumerated in the statute, as the crown may think convenient. The crown, having made choice of one of such persons, is empowered to present him by letters patent under the great seal to the metropolitan, requiring him to consecrate him to the same name, title, style and dignity of a bishop; and the person so consecrated is thereupon entitled to exercise, under a commission from the bishop who has nominated him, such authority and jurisdiction, within the diocese of such bishop, as shall be given to him by the commission, and no other.
The title of bishop survived the Reformation in certain of the Lutheran churches of the continent, in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Transylvania; it was temporarily restored in Prussia in 1701, for the coronation of King Frederick I., again between 1816 and 1840 by Frederick William III., and in Nassau in 1818. Lutheran churches.In these latter
