Head of the Church time of the English Reformation, Henry VIII took for himself the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England, which was theologically problematic; his daughter Elizabeth I changed this to Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Presbyterian system, codified in the Westminster Standards, outlines teaching elders (Ministers) and ruling elders, and courts presided over by Moderators sitting "primus inter pares", and gives practical effect to the concept of the equal status of all believers behind the one and only head of the church - Jesus Christ. This gives rise to the famous (or infamous) section of the
Religious views of George Washington an Anglican vestryman and warden for more than fifteen years when Virginia had an established church. Washington's great-great-grandfather, Lawrence Washington, was an Anglican rector in England. George Washington was baptized in infancy into the Church of England, which, until 1776, was the established church of Virginia. As the British monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and its clergy swear an Oath of Supremacy to the monarch, the American churches established the Episcopal Church after the American Revolution. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786) disestablished the Church, although it retained some lands which had been purchased with