Christian Episcopal Church Davies, with John Elbridge Hines as one of the principal consecrators. Bishop Hines had himself been consecrated the fifth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas in 1945, and was later elected the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. In 1992, following years of controversy in the Episcopal Church in the USA and the Anglican Church of Canada over what conservative members considered a steady drift towards both political and religious liberalism, the Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) was founded. Although this was fifteen years after the Congress of St. Louis at which Anglicans from
Episcopal polity presbyterian form, except that their councils of bishops have hierarchical jurisdiction over the local ruling bodies to a greater extent than in most Presbyterian and other Reformed churches. As mentioned, the Lutheran Church in Sweden and Finland are exceptions, claiming apostolic succession in a pattern somewhat like the Anglican churches. Otherwise, forms of polity are not mandated in the Lutheran churches, as it is not regarded as having doctrinal significance. Old World Lutheranism, for historical reasons, has tended to adopt Erastian theories of episcopal authority (by which church authority is to a limited extent sanctioned by secular government). In the