Episcopal polity Apostle. Currently the bishops of the Assyrian Church of the East continue to maintain its apostolic succession. Anglicanism is the most prominent of the Reformation traditions to lay claim to the historic episcopate through apostolic succession in terms comparable to the various Roman Catholic and Orthodox Communions. Anglicans assert unbroken episcopal succession in and through the Church of England back to St. Augustine of Canterbury and to the first century Roman province of Britannia. While some Celtic Christian practices were changed at the Synod of Whitby, the church in the British Isles was under papal authority from earliest times. The
Episcopal polity bishops came to be seen in their more traditional role as ones who delegate to the presbyterate inherited powers, act as pastors to presbyters, and holding a particular teaching office with respect to the wider church. Anglican opinion has differed as to the way in which episcopal government is "de jure divino" (by the Divine Right of Kings). On the one hand, the seventeenth century divine, John Cosin, held that episcopal authority is "jure divino", but that it stemmed from "apostolic practice and the customs of the Church...[not] absolute precept that either Christ or His Apostles gave about it" (a