Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia The Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (TEC). It encompasses all 55 counties of West Virginia. The diocese has 66 congregations, including 38 parishes, 26 missions, and 2 other churches. The diocese is headquartered in Charleston and led by the Rt. Rev. W. Michie Klusmeyer who was consecrated as its bishop diocesan in 2001. Ministry of the Church of England and its successor, the Protestant Episcopal Church, developed slowly in what is now West Virginia. The 1784 disestablishment of the Church of England
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