Religion: Episcopal Archbishop

The Rt. Rev. James De Wolf Perry, Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U. S., reached London last fortnight to attend the Lambeth Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion (TIME, July 14). Last week Bishop Perry had a talk with the most Rev. Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of All England, ecclesiastical head of the Church of England.* The Archbishop told the Bishop something exalting: the Church of England has formally decided to recognize the Protestant Episcopal Church as the first Colonial Branch of the Mother Church, and to promote the Presiding Bishop from sixteenth place in the Anglican hierarchy to the seventh. Henceforth in Anglican processions Bishop Perry and his successors in office will march after the personages representing Canterbury, York, Armagh, Dublin, Brechin, Wales. The Protestant Episcopal Church so far has had no eminent title of archbishop. But in England last week, laity were addressing Presiding Bishop Perry as “Most Reverend,” the archiepiscopal designation.

*The King (“Defender of the Faith”) Secular head of the Church of England.