A cathedral

Some of our British blogger friends have recently posted pictures of cathedrals in their neighborhoods. Jennyfreckles posted on York Minster  and John "By Stargoose and Hanglands" posted on Ely Cathedral. These great stone buildings, dating from the middle ages, are lasting monuments to the faith and awe that a people gave to their deity. The cathedral above, however, is more modest and centuries newer. For people from other religious traditions, it poses the question "just what makes a church a cathedral?"

To most Americans, a cathedral is a huge stone church in Europe or Washington, D.C. But there's more to it. A cathedral is a church that contains a Cathedra, the chair that represents the seat of authority for a Bishop. Thus, the cathedral church is the seat of a diocese, the home base for a Bishop. Technically, only churches that have an episcopal polity can then have a cathedral (i.e., you can't have a cathedral without also having a bishop), although there are churches in Europe that were cathedrals before the Protestant Reformation that retain that title even though they now belong to Presbyterian or Congregational churches.

The church above is a diocesan cathedral for the Episcopal Missionary Church, an offshoot of the mainline Episcopal Church in the United States. It is one of several denominations of conservative Christians that broke with the U.S. Episcopal church over the 1976 ordination of women to the priesthood, the 1979 revision to the Book of Common Prayer, or the consecration of an openly-gay bishop in 2003. These denominations are not members of the Anglican Communion (i.e., in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury) but many have aligned themselves with certain Anglican provinces, primarily located in Africa. Many continue to use the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.