Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion is a world-wide organisation of Anglican Churches. More information on the web is available at
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/.

Technically it is not possible to speak of The Anglican Church as a whole; it is better referred to as the Anglican Communion, which consists of national churches in communion with the Church of England - some of these churches are known as Anglican, others call themselves Episcopalian. The ultimate head of any Anglican church is the Primate, head of the church at the national level. There are also a number of denominations which are not in communion with the Church of England but consider themselves Anglican in doctrine.

A brief discussion of the decentralised nature of worldwide Anglicanism is at http://anglican.org/church/NoCentral.html

"The Episcopal [or Anglican] Church has a long tradition, and over that time has inherited, created, or retained many words that might not be familiar...These special terms, though confusing at first, are part of [the church's] rich heritage."

Very comprehensive information on Anglican vocabulary is available here (http://www.gshep.org/information/vocabulary.htm).