PARISH IS THE BASIC UNIT OF THE CHURCH IN AMERICAN ANGLICANISM
Serious Challenges Face American Anglicanism: On What Principles Will a New Order Be Shaped?
By Rev. Dr. Tim Smith
2007/10/27

Summary Points
The Parish is the basic unit of the church in American Anglicanism. Local property rights prevailed throughout early American Anglicanism. Centralization of control using the corporate model which began to be used in the early 1900s - has failed the purposes of the Church. Any new order should return to the foundational roots of American Anglicanism.

Introduction
In the life of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA), the basic unit has historically been the local parish. With the parish being - and not the diocese or the national church - the basic unit of the church in the United States, property rights of the lands and buildings of a parish from the inception of ECUSA were held by the local church which had purchased those lands and constructed those buildings. the rest at Virtueonline