Entry Category: Faiths and Denominations - Starting with E

The Ecumenical Catholic Communion (ECC) is an independent Catholic denomination, not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, with congregations in the United States and Europe. The denomination remains comparatively small, especially in Arkansas, where it is represented by only one church. However, the Arkansas congregation was one of the earliest developed in the denomination’s history. The ECC grew out of the independent St. Matthew’s Church, founded in Orange County, California, in 1985. This church was started by Peter Hickman, who had originally been ordained as a Baptist minister but later found himself drawn to Roman Catholic liturgical practices. He eventually was ordained a priest in the Old Catholic tradition, which split from the Roman church following the First Vatican …

The Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas encompasses the geographic boundaries of the state of Arkansas. The diocese is composed of twenty-four self-sustaining parishes and thirty-one mission churches overseen by the Bishop of Arkansas. The bishop is assisted in pastoral work by approximately 100 ordained clergy, including priests and deacons both active and retired. In 2023, the Episcopal Church in Arkansas had approximately 13,000 members who were subsequently part of the more than 1.5-million-member Episcopal Church in the United States and the eighty-million-member worldwide Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church’s Beginnings in Arkansas In 1835, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dealt with how to evangelize the American West. It established three large missionary districts encompassing all territories …