Definition of "episcopacy" [e•pis•co•pa•cy]

• See episcopate. (noun)
• A system of church government in which bishops are the chief clerics. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "That the Southern Baptist Convention has in the last few decades morphed into a quasi-episcopacy is only one of the many cruel ironies of the history of populism in this country. bullfighter Says:"
• "I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles."
• "Magnesians, in that edition, calling episcopacy neōterikēn taxin, plainly intimating a comparative novelty in that order to others in the churches, and fearing (as well he might) that his translation of neōterikē taxis into"