Each of the several parishes which compose a diocese consists of a greater or less number of lay-people, united under one pastor and occupying certain fixed and well-known territorial limits. Its organic principle is usually a written constitution; and its organic life is manifested through a body of vestrymen, to whom the management of its parochial affairs is entrusted.
With the exception that the church possesses no chief executive, corresponding to the President of the United States, her organic system is almost identical with the political order of the government under which she lives.
The general convention of the church is composed of two houses, a house of bishops and a house of clerical and lay deputies. The house of bishops consists of all the bishops of the various dioceses, as members _ex officio_. The house of deputies consists of four delegates--two clerical and two lay--from each diocese, appointed in diocesan convention. A concurrence of both orders in the lower house, and of both houses, is necessary to a vote of the convention. [Footnote 50]
[Footnote 50: See Constitution, appendix to _Journal_ of 1865, arts. 2 and 3.]
The convention of each diocese is composed of the clergy, canonically resident within its limits, and of a certain number of lay-deputies, appointed by the various congregations of which the diocese consists.
The vestrymen of each parish are elected annually by the people.
In each of these three bodies the lay element possesses the virtual supremacy. In general convention, no law can be enacted, no lax discipline can be reformed, no erroneous doctrine can be corrected, without the express acquiescence of the lay-deputies. In the diocesan convention, no bishop can be elected, no delegates to the general convention can be appointed, and no local diocesan regulations can be established, until the laity agree. In the parish, no pastor can be called, no church-building be erected, no regular order be determined, while the people withhold their permission. And though, upon the face of it, this power may seem to be entirely negative, yet it is not so; for, in the right to choose their pastors and convention-delegates, the real control of the diocesan conventions, and, through these, of their bishops and the general convention, is placed ultimately in their hands, and, whenever they might choose to organize for such a purpose, a single generation would suffice to overturn the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the church itself.