When someone says "Reformation," most people think of Martin Luther, the catalyst for the religious "protest" that evolved into what are now called Protestant churches. Henry VIII, King of England, had his share of disagreements with the Roman Catholic Church — not all of them purely religious — and he took this time of protest as an opportunity to make a break with the Pope. The Church of England was the result.
When English colonists founded Jamestown in 1607, they took their religious beliefs with them and established the first congregation of the Church of England in America. During these early days, there were only 20 Anglican churches serving 15,000 members in Virginia, and there were no bishops in the colonies. Since only bishops could ordain ministers, this exacerbated the problem.
With the onset of the Revolutionary War, American members of the Church of England had to make a choice. They didn't want to give up their religious beliefs, but they no longer wanted to swear allegiance to the King of England. The solution came at a General Convention in 1789, when the Protestant Episcopal Church was formed. The General Convention retained the religious practices they cherished, recognized the bishops ordained in Scotland and England, and standardized the requirements for the ordination of clergy independent of the Church of England.
