Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America was an Anglican Christian denomination which existed from 1861 to 1865. It was formed by Southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States during the American Civil War. When the Southern states seceded from the Union and established the Confederate States of America, it was not unusual for Christian churches to split along national lines also. The Episcopalians were different as their separation was made only after the Confederacy was created and ended within six months of the South's surrender when Southern Episcopalians reunited with their counterparts in the North.

Although the General Convention of the Episcopal Church was held in Richmond, Virginia in 1859 during the controversy over John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Southern states did not begin to secede from the Union for another year. Beginning with the secession of South Carolina in December 1860, Southern dioceses struggled over the issue of their status in the Episcopal Church. The first diocese to separate was that of Louisiana, whose bishop Leonidas Polk issued a proclamation on January 30, 1861, stating, "The State of Louisiana having, by a formal ordinance, through her Delegates in Convention assembled, withdrawn herself from all further connection with the United States of America, and constituted herself a separate Sovereignty, has, by that act, removed our Diocese from within the pale of 'The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States'". Although other bishops disagreed with Polk's view that actions of civil authorities could automatically sever a diocese's relationship with the wider church, the Southern bishops agreed that a separation existed, even if a division might not. The southern bishops also maintained that this was a separation forced upon them by the changing political realities.

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