The Episcopal Church
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50 free The Episcopal Church trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Episcopal Church is one of the oldest denominations in the United States and one of the most quietly influential. It grew out of the Church of England, had to reinvent itself after the American Revolution, and has since counted presidents, poets, soldiers and civil rights heroes among its members. This quiz covers the whole story. There are questions on the church's history, from the first colonial parish to the first women priests and bishops; on how it is governed and what it believes; on the Eucharist and the objects used at the altar; on the church year and its customs; and on the symbols found on its flag and worn by its bishops. A few famous buildings and one well-known boarding school make an appearance too. It is written for Episcopalians who want to test themselves, for youth groups and newcomers' classes, and for anyone curious about the tradition. The questions run from easy to demanding, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Star Wars villain, drawn by a child for a contest, is carved on Washington National Cathedral?
Darth Vader
Darth Vader glares from high on a tower because Christopher Rader's sketch took third place in a 1980s National Geographic World competition for new grotesques.
Q 02Which Apollo-era object sits at the centre of the Space Window in Washington National Cathedral?
A Moon rock
A Moon rock was presented for the window in 1974, on the fifth anniversary of Apollo 11; it may be the most familiar of the cathedral's two hundred or more stained glass windows.
Q 03Which Episcopal bishop preached at the 2018 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle?
Michael Curry
Michael Curry was the first African American to lead the Episcopal Church, chosen as Presiding Bishop on the first ballot in 2015.
Q 04Which Founding Father, killed in an 1804 duel, is buried at Trinity Church on Wall Street?
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton shares the churchyard with his wife Eliza, his sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler Church and the tailor-spy Hercules Mulligan.
Q 05Which president served as senior warden of an Episcopal church in Hyde Park while in office?
Franklin Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt worshipped at St. James' from boyhood, and his parents and four of his children lie in its churchyard, a few miles from the family estate.
Q 06Which Boston landmark, still an Episcopal parish, showed two lanterns for Paul Revere's ride?
Old North Church
Old North Church is the oldest church building still standing in Boston, and its tower holds the oldest change-ringing bells on the continent, cast in 1744.
Q 07Who preached at Washington National Cathedral in 1968 on the final Sunday before he was killed?
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke from the cathedral's carved stone pulpit on 31 March 1968, and a memorial service for him was held in the same building days later.
Q 08Which future presidential nominee graduated from Episcopal High School in Virginia in 1954?
John McCain
John McCain excelled at wrestling there before following his father and grandfather to the Naval Academy; the boarding school opened in 1839 as the first high school in the state.
Q 09Which poet credited with A Visit from St. Nicholas gave land for an Episcopal seminary?
Clement Clarke Moore
Clement Clarke Moore handed over the apple orchard of his family's Chelsea estate in Manhattan for the campus, then taught Oriental and Greek literature there.
Q 10Which Supreme Court justice who argued Brown v. Board of Education has an Episcopal feast day?
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall is remembered on 17 May, the date of the Brown ruling, and once walked out of a national church meeting that refused to back defiance of segregation laws.
Q 11Which clergyman, consecrated in Scotland in 1784, became the first Episcopal bishop?
Samuel Seabury
Samuel Seabury could not swear the oath of allegiance to the Crown that English law demanded, so three bishops consecrated him in a house in Aberdeen instead.
Q 12The first eleven women ordained Episcopal priests, in 1974, are known by the name of which city?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia's Church of the Advocate hosted the irregular service on 29 July 1974, two years before the church's lawmakers formally opened the priesthood to women.
Q 13Which man born into slavery in Delaware became the first African American Episcopal priest in 1802?
Absalom Jones
Q 21Which English city is the seat of the archbishop traditionally seen as the Anglican Communion's spiritual head?
Canterbury
Canterbury's archbishop is called first among equals: a focus of unity with no formal authority over Anglican churches outside England, the Episcopal Church included.
Q 22Episcopalians picture authority as a three-legged stool: scripture, tradition and which third leg?
Reason
Reason completes the image, which is often credited to the Elizabethan theologian Richard Hooker even though the attribution is mistaken.
Q 23What do Episcopalians call the elected lay board that runs a parish's finances with the clergy?
Vestry
Vestry was first the name of the room where clergy robes are kept, and it passed to the parish meetings traditionally held there.
Absalom Jones bought his wife's freedom before his own, so that their children would be born free, and founded the first Black Episcopal congregation in 1794.
Q 14Who was consecrated in Boston in 1989 as the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion?
Barbara Harris
Barbara Harris received death threats before the service, so a contingent of Boston police was assigned to guard it.
Q 15Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead the Episcopal Church, trained in which science?
Oceanography
Oceanography earned her a master's and a doctorate at Oregon State University before she was ordained in 1994, and she is also an instrument-rated pilot.
Q 16Which openly gay priest did the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire elect as its bishop in 2003?
Gene Robinson
Gene Robinson was the first openly gay priest consecrated a bishop in the Anglican tradition, and death threats meant he had to wear a bulletproof vest.
Q 17Which co-founder of the National Organization for Women became an Episcopal priest in 1977?
Pauli Murray
Pauli Murray, a civil rights lawyer, was the first African American woman ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, and in 2024 her portrait was struck on a US quarter.
Q 18Which reformer, burned at the stake under Mary I, compiled the first Book of Common Prayer?
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer had signed recantations before his execution, then renounced them and declared that the hand which wrote them would be burnt first.
Q 19Under which monarch did the Church of England, parent of the Episcopal Church, break with the Pope?
Henry VIII
Henry VIII had asked Rome to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon; when that failed, Parliament declared him Supreme Head of the English church in 1534.
Q 20In which Virginia settlement was the first Anglican parish in America founded in 1607?
Jamestown
Jamestown held its first services outdoors under an old sail tied to trees, and the brick church tower later built there is the last structure standing from its years as Virginia's capital.
Q 24Which Episcopal body meets every three years as a House of Bishops and a House of Deputies?
General Convention
General Convention is the church's lawmaking body, and every diocese is entitled to send four clergy and four lay people as its deputies.
Q 25Episcopal comes from the Greek episkopos, the root of the word bishop, which literally means what?
Overseer
Overseer is the literal sense, and the same Greek word reached English as bishop by way of Latin episcopus and Old English biscop.
Q 26The Episcopal Church approved full communion in 2000 with a bishop-led church of which tradition?
Lutheran
Lutheran and Episcopal churches now recognise each other's members, ministers and sacraments, under an agreement that passed only after an earlier version narrowly failed.
Q 27Which gathering of Anglican bishops, held about every ten years, is named after a London palace?
Lambeth Conference
Lambeth Conference resolutions have never carried the force of church law, and only seventy-six bishops accepted the invitation to the first meeting in 1867.
Q 28Which Latin phrase do Episcopalians use for Anglicanism's place between Rome and Puritanism?
Via media
Via media is Latin for the middle way, a label made popular in the 1800s for a tradition that seeks balance between opposite poles.
Q 29Which fourth-century statement of faith do Episcopalians recite at most Eucharistic services?
Nicene Creed
The Nicene Creed was first adopted at the Council of Nicaea, which the emperor Constantine called in 325, and was expanded at Constantinople in 381.
Q 30Which Anglican statement of doctrine, finalised in 1571, did the Episcopal Church adopt in 1801?
Thirty-nine Articles
The Thirty-nine Articles began as just Ten Articles in 1536 and went through at least five major revisions before reaching their final form.