Micah D. Long is a lay catechist, student, teacher, and great books enthusiast. He received his BA in Humanities from The King's College, studied at The Polis Institute, and is currently completing an MA in Theology at Wheaton College, where his research has focused the Ante-Nicene fathers, the early Christian kerygma, the atonement, and the doctrine of the Trinity. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife and two daughters, and attends St. Aidan's Anglican Church.
Introduction Many Anglicans, seeking to defend their episcopal polity as the one ordained by Christ and the apostles and as most fitting to the church, appeal to the polity’s long provenance within church history. From Ignatius of Antioch in the early second century until the Protestant Reformation, the threefold structure of bishops, presbyters, and deacons…