The full name of the church created in 1789 is the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, where “Protestant” means not owing allegiance to the Pope and “Episcopal” means governed by bishops. In essence, it is a church with few rock-hard obligations. Episcopalianism seeks to point out, not dictate, the individual’s response to God. Because its founders were the very men who had framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the church they initiated carries a structure similar to that of the United States government, where the decisions of the parishioners take primacy through their elected church leaders. But regardless of American Episcopalianism’s unique identity, many of its traditions have root in its cousin Scottish Episcopalianism, in its mother Anglicanism (with which the American Episcopal Church formally reconciled in 1886 by proposing the worldwide Anglican Communion), and in its grandparent Catholicism, making it a faith that's instantly recognizable to worshipers from other backgrounds.