no parish has the right to elect its own rector.
The rector is usually appointed by some institution or individual
vested with that authority which is called "the advowson of a parish."

Moreover, no diocese in the Established Church of England has the power
to select its own bishop. The King as temporal head of the Church
appoints the bishops of all dioceses, and that power is exercised for
the King by his prime minister. And during the colonial period in
America the Governor of every colony other than Virginia and
Pennsylvania appointed the rector of every Anglican parish and inducted
him into office.

In Virginia the vestries of the parishes fought Governor after Governor
until they won the right for the vestry itself to choose the minister
to serve in its parish. That right has extended throughout the
Episcopal Church today and has gone further so that today the laity of
the Church have the right to representation in all diocesan conventions
and councils, and in the general convention of the Church. Thus the
laity have their part in every election of a clergyman to become the
bishop of a diocese.

In the seventeenth century the General Assembly also put into effect in
Virginia the constitutions and canons of the province of Canterbury "as
far as they can be put into effect in this country." The General
Assembly thereby made the "doctrine, discipline and worship" of the
Anglican Church of England that of the Church in Virginia as far as it
could be done without a bishop.

That was as far as the General Assembly could go. Throughout all the
seventeenth century the Established Church of Virginia consisted of a
group of parishes without connection with each other and without
central spiritual authority. There was therefore no actual power of
discipline, either of clergymen or laymen.

The situation was made all the more difficult because there was no sure
way to secure ministers. When a parish became vacant some layman in the
parish would have to write to his business agent in England, or to some
friend or relative there and ask that he find a clergyman who would
come to Virginia. Parishes, when they became vacant, remained vacant as
a rule for a year or more; sometimes very much more. The vestries early
adopted the custom of appointing godly laymen as readers whose duty it
was to assist the minister by leading the congregation in the responses
in the Church service, and in raising tunes for the singing of metrica