THe Methodist Episcopal church is no relation to what we think of as the Episcopal church. Rather, "Episcopal" denotes the fact that the Methodist Church is "episcopalian" in its organization--with bishops and conferences, etc. My local associate pastor likes to say that Methodists are more "episcopalian" than the Episcopalians. I believe that some examples are that local churches are not owned locally, but are owned by the conferences; bishops assign the ministers rather than local churches hiring them (although the local churches do a have a say); , etc. Here is a web page setting forth the organizational structure of the current United Methodist Church: http://www.umc.org/abouttheumc/organization/ Now, tracing how Methodism evolved from the Wesley brothers' Holy Club to various denominations and names such as the Methodist Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; the African MEthodist Episcopal Church; the Methodist Episcopal Church, Zion; and so forth, takes a more in-depth reading of its history. If you lump all Baptists of every stripe together, they are the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, with Methodist second. If you separate out the various Baptist denominations and the various Methodist denominations, then the denomination known as the "United Methodist Church" is the largest U.S. Protestant denomination. But that statement is disputed by those who say you cannot separate out,say, the Baptists from the Southern Baptists, and the Bible Baptists, etc. Much of the splits in the Methodist church came about over slaveholding. John Wesley was opposed to slaveholding, and the church for the most part--even in the South--was also opposed. But a thorny problem arose. A Bishop in Georgia married a woman who inherited slaves. Under Georgia law, they could not free the slaves. They were stuck holding the slaves unless they moved from Georgia. But he was the Georgia Bishop and wished to remain there. I think it was around 1844 that the church split over the issue of whether the bishop had to be removed because of his wife's inherited slaves. It was a northern bishop who actually led the move in favor of upholding the Georgia Bishop's right to remain a bishop--on the grounds of some parliamentary and MEthodist constitutional procedure, and not on the moral grounds of slaveholding itself. I of course find MEthodist history fascinating and could go on and on, but as Mary notes, I formed the Methodist-L list and the MEthodist Genealogical Society to have a larger forum for these issues and others affecting our Methodist ancestors. For more on the history of Methodism, I highly recommend going to this web page: http://www.drew.edu/books/200Years/200UM/homepage.htm Elizabeth DuBois Russo Maryd0318@aol.com wrote: > > Elizabeth....I also think someone inquired about the difference between > Methodist Episcopal and Methodist....thought maybe you might know?????