unchurch

The nonconformists noted that he did not unchurch them but were not happy with his plea that they recognize bishops to be essential to the Church.

In the sixteenth century a solid body of Anglican opinion emerged which saw the theological importance of the historic episcopate but refused to 'unchurch' those churches which did not retain it.

Here was an Anglo-Catholic who insisted on the apostolic succession of bishops, and thought intercommunion between the Churches, before a proper union, to be wrong, and yet refused to unchurch the Protestant Churches.