The Parish is the basic ecclesial entity - in the Church of England too

http://www.anglican-mainstream.net/index.php/2007/11/02/the-parish-is-the-basic-ecclesial-entity-in-the-church-of-england-too/

[Anglican Mainstream] 3 Nov 2007-- do not think it is accurate to contrast the Anglicanism of the Church of England and that of PECUSA in the way which is claimed by Tim Smith and George Conger, quoting Loveland. It should be remembered that Article XIX was written for the Church of England as a theological description of its church life, consistent with the parish system developed in England since the Norman Conquest. In a mediaeval world of slow communications and enormous dioceses, the basic unit of church life was undoubtedly the parish, focused on the priest in whom the real property of the parish as well as the cure of souls was vested - and still is. He was known as the Parson, the legal persona or corporation around whom the local structure revolved. The diocese, the defined geographical area of the bishop’s jurisdiction, did not then and does not now exist as a legal entity.

The Church of England parish has, since the middle ages, surrendered more and more of its endowments and property to those who have cast covetous eyes upon the provision made by previous generations for the support of a priest. The fact that the majority of such incumbents are Vicars rather than Rectors illustrates the extent to which the income of parishes was steadily (mis)appropriated by patrons - squires, monasteries, Oxbridge colleges and the Crown. But the principle of local parish government, and Article XIX’s description of church life as a congregation in which the ministry of Word and Sacrament was faithfully ministered, remains almost universally the experience of members of the Church of England, with the exception of cathedral congregations, which more regularly receive the liturgical ministry of their bishops.