Bishops cope badly with fast taking lives (10)

'bishops cope badly with fast taking lives' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.

'cope badly with fast taking lives' is the wordplay.
'badly' is an anagram indicator.
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'fast' becomes 'pacy' (I've seen this before**).
'taking' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'lives' becomes 'is' ('be' can be a synonym of 'live').
'cope' with letters rearranged gives '[cope]'.
'[cope]'+'pacy'='epcopacy'
'epcopacy' placed around 'is' is 'EPISCOPACY'.

Can you help me to learn more?