On Anglicanism

The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

GRANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as be rightful; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Anglicanism, in its modern form, did not appear as an identity immediately upon the independence of the English Church from Rome under Henry VIII. Henry VIII remained staunchly Catholic in doctrine, as evidenced by the Act of Six Articles which professed decidedly Roman Catholic views on a number of issues being addressed in the Reformation. While the monarch was decidedly Catholic in view, many of the clergy in the Church of England welcomed the reformation theologies, notably Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. It would take over a century of religious strife between different groups of Protestants and Roman Catholics before we would see the emergency of an identifiable Anglicanism by the latter half of the 17th century which could be associated with modern Anglicanism.

The Church of England remained officially Roman Catholic in doctrine until the death of Henry VIII in 1547. He was succeeded by his son Edward VI who took the throne at the age of nine and died at the age of fifteen. His entire reign was controlled by a regency, which allowed for church leaders like Thomas Cranmer to implement reformation theology in the Church of England. Though he was not of the age of majority, Edward VI had an interest in religion, and having been raised as a protestant (having been born after the Act of Supremacy and his father’s excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church) and largely supported Cranmer and the other reformers. It was during Edward VI’s reign that the first Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549.

Upon his death, Mary I took the throne. A staunch Roman Catholic, she initiated a persecution of Protestants in England, repealed protestant laws and initiated a reconciliation with Pope Julius III. Some 280 protestant reformers were executed under the Marian persecution, including Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. Another 800 Protestants escaped the persecution by entering into exile on the continent in primarily protestant countries in the north.

After only four years on the throne, Mary I died of influenza and was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I. Elizabeth, like Edward VI, was a protestant reformer who established a religious settlement that managed to appease both Roman Catholics and puritan Protestants. The settlement lasted throughout Elizabeth’s reign, though it did not appease Rome itself. In 1570, Pope St Pius V issued a papal bull declaring Elizabeth a pretender to the throne (in favour of Mary Queen of Scots), a heretic and excommunicated any Britons who followed her. The bull provoked greater suspicion towards Catholics on the part of Protestants. It did not help that the bull called on Elizabeth to be overthrown, leading to plots to kill her and install Mary, Queen of Scots in her place. Elizabeth had previously allowed private Roman Catholic worship under the Settlement however the bull caused a crackdown on Catholics in England.

At the time of Queen Elizabeth’s death, the Church of England was the only official church in England. Roman Catholics were at different points allowed to worship in private, though there were no public Roman Catholic churches. Within the Church of England, however, there were numerous emerging identifications. A number of Protestants who had fled to the continent during the Marian persecutions adopted more radical continental Protestantism. Upon their return to England under the reign of Elizabeth, they became identified as Puritans, and advocated further reform within the Church of England, though their direct influence in the Church was legally limited. The middle way between those who either secretly or privately maintained allegiance to Rome and the Puritans had come to identify themselves as Anglicans by the time of Elizabeth’s death. They maintained some Catholic practices along-side the reformed theology embodied in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer.

The remainder of the 17th century would largely be characterised by a theological conflict between the Anglicans, who were satisfied with the Elizabethan Settlement, and the Puritans who sought to enforce further reforms. This tension would be one of the leading causes of the English Civil War which led to the establishment of the English Commonwealth during the Interregnum and the Restoration, which saw the publication of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the Glorious Revolution of Parliament. While these events would see continued struggles between the three groups, but the end of the 17th century, a form of religious toleration was put in place whereby Catholics were banned from numerous public positions, but otherwise allowed to continue the private practice of their religion. Anglicans gained completely control of the Church of England and their ‘middle way’ values became the established doctrine of the Church to the exclusion of the Puritans and other protestant groups. While Anglicans controlled the Church of England, it came at the expense of a religious plurality in England. Presbyterians, Anabaptists and other protestant groups continued to exist outside of the Church of England.

For the 17th and 18th centuries, there remained a strong Protestant and anti-Roman Catholic influence on the Church of England, in particular in relation to its practices and forms of worship, but the formularies and doctrines of the Church had been established. The Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal of 1662 and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion bear witness to the Anglican interpretation of Christian truth, alongside the ecumenical creeds, revealed through Holy Scripture.

These formularies would be exported abroad, for instance to the Church of England in Canada which was renamed the Anglican Church of Canada in 1955, and would thus form the core doctrine of the entire worldwide Anglican Communion.

Today, Anglicanism encompasses a wide variety of theological and liturgical perspectives, of which Anglo-Catholicism is one. Commonly, the Church is divided along three lines: High Churchmanship, Low Churchmanship and Broad Churchmanship. These perspectives, and the theological perspectives held by significant numbers of Anglicans can often trace their roots to influences from the time of Elizabeth through to the restoration. Anglicanism sits aside a broad religious plurality that includes all forms for Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, while the Church of England itself remains the established church of England.