On the Church of England

The Eighth Sunday after Trinity

O GOD, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Whereas last week’s entry spoke to the origins of the Ecclesia Anglicana, the English Church, this week’s entry takes place in the 16th century, discussing the ending of communion between the English Church and Rome and the origin of the modern Church of England.

While the history of the English Church is relatively unknown in popular terms, particularly among non-Anglicans who focus purely on the idea of King Henry VIII replacing the pope as the head of the church in order to grant himself a divorce, it is at least relatively straight forward. The same cannot be said for the true history behind the English Church’s break with Rome and subsequent development into the modern Church of England and Anglican Communion. One of the reasons for this is that this portion of the Church of England’s history mixes together influences of both theology and politics.

The history of Christianity is replete with politics interfering with the governance of the Church, dating back to the early 4th century when the legalization of Christianity allowed early Christians, and their leaders, to focus on more than merely their own survival. Emperor Constantine the Great himself called the Council of Nicaea as a way of hopefully resolving some of the debates which had sprung up among the bishops throughout the Empire, and in doing so established the beginning of a precedent of civil interference in religious matters, a precedent which was not lost on many of the bishops who attended the council. In following years, the pro-Arian Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia used his influence with Emperor Constantine to attack various anti-Arian bishops including Saint Athanasius and have them exiled. He further exerted influence with the Emperor to appoint Arian clergy and promote Arian doctrines in the Church in opposition to the Nicene Creed and Trinitarian formula that had been adopted by the Council of Nicaea.

The political influence of the Pope has a long history that dates back to the 4th century when the Roman Empire began to be split. Rome, Antioch and Alexandria were among the foremost cities in the Empire (to which was later added Constantinople). While Rome was originally the capital, under Constantine and subsequent Emperors, the capital was moved and the Empire often split between the leadership of a number of co-leaders. For many years, then, the Bishop of Rome was the senior most authority in Rome, and the Roman people looked to him not simply for spiritual leadership, but civic leadership as well. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the Bishop’s authority grew even greater as civic authority was disbanded. The powerful Roman Bishop easily moved into the vacuum created by the fall of the Western Empire, and over the centuries the religious and civic authority of the Pope was solidified to the point where in the 16th century the Pope was not just the leader of Western Christianity, but his own state and quite often a well-heeded advisor of numerous European monarchs.

Other examples are found of political influence in every era of the church. By the 16th century, however, perhaps the best example of this confluence of religion and politics was the Pope himself, who was not merely the head of the Catholic Church, but also the Head of State of the Papal States and an important political player in European statecraft. Pope Leo X had allied himself with King Henry and his allies a number of times over the years. Notably, perhaps, in exchange for a sum of money to support Leo’s ambitions of obtaining political authority for his relatives in the tumultuous Italian peninsula, Leo joined the Papal forces in an alliance with Spain and England against France. Ultimately, with Henry’s financial support for a military campaign, Leo’s nephew was confirmed as the Duke of Urbino.

It was under Pope Leo X that Martin Luther initiated what would become the Protestant Reformation. While the Reformation is perhaps best remembered today for opening the way to major theological expansion, Luther’s original goals were more limited to the reform of abuses being perpetrated by the Roman Church and by various clerics under Roman authority, most notably concerning the practice of indulgences. Indulgences were a form of remission of temporal punishment associated with an already forgiven sin. It was associated with alms during the early church, but as the practice grew in popularity during the medieval period, it became little more than a tax used to support various projects including the rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica by Pope Leo X, which ultimately prompted Luther’s opposition.

Luther published his famous Ninety-Five Theses protesting various abuses of the Roman Church, sparking the Protestant Reformation. Pope Leo X’s response was to reject Luther’s demands for reform, and in this he was supported by his political ally King Henry VIII who, for his support of the Pope, was awarded the title Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) by Pope Leo X just prior to his death in December 1521.

It was under Pope Clement VII that communion between Rome and England ended. By 1527 Henry was becoming so concerned with the failure of his wife, Catherine of Aragon, to bear him a male heir that he took the matter to Pope Clement VII asking for an annulment on the basis of Leviticus 20. 21. At the time, however, Rome was besieged by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and nephew of Catherine of Aragon. Faced with the political pressure of Charles’ sacking of Rome in May 1527, Clement VII refused Henry’s request and a number of subsequent requests for an annulment. Over the course of the next three years it became clear to Henry and his advisors that no annulment would be forthcoming.

The politics of Pope Clement VII were making him an unreliable ally to the still staunchly Catholic Henry VIII. Papal supremacy was looking less like the spiritual primacy of the Bishop of Rome, and more like the political supremacy of a foreign and not necessarily friendly or reliable European state leader. In 1532, with the political support of King Francis I of France, Henry married Anne Boleyn and by the next year had his marriage and annulment of his marriage Catherine of Aragon recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. When news of the marriage reached Pope Clement VII, he excommunicated both Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer from the Roman Catholic Church. Over the next few years and with Henry’s support, the English Parliament passed a number of laws that redefined the relationship between the Pope and the English crown and state, curbing the Pope’s political authority in England.

The 1534 Act of Supremacy marks the full break of the English Church with Rome, declaring the King to be the supreme head of the Church of England. Supremacists argued that the Pope’s actions were being dictated by civil and political considerations rather than religion, and thus if the Church of England was to have a civil authority over it, it should rightly be an English, and not foreign, one. It should be noted that while there had been a political divorce from Roman authority, Henry VIII remained dogmatically inclined to Rome and following a visit by a number of Lutheran theologians in 1538, Henry had Parliament pass the Act of Six Articles, a precursor to the current Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which maintained complete orthodoxy with Roman Catholic belief.

The Church of England’s independence from Rome stemmed from Reformation issues, but rather than being based in theology, it dealt primarily with abuses of political authority rather than religious authority. The Roman Catholic Church, in its counter-reformation Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, recognized these issues explicitly with respect to indulgences, defending the theological value of indulgences while condemning the temporal abuses through the sale of indulgences. The Act of Supremacy is often cited as the start of the English Reformation, a period of significant instability in England. Not everyone accepted the King’s actions, and not everyone supported Henry’s retention of Roman Catholic doctrine. To this day, Henry VIII is not commemorated in the Anglican Communion. It would take until the Restoration in the 1660s before the issues of doctrine had been finally settled to the point where they would be able to remain intact to the present day and the current formulation of the Church of England would become recognizable with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion published therein.