Church of England

I

Introduction

Church of England, term used, in its general sense, to refer to the various traditions that have together constituted the Christian Church in England, dating from the introduction of Christianity into that country. More specifically, it is the branch of the Christian Church that, since the Reformation, has been the established Church of England, and that is now a major world Christian denomination under the titular headship of the monarch. The earliest unquestioned historical evidence of an organized Christian Church in England is found in the writings of such early Christian fathers as Tertullian and Origen in the first years of the 3rd century, although the first Christian communities probably were established some decades earlier. Three English bishops are known to have been present at the Council of Arles in 314. Others attended the Council of Sardica in 347 and that of Ariminum in 360, and a number of references to the Church in Roman Britain are found in the writings of 4th-century Christian Fathers.

The ritual and discipline of the early English Church were largely introduced by the Celtic and Gallic missionaries and monks, until the arrival of St Augustine of Canterbury and his missionary companions from Rome in 597. Thereafter, the Celtic and Roman forms of worship became polarized, particularly in the method used for calculating the date of Easter, the organization of monasteries, and the accountability of the clergy. This was resolved at the Synod of Whitby (664) when the crucial decision was made to sever the connection with the Irish Church and to place the organization of the English Church under Roman discipline. During the next four centuries, the Church in Saxon England exhibited the same lines of growth and development that characterized the Church everywhere in the Early Middle Ages. After the Norman Conquest (1066), Continental influence in England strengthened the connections between the English Church and the papacy. The vigorous assertions of power successfully made by popes from Gregory VII to Innocent III between the late 11th and the early 13th centuries were felt in England, as elsewhere, and clerical influence and privilege were widely extended in secular affairs. Several times during the medieval period, English kings sought to limit the power of the Church and the claims of its independent canon law, but without success until the reign of Henry VIII.

II

A National Church

The acts of Parliament between 1529 and 1536 mark the beginning of the Anglican Church as a national Church independent of papal jurisdiction. Henry VIII, vexed at the refusal of Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragón, induced Parliament to enact a series of statutes denying the pope any power or jurisdiction over the Church of England. He thus reaffirmed the ancient right of the Christian prince, or monarch, to exercise supremacy over the affairs of the Church within his domain. He cited precedents in the relations of Church and State in the Eastern Roman Empire and until the 9th century under Charlemagne. Although his action was revolutionary, Henry VIII received the support of the overwhelming majority of Englishmen, clerical and lay alike. Support was given chiefly because no drastic change was made in the Catholic faith and practices to which England was accustomed. After Henry’s death, the influence of the Reformation was felt more strongly in England, and in 1549 the first Anglican Book of Common Prayer was published and its use required of the English clergy by an Act of Uniformity. The second prayer book, reflecting more strongly the influence of Continental Protestantism, was issued in 1552 and was followed shortly by the Forty-Two Articles, a doctrinal statement similar in tone. Both were swept away upon the accession (1553) of Mary I, who returned England to a formal obedience to the papacy that lasted until her death in 1558.

A settlement of the religious controversy came when Elizabeth I succeeded Mary as Queen of England in 1558. Most of the ecclesiastical laws of Henry VIII were revived, an Act of Supremacy defined more cautiously the Crown’s authority in the Church, and another Act of Uniformity established the use of a Book of Common Prayer that avoided the Protestant excesses of the second prayer book. During the reign of Elizabeth I, the Puritans increased their power and became more insistent in their demands for further reform in the Church of England in the direction of the Protestantism of Geneva and other Continental centres. After the accession of the first Stuart monarch, James I, as King of England, in 1603, this agitation for religious change became closely associated with the struggle of Parliament against Stuart absolutism. By 1645, the Parliament party was strong enough to outlaw the use of the prayer book; in 1649, Charles I, King of England, was executed and the monarchy was temporarily overthrown.

In 1662, after the Restoration of Charles II, the use of the prayer book, revised to essentially its present form, was required by a third Act of Uniformity. One more attack was made on the establishment of the Anglican Church when King James II attempted to reintroduce the practice of Roman Catholicism in England. James lost his throne to William III and Mary II in the ensuing revolution of 1688.

III

Popular Movements

Since the 17th century, successive movements have considerably broadened the Anglican Church both spiritually and ecclesiastically. In the 18th century, the Evangelical Revival infused a new sense of piety and of personal consecration into the popular religion of the established Church, arousing people to a deeper understanding of Christian responsibility towards missions, religious education, and the social and moral evils of the times. Foremost in this movement was the work of John Wesley and his followers, many of whom left the Church of England to become Methodists. During the 19th century, a movement was launched by a group of clerics at the University of Oxford for the purpose of recalling the Church of England to the Catholic elements in its spiritual heritage that had been preserved through the years of the Reformation. Low Church members, finding their piety and church practice akin to those generally characteristic of Protestantism, feared an excessive tendency towards the beliefs and practices of Roman Catholicism in this revival by High Church members (those preferring a closer adherence to sacraments and to Catholic liturgy). Despite this fear, the High Church Oxford movement prospered, transforming the face of the English Church. It gave a new emphasis to the dignity and beauty of religious observances and to the central place of worship. Furthermore, the movement enlarged the theological concern of the Church for the ancient Catholic and apostolic character of the ministry and for the sacraments, for its pastoral ideals, and for the meaning of its fundamental creeds. That both the Low Church Evangelical Revival and the High Church Oxford movement could develop within the Church of England illustrates the breadth and flexibility of the Anglican tradition of faith and practice, as does the very coexistence through the years of the Low Church and High Church tendencies. The Broad Church movement was also in existence for some time in the late 19th century, formed by those Anglicans who fell between the Low Church and High Church parties. It included the British educator Thomas Arnold, among other prominent Church members. This envelopment of divergent tendencies has often caused controversy and tension within the English Church, but many Anglicans believe that the comprehensive spirit with which the Church holds together diverse points of view constitutes its genius.

The foundation of an independent Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States dates from the time of the American War of Independence, when members of the Anglican Church in the former colonies could no longer give their allegiance to the mother Church overseas. There followed the establishment of a number of other Churches, centring upon the Church of England, that became known as the Anglican Communion. In addition to the Churches of England, Ireland, and Wales, and the Episcopal Church in Scotland, separate and independent Anglican Churches now exist in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, West Africa, Central Africa, the Republic of South Africa, India, China, Japan, and the Caribbean. These Churches and their numerous missions are located in nearly every area of the world, many of them among peoples of diverse origin who have become naturalized to Anglo-Saxon culture. They constitute a communion bound together in a common faith and practice.

One of the most critical issues in the contemporary Church of England has been the ordination of women as priests. Despite the precedent of female priests in the American Episcopalian Church, the institution of this practice was, and is, opposed by around one in ten clergy and lay believers. A motion stating that “there are no fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood” was first passed by the General Synod of the Church of England in 1975; the first women deacons were ordained in 1987. The General Synod finally gave its approval to full female ordination in 1992. Parliamentary approval was voted in the following year, and the first 32 women priests of the Church of England were ordained on March 12, 1994. However, a number of priests unable to accept the decision, often those holding High Church views, left the Church of England, some being received into the Roman Catholic Church. A system of provincial episcopal visitors was set up to minister to parishes unwilling to accept women priests.

IV

Doctrine

The doctrine of the Church of England is found primarily in the Book of Common Prayer, containing the ancient creeds of undivided Christendom, and secondarily in the Thirty-Nine Articles, which are interpreted in accordance with the prayer book. Appeal is made to the first four General Councils of the Christian Church, as well as generally to Holy Scriptures as interpreted by “the Catholic Fathers and ancient bishops”. The Church of England differs from the Roman Catholic Church chiefly in denying the claims of the papacy both to jurisdiction over the Church and to infallibility as promulgator of Christian doctrinal and moral truth, and in rejecting the distinctively Roman doctrines and discipline. Also, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England allows women to become priests. The Church of England differs from the Eastern Orthodox Church to a lesser degree. On the other hand, the Anglican Church and its sister Churches in the Anglican Communion differ from most Protestant Churches in requiring episcopal ordination for all their clergy; in the structure and tone of their liturgical services, which are translations and revised versions of the pre-Reformation services of the Church; and in a spiritual orientation in which a Catholic sacramental heritage is combined with the biblical and evangelical emphases that came through the Reformation.

The Church of England globally has a baptized membership of about 27.5 million, over half of the population of England.