In 1534 the Christian church in England separated itself from the jurisdiction of the pope in Rome, and Parliament named King Henry VIII “the only supreme head of the Church of England.” This change established a new denomination that became the mother church for many other regional and national church bodies. Together, these church bodies make up what is called the Anglican Communion.

Beliefs and Practices

The separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic church in 1534 was intended to be only a break with the authority of the pope, not a departure in faith and practice. Once the separation had taken place, however, the new denomination found itself pushed in different directions by its membership. There were those who wanted to reunite with the Church of Rome, and if they could not attain this goal, they desired to pattern themselves after Catholicism in every respect. Other members were drawn in the direction of the German Reformation, which had taken place only a few years earlier (see Reformation). They wanted a church much more like the one Martin Luther had founded in Germany. This would have meant rejecting all Catholic traditions and practices that could not be specifically verified in the Bible. Still others wanted a more reformed church, one that rejected all similarity to the Roman church. They preferred a church that more closely resembled the simplicity of belief and practice in the earliest centuries of Christianity. The movement they supported eventually came to be called Puritanism (see Puritans).

The churches within the Anglican Communion have not attempted to prescribe with exactness what their members are to believe. There are, however, certain foundations of belief and practice commonly accepted by Anglicans: the Bible as the basis of the Christian message; the three ancient creeds of the church—the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed; the doctrinal statements propounded by the four councils of the early church—Nicaea, Ephesus, Constantinople, and Chalcedon; the Thirty-nine Articles; and the Book of Common Prayer.

The Thirty-nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer were produced by the Church of England in the 16th century. Although they are used by most of the churches of the Anglican Communion, they are binding only for the Church of England. They are statements of belief that distinguish the Church of England from the positions of the Roman church, on the one hand, and the extreme Protestants on the other.

The Book of Common Prayer is the liturgical service book for Anglicans. First composed in 1549 by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, it was adopted as the only service book for the Church of England in 1662. In the 20th century it underwent revisions, and varying versions of it are used by the churches throughout the world. The book allows for a measure of flexibility in the conduct of worship services.

At the Lambeth Conference in 1888, a meeting of Anglican bishops from around the world, a statement called the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral was issued by common consent of all the bishops. Intended as a formulation that could serve as a basis for reconciliation with other Christian denominations, it delineated four positions that are considered essential by Anglicans for all Christians to hold: the primacy of the Bible in the church; acceptance of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper; belief in the three historic creeds; and the continuity of the historic ministry of the church.

The idea of the continuity of the church is important to Anglicans. They emphatically deny that Henry VIII was the founder of the Church of England. The church, they maintain, had existed for centuries in England and was an outgrowth and extension of the earliest Christian churches. This historical succession of the ministry of the church is visibly attested to by the office of bishop. The order of bishops traces its descent from the time of Jesus' apostles to the present.

The ministry of Anglican churches is divided into three offices: bishops, priests, and deacons. The clergy are allowed to marry. In the 1970s women were ordained deacons and priests for the first time. In 1989 U.S. cleric Barbara C. Harris became the first woman consecrated an Anglican bishop. The next year the Episcopal church's House of Bishops reaffirmed the decision to ordain women but acknowledged that opposition to ordination of women was still a recognized theological position within the church. The first openly homosexual man to be consecrated an Anglican bishop was V. Gene Robinson, who was elected and installed in 2003 as bishop of the New Hampshire diocese in the United States. The Anglican church remained deeply divided over whether homosexuals should be ordained, however, and many conservative Anglicans refused to recognize Robinson.

History

In its first decades the Church of England was in great turmoil owing to its internal divisions: the basic problem was whether the church would remain Catholic in essence or whether it would become Protestant. Henry VIII was determined to keep the church Catholic in every way except in allegiance to the pope. After his death, his son Edward VI, who ruled from 1547 to 1553, allowed the Protestant viewpoint to prevail. Queen Mary, who ruled from 1553 to 1558, made a vigorous attempt to return the church to the jurisdiction of the pope.

After Mary's death, her successor, Elizabeth I, was determined to keep the Church of England separate from Rome. She was not allowed to succeed, however. In 1570 Pope Pius V published an interdict, or order, releasing the English people from allegiance to Elizabeth. This act drove the English church toward Protestantism and put English Catholics temporarily in the position of seeming to be traitors to the crown.

In the 17th century the controversy between the pro-Catholic and pro-Reformed parties in the Church of England became more heated. The Puritan cause, or the Reformed group, triumphed temporarily in the English Civil War (1642–48), when the Book of Common Prayer was proscribed and the episcopal structure abolished. After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the episcopacy was reestablished and the Book of Common Prayer revised in keeping with the wishes of the pro-Catholic party.

In 1685 James II, a Roman Catholic, came to the throne and attempted to move the church in the direction of unity with Rome. Only three years later a bloodless revolution toppled James from the throne and brought in a Protestant king, William III. In 1689 the English Bill of Rights was passed; it required the monarch to be a Protestant. The Act of Settlement, which was passed in 1701, required further that the monarch be a member of the Church of England. These statutes remain in effect and keep the church within the Protestant fold.

From the 17th through the 19th century, English explorers founded colonies in the Americas, Africa, India, and the Far East. The Church of England followed the colonists. Through the efforts of its missionary societies, missionaries founded churches in all of the English colonies. From these missionary efforts grew the separate church bodies that came to form the Anglican Communion.

Because the Anglican Communion is made up of many independent churches, it has developed only the loosest international structure. The first international meeting was the Lambeth Conference of 1867 (named after the London residence of the archbishop of Canterbury). Lambeth conferences convene every 10 years, but they do not constitute a governing body for the member churches. They are informal gatherings of representatives from the various Anglican churches. In addition, the Lambeth Consultative Body met every two years to evaluate the work of the conferences. In 1948 the Advisory Council on Missionary Strategy was set up to aid in carrying out the missionary activities of the churches.

In 1968 another international organization was formed: the Anglican Consultative Council. This organization is an advisory body that represents all areas and interests of world Anglicanism. The Anglican Consultative Council replaced both the Lambeth Consultative Body and the Advisory Council on Missionary Strategy. The Anglican Consultative Council meets every two or three years. Its membership consists of representatives from every province, including bishops, priests, and lay people. The council has no more authority than the Lambeth conferences, but it reflects and guides the current trends of the Anglican Communion. In addition, the heads, or primates, of each Anglican province have gathered regularly for a Primates Meeting since 1979.