Anglican History

Since my wife and I have become Episcopalian/Anglican, the questions that I have been asked the most regarding that decison have, surprisingly, been questions regarding the history of the Anglican church. So, I thought perhaps a well researched answer was in order. Enjoy:

Christianity arrived in Britain in the first or second century (probably via the tin trade route through Ireland and Iberia), and existed independently of the Church of Rome, as did virtually all other Christian communities of that era. Most scholars believe that Christianity arrived in Brittania about A.D. 44 around Glastonbury (roughly 11 years after Christ's Crucifixion!) The first English martyr is Alban in A.D. 209. Alban reportedly sheltered a Christian missionary from Gaul and was executed because Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire at that time. The earliest historical written 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. Three English bishops, including Restitutus, are known to have been present at the Council of Arles 314, and bishops from Britannia were present at the council of Nicea in 325. Others attended the Council of Sardica in 347 and that of Ariminum in 360, and a number of references to the church in Britain are found in the writings of 4th-century Christian fathers.

Pagan Anglo-Saxons from Germany and Scandinavia began to occupy Britain without resistance from the passive (Christian) Britons in around 370. (Wales remained unconquered and Christian.) The Roman empire fell in Britain and no evidence of Roman occupation is found after about 407. The conquest of Britain is greatly accelerated in 410 when Britons under Vortigern invite Saxon mercenaries to their land to help keep order. The Briton Christians are on their own at this point. On the mainland, the Roman empire and therefore the church (Christianity being the official religion of the empire) were in significant turmoil and disarray. Meanwhile, back in Britain, it is the era of Celtic Christianity. The Celts effectively preserve Christianity on the British Isles while the Roman empire (and seemingly, the whole world) falls apart. For nearly 200 years, the scholarship and culture of Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Christianity developed utterly unconnected with Rome, though some correspondence and unity with mainland Christianity continues. For instance, we know that Deacon Palladius was sent by the bishop of Rome (not Pope!) as a "bishop to the Scotti [Irish] who believe in Christ."

Previous to the fall of the Roman Empire, the church was governed by the Patriarchs (bishops) of the ancient and influential sees of Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, as well as by Councils of bishops held periodically to make important decisions. As the Roman empire fell apart, and the world and the church was in disarray, people generally, and Christians included, looked to the ancient capital of the empire for leadership. Hence the development of the office of Pope. Leo the Great was the bishop of Rome at this time, and he was the first bishop to assert the universal jurisdiction of the Roman bishop and the doctrine of "Petrine supremacy." He was declared Pope in 451 by the Council of Chalcedon which declared, "Peter has spoken by Leo." He solidified his role as the primary patriarch and leader of the Church when he met Attila the Hun outside the gates of Rome in 452 and persuaded him not to raze the city to the ground and to withdraw. With the rest of the empire in such a mess, no one was really in a position to disagree with him. In fact, they were glad to have such an able, intelligent, charismatic, brave, and strong leader. Anglicans still celebrate a feast day in his honor on November 10 as the Bishop of Rome.

When things began to settle down, and the world began to reorganize post-empire, Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine from Rome to evangelise the Angles in 597. When he got there, he discovered that they were already a number of Christians and established churches. He declared them Roman Catholic, and with the help of Christians already residing in Kent he established his church in Canterbury, the former capital of Kent, and became the first in the series of Archbishops of Canterbury. Augustine developed a liturgy and other practices especially for the English-speaking people, which was a combination of the Celtic and Roman rites. Later archbishop, the Greek Theodore of Tarsus, also contributed to the organisation of English Christianity in that period. Simultaneously, the "Celtic Church" continued to evangelize Scotland. The Celtic Church of North Britain finally submitted in some sense to the "authority" of Rome at the Synod of Whitby in 664. Over the next few centuries, the Roman system introduced by Augustine gradually absorbed the pre-existing Celtic, Britannia, Saxon, and Angle churches. Anglicans still celebrate a feast in Gregory's honor as "the Apostle of the English" and the Bishop of Rome on March 12.

The Anglican church then was under the purview of Rome for roughly 870 years. When the Great Schism occurred in 1054 and split the church into Western Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, the Anglican church being in the West, sided with Rome. There is a public perception, especially in the United States, that Henry VIII created the formal Anglican split from Rome in 1534 because of the Pope's refusal to grant his divorce, but the historical record indicates that Henry spent most of his reign challenging the authority of Rome, and that the divorce issue was just one of a series of acts that collectively split the English church from the Roman church in much the same way that the Orthodox church had split off five hundred years before. A theological separation had been foreshadowed by various movements within the English Church for years, and there was significant pressure put on Henry by his Reformation-minded clergy to, in fact, separate from Rome. Under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, a thorough reformation proceeded. A new pattern of worship was set out in the Book of Common Prayer which was based on the older and more ancient liturgies, without the developments of the middle ages such as Maryology, the Papacy, and the Cult of Saints. It is this Book of Common prayer and form of worship that is still the framework for Anglicanism worldwide. Anglicanism represents the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox communions. The number of Anglicans in the world is slightly over 77 million.