Church site 3: Anglicanism

What is the Anglican Church?

'Anglican Church' simply means 'Church of England'. Christianity in Britain goes back to the beginning of the third century. Christians in Britain came from a variety of cultures and formally began working together at the Council of Whitby in 664. At the time, the British church was closely connected with the Church of Rome, which we know today as the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, fast foward more than nine centuries to the series of religious upheavals known as the Reformation, which helped make the Church of England what it is today. Beginning in the 1500s, the Reformation permanently reshaped the church and, along with it, western society. It led to a new branch of the church: Protestantism. Protestantism was a 'protest' against the Church of Rome. Protestantism disowned the Church of Rome's emphasis on the church as an institution. Instead, Protestantism stressed that:

• A person is saved by faith in Christ alone, not by doing good things
• Religious authority is found in the Bible, not the church
• The true church is a community of believers, not an institution
• Christian living is a response to the grace of God, not an effort to reach God.

The Church of England was officially created in 1534. This happened back in the day when churches could be run by monarchs. It involved some rather complicated politics about the marriages of Henry VIII, King of England. The Church of Rome ended up disowning Henry, so he established the Church of England as a separate body of Christians. At the time, this involved two things: some shuffling of church real estate and the circulation of an English translation of the Bible, developed by William Tyndale.

Initially, the theology of the Church of England was much like that of the Church of Rome. However, Christianity in England had been developing its own character for centuries, and theological changes began to appear. Thomas Cranmer helped mould the church into something more Protestant. His work led to the Thirty Nine Articles, released by Queen Elizabeth in 1563. Cranmer himself had been executed by the previous monarch, Mary, a Catholic. While the Thirty Nine Articles are essentially Protestant, the church retained many trappings of the Church of Rome. The growth of the Church of England continued under Elizabeth's reign, then grappling with groups like the Puritans, Congregationalists and Baptists -- all movements which helped to define present-day Protestantism.

Over the following centuries, the Church of England's influence extended across the globe. As the state-backed church of Great Britain, it arrived in Australia as the imperial institution of Christianity. As English imperialism was challenged over time, the Anglican Church has struggled to adjust. In 1962, the Anglican Church of Australia became a fully autonomous part of the global Anglican Communion. Today, Anglican churches are found all over the world and exist in all kinds of shapes and sizes.

Read another account of Anglican history