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{{Short description|Major branch of Protestantism}}
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{{Anglicanism}}
{{Protestantism}}
{{Christianity|expanded=hide}}
 
'''Anglicanism''', also known as '''Episcopalianism''' in some countries,<ref>{{Cite web |title=episcopalianism |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095755261 |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=Oxford Reference |language=en }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Collins English Dictionary {{!}} Always Free Online |url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/episcopalianism |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140831204348/http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/episcopalianism |archive-date=31 August 2014 |access-date=2025-04-09 |website=www.collinsdictionary.com |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref> is a [[Western Christianity|Western]] [[Christian tradition]] which developed from the practices, [[liturgy]], and identity of the [[Church of England]] following the [[English Reformation]],<ref name="cofe">{{cite web |url = http://www.cofe.anglican.org/faith/anglican/ |title = What it means to be an Anglican |publisher = [[Church of England]] |access-date = 16 March 2009 |archive-date = 30 August 2011 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110830191043/http://www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/being-an-anglican.aspx |url-status = dead }}</ref> in the context of the [[Protestant Reformation]] in Europe. It is one of the largest branches of [[Christianity]], with around 110 million adherents worldwide as of 2024.<ref name=":1" />
The term '''Anglican''' (from [[Medieval Latin]] ''ecclesia anglicana'', meaning 'the [[England|English]] Church') is used to describe the people, institutions and churches as well as the liturgical traditions and theological concepts developed by the [[state religion|established]] [[Church of England]], the [[Anglican Communion]] and the [[Continuing Anglican Churches]] (a loosely affiliated group of independent churches which have seceded from the Anglican Communion as a result of doctrinal and liturgical differences within its various provinces). The Anglican Church has an 'Episcopate' meaning it is governed by a house of bishops. (The '''Episcopal''' Church is a member of the Anglican Communion, but does not use the term Anglican in its name; this is most likely to diassociate itself from the British Monarch).
 
Adherents of Anglicanism are called ''Anglicans''; they are also called ''Episcopalians''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Episcopalian |url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/episcopalian |website=Cambridge Dictionary}}</ref> in some countries. Most are members of national or regional [[Ecclesiastical province#Anglican Communion|ecclesiastical provinces]] of the international [[Anglican Communion]],<ref name="acomm">{{cite web |url = http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ |title = The Anglican Communion official website – homepage |access-date = 16 March 2009 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090319004737/http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ |archive-date = 19 March 2009 |url-status = dead }}</ref> one of the largest Christian bodies in the world,{{sfn|Worsley|2015}} and the world's third-largest Christian communion.<ref name="ChristianTrends1">{{cite book |title=World Christian Trends Ad30-ad2200 (hb) |date=2001 |publisher=William Carey Library |isbn=978-0-87808-608-5 |page=272 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IMRsJ1gnIYkC&q=the+anglican+world+in+figures&pg=PA274 |language=en |quote=Total of all Anglicans on broader definition 109,546,970 |access-date=22 May 2021 |archive-date=21 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221122726/https://books.google.com/books?id=IMRsJ1gnIYkC&q=the+anglican+world+in+figures&pg=PA274#v=snippet&q=the%20anglican%20world%20in%20figures&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.igrejaanglicanareformada.com.br/anglicanismo/ |title=Anglicanismo |website=[[Anglican Church in Brazil|Igreja Anglicana Reformada do Brasil]] |language=pt-BR |access-date=2 January 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200102061211/http://igrejaanglicana.com.br/anglicanismo/ |archive-date=2 January 2020 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Elgot |first=Jessica |date=2015-09-16 |title=What is the Anglican communion and why is it under threat? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/what-is-anglican-communion-why-is-it-under-threat |access-date=2025-05-13 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-11-13 |title=What Is the Church of England, and Who Are the Anglicans? |url=https://www.ncregister.com/cna/what-is-the-church-of-england-and-who-are-the-anglicans |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=NCR |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-12-13 |title=Westminster seminar explores 'conflict and reconciliation' in the Anglican Communion |url=https://episcopalnewsservice.org/2019/12/13/westminster-seminar-explores-conflict-and-reconciliation-in-the-anglican-communion/ |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=Episcopal News Service |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author1=Grayson Quay |date=2022-08-09 |title=Have Anglicans reached a compromise on same-sex marriage? |url=https://theweek.com/christianity/1015750/have-anglicans-reached-a-compromise-on-same-sex-marriage |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=The Week |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Office |first=Anglican Communion |title=At the UN |url=https://www.anglicancommunion.org/mission/at-the-un.aspx |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=Anglican Communion Website |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Goodstein |first=Laurie |date=2008-06-20 |title=Rival Conferences for Anglican Church |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/world/20anglicancnd.html |access-date=2025-05-13 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2015-09-16 |title=Archbishop calls talks over divisions in Anglican communion |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34272303 |access-date=2025-05-13 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref> The provinces within the Anglican Communion are in [[full communion]] with the [[See of Canterbury]] and thus with the [[archbishop of Canterbury]], whom the communion refers to as its {{lang|la|[[Primus inter pares#Anglican Communion|primus inter pares]]}} ([[Latin]], 'first among equals'). The archbishop calls the decennial [[Lambeth Conference]], chairs the meeting of [[Primates in the Anglican Communion|primate]]s, and is the president of the [[Anglican Consultative Council]].<ref>[http://www.anglicancommunion.org/resources/acis/docs/unity.cfm Anglican Communion official website.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629194420/http://www.anglicancommunion.org/resources/acis/docs/unity.cfm |date=29 June 2011 }}</ref><ref name="ODCC">The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church by F. L. Cross (Editor), E. A. Livingstone (editor) Oxford University Press, US; 3rd edition, p.&nbsp;65 (13 March 1997)</ref> Some churches that are not part of the Anglican Communion or recognised by it also call themselves Anglican, including those that are within the [[Continuing Anglican movement]] and [[Anglican realignment]].{{sfn|Percy|2005|p=217}}
Adhering to the branch theory, the [[Anglican Communion]] considers itself to be part of the [[One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church]] and as being both Catholic and Reformed. For some adherents it represents a non-papal Catholicism, for others a Protestantism without a dominant figure such as a [[Martin Luther|Luther]], [[John Knox|Knox]], [[John Calvin|Calvin]], or [[John Wesley|Wesley]].<ref>Avis, Paul. "What is 'Anglicanism'?", in ''The Study of Anglicanism'', ed. S. Sykes and J. Booty (London: SPCK, 1988), pp. 417-19</ref> For many Anglicans self-identity represents some combination of the two. The communion is a theologically broad and often divergent affiliation of thirty-eight provinces that are in communion with the [[Archbishop of Canterbury]]. The Anglican Communion is one of the larger [[Christian denominations]] in the world, with approximately 73 million members[http://www.adherents.com/adh_branches.html#Christianity].
 
Anglicans base their Christian faith on the [[Bible]], traditions of the apostolic church, [[apostolic succession]] ("historic episcopate"), and the writings of the [[Church Fathers]], as well as historically, the ''[[Thirty-nine Articles of Religion]]'' and ''[[The Books of Homilies]]''.<ref name="Samuel2020">{{cite book |last1=Samuel |first1=Chimela Meehoma |title=Treasures of the Anglican Witness: A Collection of Essays |date=28 April 2020 |publisher=Partridge Publishing |isbn=978-1-5437-5784-2 |language=en |quote=In addition to his emphasis on Bible reading and the introduction to the ''Book of Common Prayer'', other media through which Cranmer sought to catechize the English people were the introduction of the First Book of Homilies and the 39 Articles of Religion. Together with the ''Book of Common Prayer'' and the Forty-Two Articles (which were later reduced to thirty-nine), the Book of Homilies stands as one of the essential texts of the Edwardian Reformation, and they all helped to define the shape of Anglicanism then, and in the subsequent centuries. More so, the Articles of Religion, whose primary shape and content were given by Archbishop Cranmer and Bishop Ridley in 1553 (and whose final official form was ratified by Convocation, the Queen, and Parliament in 1571), provided a more precise interpretation of Christian doctrine to the English people. According to John H. Rodgers, they "constitute the formal statements of the accepted, common teaching put forth by the Church of England as a result of the Reformation."}}</ref><ref name="cofe" /> Anglicanism forms a branch of [[Western Christianity]], having definitively declared its independence from the [[Holy See]] at the time of the [[Elizabethan Religious Settlement]].{{sfn|Green|1996|pp=58–59}} Many of the Anglican formularies of the mid-16th century correspond closely to those of historical [[Protestantism]]. These reforms were understood by one of those most responsible for them, [[Thomas Cranmer]], the [[archbishop of Canterbury]], and others as navigating a middle way between Catholicism and two of the emerging Protestant traditions, namely [[Lutheranism]] and [[Calvinism]].{{sfn|MacCulloch|1996|p=617}}
== History ==
{{main|Religion in the United Kingdom|History of the Church of England|Scottish Episcopal Church}}
 
In the first half of the 17th century, the Church of England and the associated [[Church of Ireland]] were presented by some Anglican divines as comprising a distinct Christian tradition, with theologies, structures, and forms of worship representing a different kind of middle way, or ''[[via media]]'', originally between Lutheranism and Calvinism,{{sfn|MacCulloch|1996|p=179}}<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gibbs |first=Lee W. |date=1981 |title=Richard Hooker's Via Media Doctrine of Justification |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1509447 |journal=The Harvard Theological Review |volume=74 |issue=2 |pages=211–220 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000030583 |jstor=1509447 |issn=0017-8160}}</ref> and later between Protestantism and Catholicism – a perspective that came to be highly influential in later theories of Anglican identity and expressed in the description of Anglicanism as "catholic and reformed".<ref>{{cite web |title=History of the Church of England |url=https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/church-england-glance/history-church-england |website=The Church of England |language=en |access-date=23 April 2020 |archive-date=12 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200412151713/https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/church-england-glance/history-church-england |url-status=dead }}</ref> The degree of distinction between Protestant and Catholic tendencies within Anglicanism is routinely a matter of debate both within specific Anglican churches and the Anglican Communion. The ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' is unique to Anglicanism, the collection of services in one prayer book used for centuries. The book is acknowledged as a principal tie that binds the Anglican Communion as a liturgical tradition.<ref name="Samuel2020"/>
{{Anglicanism}}
 
After the [[American Revolution]], Anglican congregations in the United States and [[British North America]] (which would later form the basis for the modern country of Canada) were each reconstituted into autonomous churches with their own bishops and self-governing structures; these were known as the American [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]] and the [[Anglican Church of Canada|Church of England in the Dominion of Canada]]. Through the expansion of the [[British Empire]] and the activity of [[Christian mission]]s, this model was adopted as the model for many newly formed churches, especially in Africa, [[Australasia]], and the Asia-Pacific. In the 19th century, the term ''Anglicanism'' was coined to describe the common religious tradition of these churches and also that of the [[Scottish Episcopal Church]], which, though originating earlier within the [[Church of Scotland]], had come to be recognised as sharing this common identity. By the 21st century, the global center of Anglicanism had shifted to the Global South, particularly Sub-Sahara Africa, with 63,497,000 baptised Anglicans in Africa and 23,322,000 baptised Anglicans in Europe in 2020.<ref name=":2" />
==== Pre-Reformation ====
 
==Terminology==
Anglicans traditionally date the origins of their Church to the arrival in England of the first Archbishop of Canterbury, [[Augustine of Canterbury|Saint Augustine of Canterbury]] at the end of the [[6th century]]. However, the origins of the English Church extend farther back, Christianity having first gained a foothold during the [[Roman Britain|Roman occupation]] prior to the [[5th century]], possibly as early as the [[1st century]]. The first recorded Christian martyr in Britain, [[Saint Alban]], is thought to have lived in the early [[4th century]], and his prominence in Anglican [[hagiography]] is reflected in the number of [[parish church]]es of which he is patron. Irish Anglicans also trace their origins back to the founding saint of Irish Christianity ([[Saint Patrick]]) who was a Roman Briton and pre-dated Anglo-Saxon Christianity.
[[File:Rochester cathedral stained glass 2.jpg|thumb|Jesus supporting an English flag and staff in the crook of his right arm depicted in a stained glass window in [[Rochester Cathedral]] in [[Rochester, Kent]], England]]
The word ''Anglican'' originates in {{lang|la|Anglicana ecclesia libera sit}}, a phrase from [[Magna Carta]] dated 15 June 1215, meaning 'the English Church shall be free'.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pS9DAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA508-IA29 |title=Reports from Committees of the House of Commons: Repr. by Order of the House |date=16 January 2019 |publisher=House of Commons |via=Google Books |access-date=15 October 2020 |archive-date=21 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221122743/https://books.google.com/books?id=pS9DAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA508-IA29#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> Adherents of Anglicanism are called ''Anglicans''. As an adjective, ''Anglican'' is used to describe the people, institutions, churches, liturgical traditions, and theological concepts developed by the Church of England.<ref name="ODCC" />
 
As a noun, an Anglican is a church member in the Anglican Communion. The word is also used by followers of separated groups that have left the communion or have been founded separately from it. The word originally referred only to the teachings and rites of Christians throughout the world in communion with the [[Episcopal see|see]] of [[Diocese of Canterbury|Canterbury]] but has come to sometimes be extended to any church following those traditions or rites rather than actual membership in the Anglican Communion.<ref name="ODCC" />
Anglicans consider [[Celtic Christianity]] a forerunner of their church, since the re-establishment of Christianity in the early sixth century came via [[Ireland|Irish]] and [[Scotland|Scottish]] missionaries, notably [[Saint Patrick]] and [[Columba|Saint Columba]].<ref>González, Justo L., ''The History of Christianity'', Volume I: "The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation" (San Francisco: Harper, 1984).</ref> This distinctive form of Catholic Christianity remained, even after the [[Synod of Whitby]] in [[664]] decided that the church throughout Britain should conform to the contemporary Roman customs introduced by Augustine and other missionaries to the Anglo-Saxons. This persistence of Celtic traditions, along with the implementation of [[Pope Gregory I]]'s instructions to Augustine to incorporate pagan customs and festivals into religious life and practice, meant that English Christianity assumed a distinctive indigenous character<ref>Pelikan, Jaroslav, ''The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine'', Volume 1: "The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)," (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1971), pp. 65-6.</ref>
 
Although the term ''Anglican'' is found referring to the Church of England as far back as the 16th century, its use did not become general until the latter half of the 19th century. In British parliamentary legislation referring to the English [[Established Church]], there is no need for a description; it is simply the Church of England, though the word ''Protestant'' is used in many legal acts specifying the succession to the Crown and qualifications for office. When the [[Acts of Union 1800|Union with Ireland Act]] created the United Church of England and Ireland, it is specified that it shall be one "Protestant Episcopal Church", thereby distinguishing its form of church government from the Presbyterian polity that prevails in the [[Church of Scotland]].<ref>[[Union with Ireland Act 1800]], s. 1, art. 5.</ref>
==== Reformation ====
{{main|English Reformation}}
 
The word ''Episcopal'' ("of or pertaining to bishops") is preferred in the title of the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]] (the province of the Anglican Communion covering the United States) and the [[Scottish Episcopal Church]], though the full name of the former is ''The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America''. Elsewhere, however, the term ''Anglican Church'' came to be preferred as it distinguished these churches from others that maintain an [[episcopal polity]].
While Anglicans acknowledge that the repudiation of papal authority by [[Henry VIII of England]] led to the Church of England existing as a separate entity, they also stress its continuity with the pre-Reformation Church of England. Quite apart from its distinct customs and liturgies (such as the [[Sarum Rite|Sarum rite]]), the organizational machinery of the Church of England was in place by the time of the Synod of Hertford in [[672]]–[[673]] when the English bishops were for the first time able to act as one body under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The effect of Henry's [[Act in Restraint of Appeals]] ([[1533]]) and the [[Acts of Supremacy]] ([[1534]]) was simply to declare that the English crown was "the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called ''Ecclesia Anglicana''," and that the [[Bishop of Rome]] had no "greater jurisdiction in England than any other foreign bishop." The development of the [[Thirty-Nine Articles]] of religion and the passage of the [[Acts of Uniformity]] culminating in the [[Elizabethan Religious Settlement]] resulted in a Church that is both Catholic and Reformed with the English (later British) monarch as its [[Supreme Governor]].
 
===Definition===
The [[English Reformation]] was initially driven by the dynastic goals of Henry VIII, who, in his quest for a [[Queen consort|consort]] who would bear him a male heir, found it expedient to replace [[papacy|papal authority]] with the supremacy of the English crown. A close reading of the early legislation, limiting itself as it does to questions of temporal and spiritual supremacy, suggest that it was not Henry's intention to found a new church. He was well-informed enough about history to know that the powers he was claiming were those which had been exercised by European monarchs over the church in their dominions since the time of [[Constantine the Great]], and that what had changed since then had been the growth of papal power. The original Acts sought to reverse this by placing Henry at the head of the church. Subsequent legislation put a decidedly [[Protestant]] spin on Henry's agenda, however. The introduction of the [[Great Bible]] in [[1538]] brought a [[vernacular]] translation of the Scriptures into churches, and the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]] by [[1540]] brought huge amounts of church land and property under the jurisdiction of the Crown, and ultimately into the hands of the English nobility. This created vested interests which made a powerful material incentive to support a separate Christian church in England under the rule of the Crown.
In its structures, theology, and forms of worship, Anglicanism emerged as a distinct Christian tradition representing a middle ground between [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] and [[Reformed Christianity|Reformed]] varieties of [[Protestantism]];<ref name="Anglican and Episcopal History">{{cite book|title=Anglican and Episcopal History|year=2003|publisher=Historical Society of the Episcopal Church|language=en|page=15|quote=Others had made similar observations, Patrick McGrath commenting that the Church of England was not a middle way between Roman Catholic and Protestant, but "between different forms of Protestantism", and William Monter describing the Church of England as "a unique style of Protestantism, a via media between the Reformed and Lutheran traditions". MacCulloch has described Cranmer as seeking a middle way between Zurich and Wittenberg but elsewhere remarks that the Church of England was "nearer Zurich and Geneva than Wittenberg.}}</ref> after the [[Oxford Movement]], Anglicanism has often been characterized as representing a ''[[via media]]'' ('middle way') between Protestantism as a whole, and Catholicism.{{sfn|MacCulloch|1996|p=179}}{{multiple image
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The faith of Anglicans is founded in the [[Bible|Scriptures]] and the [[Gospel]]s, the traditions of the [[Apostolic Age|Apostolic]] Church, the [[historical episcopate]], the [[ecumenical council|first four ecumenical councils]],<ref name="Kasper2009">{{cite book|last=Kasper|first=Walter|title=Harvesting the Fruits: Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue|date=15 October 2009|publisher=A&C Black|language=en |isbn=978-1-4411-2130-1|page=98|quote="Anglicans historically have only recognized the binding authority of the first four ecumenical councils. While they affirm some of the content of successive councils, they believe that only those decisions which can be demonstrated from Scripture are binding on the faithful (IARCCUM ''GTUM'', 69).}}</ref> and the early [[Church Fathers]], especially those active during the five initial centuries of Christianity, according to the ''quinquasaecularist'' principle proposed by the English bishop [[Lancelot Andrewes]] and the Lutheran dissident [[Georg Calixtus]].
By [[1549]], the process of creating a new and distinct national church was fully initiated by the publication of the first vernacular prayer book, the [[Book of Common Prayer]], and the enforcement of the [[Acts of Uniformity]], establishing English as the language of public worship. The theological justification for Anglican distinctiveness was begun by the [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] [[Thomas Cranmer]], the principal author of the first Prayer Book, and continued by other thinkers such as [[Richard Hooker (theologian)|Richard Hooker]] and [[Lancelot Andrewes]]. Cranmer had studied in Europe and was influenced by the ideas of the [[Reformation|Reformers]] [[John Calvin]] and [[Martin Bucer]], as well as the Roman Catholic theologian [[Desiderius Erasmus]].
 
Anglicans understand the [[Old Testament|Old]] and [[New Testament]]s as "containing all things necessary for salvation" and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.{{sfn|Kaye|1996|pp=46–47}} Reason and tradition are seen as valuable means to interpret scripture (a position first formulated in detail by [[Richard Hooker]]), but there is no full mutual agreement among Anglicans about ''exactly how'' scripture, reason, and tradition interact (or ought to interact) with each other.{{sfn|Baker|1996|pp=113–115}} Anglicans understand the [[Apostles' Creed]] as the baptismal symbol and the [[Nicene Creed]] as the sufficient [[creed|statement of the Christian faith]].
During the short reign of [[Edward VI of England|Edward VI]], Henry's son, Cranmer and others moved the Church of England significantly towards a more Protestant [[Calvinist]] position, which was reflected in the development of the second Prayer Book ([[1552]]) and of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion (originally numbering forty-two). This reform was reversed abruptly in the subsequent reign of [[Mary I of England|Queen Mary]], a Roman Catholic who re-established communion with Rome. Only under [[Elizabeth I of England|Queen Elizabeth I]] was the English church established as a reformed [[One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church|Catholic Church]] incorporating aspects of [[Protestant]] theology.
 
Anglicans believe the catholic and apostolic faith is revealed in [[Holy Scripture]] and the ecumenical creeds (Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian) and interpret these in light of the Christian tradition of the historic church, scholarship, reason, and experience.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.anglicancommunion.org/identity/doctrine.aspx|title=Anglican Communion: Doctrine|last=Office|first=Anglican Communion|website=Anglican Communion Website|language=en|access-date=17 January 2018|archive-date=21 January 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180121104118/http://www.anglicancommunion.org/identity/doctrine.aspx|url-status=live}}</ref> Anglicans celebrate the traditional sacraments, with special emphasis being given to the [[Eucharist]], also called Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, or the [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]]. The Eucharist is central to worship for most Anglicans as a communal offering of prayer and praise in which the life, death, and resurrection of [[Jesus Christ]] are proclaimed through prayer, reading of the Bible, singing, giving God thanks over the bread and wine for the innumerable benefits obtained through the passion of Christ; the breaking of the bread, the blessing of the cup, and the partaking of the body and blood of Christ as instituted at the [[Last Supper]]. The consecrated bread and wine, which are considered by Anglican formularies to be the true body and blood of Christ in a spiritual manner and as outward symbols of an inner grace given by Christ which to the repentant convey forgiveness and cleansing from sin. While many Anglicans celebrate the Eucharist in similar ways to the predominant [[Latin Catholic]] tradition, a considerable degree of liturgical freedom is permitted, and worship styles range from simple to elaborate.
==== Post-Reformation ====
[[Image:Thomas-Cranmer-ez.jpg|left|thumb|[[Thomas Cranmer]] ([[1489]]–[[1556]]), [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]]'s [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] and principal author of the first and second [[Book of Common Prayer|Books of Common Prayer]].]]
In the [[16th century]] religious life was an important part of the cement which held society together, and formed an important basis for extending and consolidating political power. Differences in religion were likely to lead to civil unrest at the very least, with [[treason]] and foreign invasion acting as real threats. Elizabeth's solution to the problem of minimising bloodshed over religion in her dominions was the [[Elizabethan Religious Settlement|religious settlement]] most compellingly articulated in the development of the [[1559]] Book of Common Prayer. This version of the prayer book combined elements of the [[Calvinist]] [[1552]] version with the traditional Catholic liturgy of Sarum, as transcribed in the 1549 version. The prayer book revision was buttressed by a revision of the Articles of Religion and mediating [[rubric]]s concerning vestments and liturgy. Elizabeth's goal was a church with a fixed form of worship in which everybody was expected to participate, but a belief system that was formulated in such a way that most in the theological spectrum would be able to give assent. Article VI of the [[Thirty-Nine Articles]], by the use of negative terminology, subtly inverted the Protestant principle that all things must be proved from the Scriptures so that only those things which could be proved by an appeal to the Scriptures must be believed as articles of the faith. The bulk of the population acceded to Elizabeth's religious settlement with varying degrees of enthusiasm or resignation, but more militant Protestants (the so-called [[Puritan]]s) and those who continued to recognise papal supremacy opposed it, and cracks in the façade of religious unity in England appeared.
 
Unique to Anglicanism is the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' (BCP), the collection of services which worshippers in most Anglican churches have used for centuries. It was called ''common prayer'' originally because it was intended for use in all Church of England churches, which had previously followed differing local liturgies. The term was kept when the church became international because all Anglicans used to share in its use around the world. In 1549, the first ''Book of Common Prayer'' was compiled by [[Thomas Cranmer]], the then [[archbishop of Canterbury]]. While it has since undergone many revisions and Anglican churches in different countries have developed other service books, the BCP is still acknowledged as one of the ties that bind Anglicans together.
For the next century, through the reigns of [[James I of England|James I]] and [[Charles I of England|Charles I]], and culminating in the [[English Civil War]] and the protectorate of [[Oliver Cromwell]], there were significant swings back and forth between two factions: the Puritans (and other radicals) who sought more far-reaching reform, and the more conservative churchmen who aimed to keep closer to traditional beliefs and practices. The failure of political and ecclesiastical authorities to submit to Puritan demands for more extensive reform was one of the causes of open warfare. By continental standards the level of violence over religion was not high, but the casualties included a king, [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] and an Archbishop of Canterbury, [[William Laud]]. Under [[the Protectorate]] of the [[Commonwealth of England]] from [[1649]] to [[1660]], Anglicanism was [[disestablishmentarianism|disestablished]], [[presbyterian]] [[ecclesiology]] was introduced as an adjunct to the episcopal system, the Articles were replaced with the [[Westminster Confession]], and the Book of Common Prayer was replaced by the [[Directory of Public Worship]]. Despite this, about one quarter of English clergy refused to conform.
 
==Identity==
With the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] of [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], Anglicanism too was restored in a form not far removed from the Elizabethan version. One difference was that the ideal of encompassing all the people of England in one religious organisation, taken for granted by the [[Tudor dynasty|Tudors]], had to be abandoned. The religious landscape of England assumed its present form, with an Anglican established church occupying the middle ground, and Roman Catholics and those Puritans who dissented from the establishment, too strong to be suppressed altogether, having to continue their existence outside the national church rather than controlling it. Restrictions and continuing official suspicion continued well into the nineteenth century.
{{See also|History of the Anglican Communion}}
The Elizabethan Settlement failed in that it was never able to win the assent of the entire English people, let alone the other peoples of the British Isles. Yet as the Anglican form of Christianity is now found all over the world it may possibly have succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of anybody alive in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
 
===Early history===
==== Spread of Anglicanism outside England ====
[[File:Saint Alban (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Saint Alban]] is venerated as the first-recorded British Christian martyr]]
[[Image:Church Of Ireland.png|frame|left|Arms of the [[Church of Ireland]].]]
[[File:Augustinus von Canterbury.jpg|thumb|[[Augustine of Canterbury]], the first [[archbishop of Canterbury]]]]
[[Image:Scottish Episcopal Church logo.gif|frame|right|Arms of the [[Scottish Episcopal Church]].]]
According to legend, the founding of Christianity in Britain is commonly attributed to [[Joseph of Arimathea]] and is commemorated at [[Glastonbury Abbey]].{{efn|According to John Godfrey, {{blockquote|The most famous and beautiful legend of all related to the conversion of Britain is of course that of Joseph of Arimathea, who is said to have arrived in Britain with twelve companions in the year 63 at the bidding of the apostle Philip. According to this legend, Joseph brought with him the Holy Grail and built, at Glastonbury, the first British church.{{sfn|Godfrey|1962|p=9}}}}}}{{sfnm |1a1=Bays |1y=2012 |1p=25 |2a1=Godfrey |2y=1962 |2p=9 |3a1=Kelly |3y=1999}} Many of the early [[Church Fathers]] wrote of the presence of Christianity in [[Roman Britain]], with [[Tertullian]] stating "those parts of Britain into which the Roman arms had never penetrated were become subject to Christ".{{sfnm |1a1=Bays |1y=2012 |1p=25 |2a1=Kelly |2y=1999 |3a1=Timpson |3y=1847 |3p=12}} [[Saint Alban]], who was executed in AD 209, is the first [[Christian martyr]] in the British Isles. For this reason he is [[venerated]] as the British [[protomartyr]].{{sfnm |1a1=Armentrout |1a2=Slocum |1y=2000 |2a1=Bays |2y=2012 |2p=25 |3a1=Cross |3a2=Livingstone |3y=2005}} The historian [[Heinrich Zimmer (Celticist)|Heinrich Zimmer]] writes that "Just as Britain was a part of the Roman Empire, so the British Church formed (during the fourth century) a branch of the Catholic Church of the West; and during the whole of that century, from the [[Synod of Arles|Council of Arles]] (316) onward, took part in all proceedings concerning the Church."{{sfn|Zimmer|1902|pp=107–109<!--|ps=: "For although we differ widely from the current views with regard to the introduction and development of Irish Christianity down to the days of Columba, yet this does not affect the fundamental view, shared by most modern investigators, as to the relation of the institutions of the Celtic Church towards those of the Roman Church at the beginning of the seventh century. On the contrary, with regard to the Irish branch, this view receives fresh support from our statements. Neither from what tradition tells us about the doctrines and institutions of the Celtic Church, nor from what we know or may fairly conjecture about her history, do we receive any support for the hypothesis that the Celtic Church during her golden age greatly resembled the Church of the apostolic era in institutions and dogma. Just as Britain was a part of the Roman Empire, so the British Church formed (during the fourth century) a branch of the Catholic Church of the West; and during the whole of that century, from the council of Arles (316) onward, took part in all proceedings concerning the Church. But the Irish branch of the Celtic Church was an offshoot of that British Church, and had sprung up as early as the fourth century. At the beginning of the seventh century the institutions of the Celtic Church on either side of the Irish Sea showed divergences from the Church of Rome which are well attested. These, on a closer view, admit of full explanation. Above all, we must not forget the fact that in the Roman Catholic Church the position of the Roman bishop during the fourth century and up to the time of Leo the Great (440–461) differed from that of Pope Gregory the Great (509–604) at the end of the sixth century. At the beginning of the seventh century rigid uniformity of institutions was regarded as an essential requirement of the ''unitas catholica''; but to the fourth century this idea was wholly foreign. Besides, many innovations took long to domesticate themselves with the distant branches of the Church. At the end of the fourth century the British branch of the Catholic Church, together with its offshoot in the barbarian isle, were severed from Rome, because political Rome had lost its hold on Britain."-->}}
 
After [[End of Roman rule in Britain|Roman troops withdrew from Britain]], the "absence of Roman military and governmental influence and overall decline of Roman imperial political power enabled Britain and the surrounding isles to develop distinctively from the rest of the West. A new culture emerged around the [[Irish Sea]] among the [[Celts|Celtic peoples]] with [[Celtic Christianity]] at its core. What resulted was a form of Christianity distinct from Rome in many traditions and practices."{{efn|[[John Carey (Celticist)|John Carey]] writes that {{blockquote|'Celtic Christianity' is a phrase used, with varying degrees of specificity, to designate a complex of features held to have been common to the Celtic-speaking countries in the early Middle Ages. Doubts concerning the term's usefulness have repeatedly been expressed, however, and the majority of scholars consider it to be problematic ...
The history of Anglicanism since the [[17th century]] has been one of greater geographical and cultural expansion and diversity, accompanied by a concomitant diversity of liturgical and theological profession and practice.
 
While there is considerable evidence for divergent Irish and (to an even greater degree) British practice in matters of liturgy, baptism, and ecclesiastical administration, the usages in question seem only to have characterized specific regions, and not necessarily to have been uniformly present there. Only the Britons were accused of practising a heterodox baptism; traces of an archaic liturgy in Wales find no counterpart in the eclectic, but largely Gallican, worship attested from Ireland; and the superiority of abbots to bishops appears to have been limited to some parts of Gaelic sphere of influence.{{sfn|Carey|2006|pp=431, 433}}}}
At the same time as the English reformation, the [[Church of Ireland]] was also separated from Rome and adopted articles of faith similar to England's Thirty-Nine Articles. However, unlike England, the Anglican church there was never able to capture the loyalty of the majority of the population (who still adhered to Roman Catholicism). As early as 1582, the [[Scottish Episcopal Church]] was inaugurated when [[James VI of Scotland]] sought to reintroduce bishops when the [[Church of Scotland]] became fully [[presbyterian]] (see [[Scottish reformation]]). The Scottish Episcopal Church enabled the creation of the [[Episcopal Church in the United States of America]] after the [[American Revolution]], by consecrating in [[Aberdeen]] the first American bishop, [[Samuel Seabury]], who had been refused consecration by bishops in England, due to his inability to take the oath of allegiance to the [[English crown]] prescribed in the [[Order for the Consecration of Bishops]]. The polity and ecclesiology of the Scottish and American churches, as well as their daughter churches, thus tends to be distinct from those spawned by the English church - reflected, for example, in their looser conception of [[ecclesiastical province|provincial]] government, and their leadership by a [[presiding bishop]] or [[primus]] rather than by a [[metropolitan]] or [[archbishop]]. The names of the Scottish and American churches inspire the customary term ''Episcopalian'' for an Anglican; the term being used in these and other parts of the world.
''See also: [[:Category:American Episcopalians|American Episcopalians]], [[:Category:Scottish Episcopalians|Scottish Episcopalians]]''
 
In ''The Celtic Resource Book'', [[Martin Wallace (bishop)|Martin Wallace]] writes that {{blockquote|it is important to remember that there was never any such thing as 'The Celtic Church'. It was never an organized system in the way that we understand churches today. Rather, each Celtic church was highly independent and if there was a relationship between any of them the relationship tended to be one of spiritual support through missionary endeavour, rather than through any particular church structure. It is also important to remember that the Celtic church life as it emerged in fifth-century Ireland would be quite different to that which emerged in nineteenth century Hebridean communities. Even on the mainland the patterns of church life would vary considerably from one place to another, and from one age to another.{{sfn|Wallace|2009|p=9}}}}}}{{sfn|Hogue|2010|p=160<!--"In AD 407, Rome withdrew its armies from Britain to defend Italy from Visigothic attack. With the sack of Rome in AD 410, legions of Rome never returned to Britain. The absence of Roman military and governmental influence and overall decline of Roman imperial political power enabled Britain and the surrounding isles to develop distinctively from the rest of the West. A new culture emerged around the Irish Sea among the Celtic peoples with Celtic Christianity at its core. What resulted was a form of Christianity distinct from Rome in many traditions and practices.-->}}{{sfnm |1a1=Hexham |1a2=Rost |1a3=Morehead |1y=2004 |1p=48<!--"Rooted in those years of Celtic Christian culture's isolation is its uniqueness, its mystery...Nowhere in this history of Christianity is there so clear an instance of the Christian transformation of a pagan culture with so little influence by the culture that brought the Christian message. For as soon as the Roman culture had carried the gospel to Ireland, the carrier collapsed....For several generations there was little influence from the rest of European Christianity and the result was a unique Christian blossoming of a formerly pagan culture."--> |2a1=De Waal |2y=1998 |2p=52}}
[[Image:Anglican Church of Canada.gif|frame|left|Arms of the [[Anglican Church of Canada]].]]
[[Image:ECUSA_arms.svg|right|thumb|100px|The arms of the [[Episcopal_Church_in_the_United_States_of_America|US Episcopal Church]].]]
At the time of the Reformation the four Welsh dioceses were all part of the Province of Canterbury, and remained so until 1920 when the [[Church in Wales]] was created as a province of the Anglican Communion. The intense interest in the Christian faith which characterised the Welsh in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was not present in the sixteenth, and most Welsh people went along with the Reformation more because the English government was strong enough to impose its wishes in Wales, rather than out of any real conviction.
 
The historian [[Charles Thomas (historian)|Charles Thomas]], in addition to the [[Celtic studies|Celticist]] Heinrich Zimmer, writes that the distinction between sub-Roman and post-Roman Insular Christianity, also known as Celtic Christianity, began to become apparent around AD 475,{{sfnm |1a1=Thomas |1y=1981 |1p=348 |2a1=Zimmer |2y=1902 |2pp=107–109}} with the [[Celtic Christianity|Celtic churches]] allowing married clergy,{{sfn|Godfrey|1962|pp=440–441}} observing [[Lent]] and Easter according to their own calendar,{{sfn|Boenig|2000|p=7<!--"Not only did the Roman missionaries have to negotiation an accommodation with Germanic and vestigial Celtic paganism, they also had the native Celtic Christianity to deal with. The Celtic Church was largely isolated from the rest of Western Christendom: much of Europe's continent was pagan, and there had been little contact between the Celtic Church and Rome in the years before and during the Anglo-Saxon Migration. As a result the Celtic Church had developed a number of idiosyncrasies that set it apart from the rest of Western Christendom, or at least that is how those adhering to the Roman version of Christianity, like Bede, saw it. Celtic Christianity was dominated by strong abbots and monasteries and characterised by relatively weak bishops (with St. Patrick, a missionary to Ireland from Britain, of course, an exception). This was largely the opposite to the condition that obtained in the Roman Church. The Celtic Church followed, moreover, the eighty-four-year cycle of the dating of Easter rather than the nineteen-year cycle of the Roman Church."-->}}<ref name=":1">{{cite book|title=The Churchman |year=1881|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=427|quote=The Roman Church, and those of the Continent, calculated the occurrence of the Easter festival by a new and more accurate method. The Irish and British Churches calculated by an old and defective rule, which they considered had been transmitted to them from St. John. The difference was sometimes so much as a whole month between the Celtic and the Catholic Easter. When the two Churches came into contact, as they did in the North of England, this discrepancy gave rise to scandal and controversy.}}</ref> and having a different [[tonsure]]; moreover, like the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox]] and the [[Oriental Orthodox Churches|Oriental Orthodox]] churches, the Celtic churches operated independently of the Pope's authority,{{sfnm |1a1=Cairns |1y=1996 |1p=172 |2a1=Grafton |2y=1911 |2p=69 |3a1=Hunter Blair |3y=2003 |3p=129}} as a result of their isolated development in the British Isles.{{sfnm |1a1=Hunter Blair |1y=2003 |1p=129 |2a1=Taylor |2y=1916 |2p=59}}
Anglicanism spread outside of the British Isles by means of emigration as well as missionary effort. English missionary organisations such as [[USPG]] - then known as the [[Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts]], the [[Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge]] (SPCK) and the [[Church Missionary Society]] (CMS) were established in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to bring Anglican Christianity to the British colonies. By the nineteenth century, such missions were extended to other areas of the world. The liturgical and theological orientations of these missionary organisations were diverse. The SPG, for example, was influenced by the [[Catholic Revival]] in the Church of England, while CMS was influenced by the [[Evangelicalism]] of the earlier [[Evangelical Revival]]. As a result, the piety, liturgy, and polity of the indigenous churches they established came to reflect these diverse orientations.
 
In what is known as the [[Gregorian mission]], [[Pope Gregory I|Pope Gregory&nbsp;I]] sent [[Augustine of Canterbury]] to the British Isles in AD 596, with the purpose of [[evangelism|evangelising]] the pagans there (who were largely [[Anglo-Saxon paganism|Anglo-Saxons]]),{{sfn|Wright|2008|p=25}} as well as to reconcile the Celtic churches in the British Isles to the [[See of Rome]].{{sfnm |1a1=Boenig |1y=2000 |1p=7 |2a1=Wallace |2y=2009 |2p=9 |3a1=Wilken |3y=2012 |3pp=274–275}} In [[Kent, England|Kent]], Augustine persuaded the Anglo-Saxon king "[[Æthelberht of Kent|Æthelberht]] and his people to accept Christianity".{{sfn|Carpenter|2003|p=94}} Augustine, on two occasions, "met in conference with members of the Celtic episcopacy, but no understanding was reached between them".{{sfn|Hunter Blair|1966|p=226}}
[[Image:Angl-Australia-Arms.svg|thumb|left|Arms of the [[Anglican Church of Australia]].]]
[[Image:Anglican Church in Aotearoa.png|thumb|right|Arms of the [[Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia]].]]
The growth of the twin "revivals" in nineteenth century Anglicanism - Evangelical and Catholic - were hugely influential. The Evangelical Revival informed important social movements such as [[abolitionism|the abolition of slavery]], child welfare legislation, [[prohibition]] of alcohol, the development of [[public health]] and [[public education]]. It also led to the creation of the [[Church Army]], an evangelical and social welfare association and informed piety and liturgy, most notably in the development of [[Methodism]]. The Catholic Revival, arguably, had a more penetrating impact. It succeeded in transforming the liturgy of the Anglican Church, repositioning the [[Eucharist]] as the central act of worship in place of the [[daily office]]s, and reintroducing the use of vestments, ceremonial, and acts of piety (such as [[Eucharistic adoration]]) that had long been prohibited in the English church and (to a certain extent) in its daughter churches. It also had an impact on Anglican theology, especially through the [[Christian socialism]] of such Catholic Revival figures as [[Frederick Denison Maurice]], [[Charles Gore]], and - later - [[William Temple]].
 
Eventually, the "Christian Church of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria convened the [[Synod of Whitby]] in 663/664 to decide whether to follow Celtic or Roman usages". This meeting, with [[Oswiu|King Oswiu]] as the final decision maker, "led to the acceptance of Roman usage elsewhere in England and brought the English Church into close contact with the Continent".{{sfn|Campbell|2011|p=112}} As a result of assuming Roman usages, the Celtic Church surrendered its independence, and, from this point on, the Church in England "was no longer purely Celtic, but became Anglo-Roman-Celtic".{{sfn|Hardinge|1995|p=xii}} The theologian Christopher L. Webber writes that "Although "the Roman form of Christianity became the dominant influence in Britain as in all of western Europe, Anglican Christianity has continued to have a distinctive quality because of its Celtic heritage."{{sfn|Webber|1999<!--"Although the Roman form of Christianity became the dominant influence in Britain as in all of western Europe, Anglican Christianity has continued to have a distinctive quality because of its Celtic heritage."-->}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://anglican.org/church/ChurchHistory.html|title=Church History|work=The Anglican Domain|publisher=Society of Archbishop Justus|access-date=18 March 2014|archive-date=25 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725010717/http://anglican.org/church/ChurchHistory.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oikoumene.org/en/church-families/anglican-churches|title=Anglican Churches|publisher=World Council of Churches|access-date=18 March 2014|archive-date=24 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140424211706/http://www.oikoumene.org/en/church-families/anglican-churches|url-status=live}}</ref>
== Organization ==
=== Principles of governance ===
 
Following the Synod of Whitby, tensions between Rome and the English king would gradually escalate, due in part to royal assertions that it was the custom of England for the king to exercise authority over the Church. In the late 1000s, [[William the Conqueror]] (William I) refused to swear fealty to the Pope citing English tradition,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Elfinspell: 1079 A.D., William I's Letter to the Pope Gregory VII, from King's Letters, edited by Robert Steel, William the Conqueror, primary source document, Norman England History, Primary Source, English translation |url=https://www.elfinspell.com/KingsLettersWilliamI.html |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=www.elfinspell.com}}</ref> controlled appointments to ecclesiastical offices<ref>{{Cite web |title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: William the Conqueror |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15642c.htm |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref> (a power historically reserved to the Pope) and forbade papal legates to enter England without royal permission.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Age of Gregory VII, 1073-85: Letters of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury |url=http://legalhistorysources.com/Canon%20Law/GregorianReform/GregoryVIILetters.html |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=legalhistorysources.com}}</ref> In 1164, under [[Henry II of England|Henry II]], the [[Constitutions of Clarendon]], citing English custom, required royal assent for excommunications and mandated that ecclesiastical court appeals terminate with the king rather than the Pope.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Henderson |first=Ernest F. (Ernest Flagg) |date=1998-12-29 |title=Constitutions of Clarendon. 1164. |url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/constcla.asp |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=avalon.law.yale.edu}}</ref> The [[Magna Carta]] in 1215, asserting that "the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Archives |first=The National |title=The National Archives - Homepage |url=https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/magna-carta/british-library-magna-carta-1215-runnymede/ |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=The National Archives |language=en-GB}}</ref> would be annulled by [[Pope Innocent III]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=Shameful and Demeaning: The Annulment of Magna Carta |url=https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2015/08/shameful-and-demeaning-the-annulment-of-magna-carta.html |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=blogs.bl.uk |language=en}}</ref> but reissued in both 1216 and 1225. Under [[Edward I of England|Edward I]], in 1279, the [[Statutes of Mortmain|Statute of Mortmain]] required royal approval to grant or transfer land to the Church.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Henderson |first=Ernest F. (Ernest Flagg) |date=1998-12-29 |title=Statute of Mortmain; November 15, 1279 |url=https://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/mortmain.asp |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=avalon.law.yale.edu}}</ref> Additionally, Edward I would reject [[Pope Boniface VIII]]'s bull ''[[Clericis laicos|Clericis Laicos]]'' which forbade secular taxation of clergy. Per the king's orders, non-compliant clergy were punished by law and church property was seized.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Edward I - Wars, Scotland, Wales {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-I-king-of-England/Wars#ref266880 |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> The 1351 [[Statute of Provisors]], under [[Edward III of England|Edward III]], prohibited papal appointments to English benefices, reserving the power for the king.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thomasmorestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2nd_Statute_of_Provisors.pdf |title=The Second Statute of Provisors |website=Thomas More Studies |access-date=4 May 2025}}</ref> The 1353 [[Statute of Praemunire]] prohibited appeals to papal courts for either ecclesiastical or temporal matters.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-10-02 |title=1392: 16 Richard c.5: Statute of Praemunire |url=https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/fourteenth-century/1392-16-richard-c-5-statute-of-praemunire/ |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=The Statutes Project |language=en-GB}}</ref> To date, neither the Statute of Provisors nor the Statute of Praemunire has been repealed. In 1401, [[Henry IV of England|Henry IV]]'s statute ''[[De heretico comburendo|De Heretico Comburendo]]'' would transfer heresy trials from ecclesiastical to secular courts, further cementing the tradition of English kings claiming authority over English ecclesiastical matters.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-09-06 |title=1400: 2 Henry 4 c.15: De heretico comburendo |url=https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/fifteenth-century/1400-2-henry-4-c-15-de-heretico-comburendo/ |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=The Statutes Project |language=en-GB}}</ref> English delegates to the Councils of [[Council of Pisa|Pisa]] (1409), [[Council of Constance|Constance]] (1414–1418), and [[Council Of Basel|Basel]] (1431–1445) would voice support for conciliarism in an attempt to limit the powers of the Pope over-against the bishops of the Church.<ref>{{Cite web |title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Council of Constance |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04288a.htm |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Council of Florence |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06111a.htm |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref>
[[Image:RowanWilliams.jpg|right|thumb|[[Rowan Williams]], current Archbishop of Canterbury. To be in the "[[Anglican Communion]]" is to be in communion with his [[episcopal see]] of Canterbury]]
[[File:King's_College_Chapel,_Cambridge_-_The_Great_East_Window.jpg|thumb|[[King's College Chapel, Cambridge]], Great East Window.]]
The Church in England remained united with Rome until the English Parliament passed the [[Acts of Supremacy|Act of Supremacy]] in 1534, declaring King [[Henry VIII]] the "Supreme Head" of the Church of England. This act culminated centuries of English monarchs asserting authority over ecclesiastical matters, from William I's refusal of papal fealty (1070s) to the Statutes of Provisors (1351) and Praemunire (1353). Henry and his theologians, including [[Thomas Cranmer]], cited these historical customs to justify royal supremacy, arguing that the crown traditionally governed the Church.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Act of Appeals |url=https://www.henryviiithereign.co.uk/1532-act-of-appeals-preamble.html |access-date=2025-04-24 |website=Henry VIII,the Reign |language=en}}</ref> The immediate catalyst was Henry's need to annul his 24-year marriage to [[Catherine of Aragon]], which he believed was invalid based on biblical prohibitions (Leviticus 20:21) and the lack of a male heir, seen as divine judgment. When [[Pope Clement VII]], under pressure from [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Charles V]], refused the annulment, Henry acted to resolve the issue domestically, supported by legislative steps like the [[Submission of the Clergy Act 1533|Submission of the Clergy]] (1534) and [[Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532|Act in Restraint of Appeals]] (1533). The break with Rome reflected a mix of theological conviction, historical precedent, and political necessity, fulfilling a longstanding English desire for ecclesiastical autonomy while addressing immediate dynastic concerns. This laid the foundation for the development of Anglicanism as a distinct national church.
 
The English Church under Henry VIII continued to maintain Catholic doctrines and liturgical celebrations of the [[Anglican sacraments|sacraments]] despite its separation from Rome. With little exception, Henry VIII allowed no changes during his lifetime.{{sfn|Russell|2010}} Under [[King Edward VI]] (1547–1553), however, the church in England first began to undergo what is known as the [[English Reformation]], in the course of which it acquired a number of characteristics that would subsequently become recognised as constituting its distinctive "Anglican" identity.{{sfn|Russell|2010|p=88}}
Contrary to popular misconception, the British monarch is not the constitutional "Head" of the Church of England, nor does he or she have any role in provinces outside England and Wales. The role of the crown in the Church of England is practically limited to the appointment of bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. This process is accomplished through collaboration with and consent of ecclesial representatives ''(see [[Ecclesiastical Commissioners]])''. The monarch has no constitutional role in Anglican churches in other parts of the world, although the prayer books of several countries where she is head of state maintain prayers for her as sovereign.
 
===Development===
A characteristic of Anglicanism is that it has no international juridical authority. All thirty-nine provinces of the Anglican Communion are independent, each with their own [[primate (religion)|primate]] and governing structure. These provinces may take the form of national churches (such as in Canada, Uganda, or Japan) or a collection of nations (such as the West Indies, Central Africa, or South Asia). Within these Communion provinces may exist subdivisions called [[ecclesiastical province]]s, under the jurisdiction of a [[metropolitan]]. All provinces of the Anglican Communion consist of [[diocese]]s, under the jurisdiction of a bishop. In the Anglican tradition, bishops must be consecrated according to the strictures of [[apostolic succession]], which Anglicans consider one of the marks of [[Catholicism|catholicity]]. Apart from bishops, there are two other orders of ordained ministry: [[deacon]] and [[priest]]. No requirement is made for [[clerical celibacy]] and women may be ordained as deacons in almost all provinces, as priests in some, and as bishops in a few provinces. [[Anglican religious order]]s and communities, suppressed in England during the Reformation, have re-emerged since the mid-nineteenth century, and now have an international presence and influence.
{{See also|History of the Anglican Communion}}
[[File:Elizabeth I in coronation robes.jpg|left|thumb|[[Queen Elizabeth I|Queen Elizabeth&nbsp;I]] revived the [[Church of England]] in 1559 and established a uniform faith and practice; she took the title "Supreme Governor"]]
With the [[Elizabethan Settlement]] of 1559, the Protestant identity of the English and Irish churches was affirmed by means of parliamentary legislation which mandated allegiance and loyalty to the English Crown in all their members. The Elizabethan church began to develop distinct religious traditions, assimilating some of the theology of [[Reformed churches]] with the services in the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' (which drew extensively on the [[Sarum Rite]] native to England), under the leadership and organisation of a continuing episcopate.{{sfn|Edwards|1983|p=89}} Over the years, these traditions themselves came to command adherence and loyalty. The Elizabethan Settlement stopped the radical Protestant tendencies under Edward VI by combining the more radical elements of the [[Book of Common Prayer (1552)|1552 prayer book]] with the conservative "Catholic" [[Book of Common Prayer (1549)|1549 prayer book]] into the [[Book of Common Prayer (1559)|1559 ''Book of Common Prayer'']]. From then on, Protestantism was in a "state of arrested development", regardless of the attempts to detach the Church of England from its "idiosyncratic anchorage in the medieval past" by various groups which tried to push it towards a more Reformed theology and governance in the years 1560–1660.{{sfn|MacCulloch|1990|pp=171–172}}
 
Although two important constitutive elements of what later would emerge as Anglicanism were present in 1559 – scripture, the [[historic episcopate]], the ''Book of Common Prayer'', the teachings of the First Four Ecumenical Councils as the yardstick of catholicity, the teaching of the Church Fathers and Catholic bishops, and informed reason – neither the laypeople nor the clergy perceived themselves as Anglicans at the beginning of Elizabeth I's reign, as there was no such identity. Neither does the term ''[[via media]]'' appear until the 1627 to describe a church which refused to identify itself definitely as Catholic or Protestant, or as both, "and had decided in the end that this is virtue rather than a handicap".<ref>Diarmid MacCullough, ''The Later Reformation in England'', 1990, pp. 142, 171–172 {{ISBN|0-333-69331-0}}</ref>
Government in the Anglican Communion is [[synod|synodical]], consisting of three houses of [[laity]] (usually elected parish representatives), [[clergy]], and bishops. National, provincial, and diocesan synods maintain different scopes of authority, depending on their [[canon law|canons and constitutions]]. Anglicanism is not [[congregationalism|congregational]] in its polity: It is the diocese, not the parish church, which is the smallest unit of authority in the church, and bishops must give their assent to resolutions passed by synods. ''(See [[Episcopal polity]]).
[[File:New College Chapel Interior 1, Oxford, UK - Diliff.jpg|thumb|[[New College, Oxford|New College Chape]]<nowiki/>l, Oxford]]
Historical studies on the period 1560–1660 written before the late 1960s tended to project the predominant conformist spirituality and doctrine of the 1660s on the ecclesiastical situation one hundred years before, and there was also a tendency to take polemically binary partitions of reality claimed by contestants studied (such as the dichotomies Protestant-"Popish" or "[[Laudianism|Laudian]]"-"Puritan") at face value. Since the late 1960s, these interpretations have been criticised. Studies on the subject written during the last forty-five years have, however, not reached any consensus on how to interpret this period in English church history. The extent to which one or several positions concerning doctrine and spirituality existed alongside the more well-known and articulate Puritan movement and the Durham House Party, and the exact extent of continental Calvinism among the English elite and among the ordinary churchgoers from the 1560s to the 1620s are subjects of current and ongoing debate.{{efn|For a study stressing the hegemony of continental Calvinism before the 1620s, see {{harvnb|Tyacke|1987}}. For a study perceiving an emerging self-conscious "Prayer Book Episcopalism" distinct from, but a predecessor to, [[Restoration (England)|Restoration]] Anglicanism, see {{harvnb|Maltby|1998}}.}}
 
In 1662, under [[Charles II of England|King Charles II]], a revised ''Book of Common Prayer'' was produced, which was acceptable to high churchmen as well as some [[Puritans]] and is still considered authoritative to this day.{{sfn|Black|2005|pp=11, 129}} In so far as Anglicans derived their identity from both parliamentary legislation and ecclesiastical tradition, a crisis of identity could result wherever secular and religious loyalties came into conflict – and such a crisis indeed occurred in 1776 with the [[United States Declaration of Independence]], most of whose signatories were, at least nominally, Anglican.{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=42}} For these American patriots, even the forms of Anglican services were in doubt, since the Prayer Book rites of [[Matins]], [[Evening Prayer (Anglican)|Evensong]], and Holy Communion all included specific prayers for the British royal family. Consequently, the conclusion of the [[American Revolutionary War|War of Independence]] eventually resulted in the creation of two new Anglican churches, the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church in the United States]] in those states that had achieved independence; and in the 1830s, [[Anglican Church of Canada|the Church of England in Canada]] became independent from the Church of England in those North American colonies which had remained under British control and to which many Loyalist churchmen had migrated.{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=43}}
=== The Archbishop of Canterbury ===
[[Image:Archbishcantarms.PNG|thumb|right|150px|Arms of the [[episcopal see|see]] of Canterbury.]]
The Archbishop of Canterbury has a precedence of honour over the other primates of the Anglican Communion, and for a province to be considered a part of the Communion means specifically to be in communion with the [[episcopal see|See]] of [[Province of Canterbury|Canterbury]]. The Archbishop is, therefore recognised as ''[[primus inter pares]]'', or first amongst equals even though he does not exercise any direct authority in any [[province (Anglican)|province]] outside England, of which he is chief primate. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, [[Rowan Williams]], as former [[Archbishop of Wales]], is the first appointed from outside the Church of England since the Reformation.
 
Reluctantly, legislation was passed in the British Parliament (the Consecration of Bishops Abroad Act 1786) to allow bishops to be consecrated for an American church outside of allegiance to the British Crown (since no dioceses had ever been established in the former American colonies).{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=43}} Both in the United States and in Canada, the new Anglican churches developed novel models of self-government, collective decision-making, and self-supported financing; that would be consistent with separation of religious and secular identities.{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=322}}
As "spiritual head" of the Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury maintains a certain moral authority, and has the right to determine which churches will be in communion with his [[Episcopal See|See]]. He hosts and chairs the [[Lambeth Conference]]s of Anglican Communion bishops, as well as the [[Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting]]. He acts as president of the secretariat of the Anglican Communion Office, and its deliberative body, the [[Anglican Consultative Council]].
 
In the following century, two further factors acted to accelerate the development of a distinct Anglican identity. From 1828 and 1829, [[Dissenters]] and Catholics could be elected to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]],{{sfn|Edwards|1984|pp=113, 124}} which consequently ceased to be a body drawn purely from the established churches of Scotland, England, and Ireland; but which nevertheless, over the following ten years, engaged in extensive reforming legislation affecting the interests of the English and Irish churches; which, by the [[Acts of Union 1800|Acts of Union of 1800]], had been reconstituted as the [[United Church of England and Ireland]] (a union which was dissolved in 1871). The propriety of this legislation was bitterly contested by the [[Oxford Movement]] (Tractarians),{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=178}} who in response developed a vision of Anglicanism as religious tradition deriving ultimately from the [[ecumenical councils]] of the patristic church. Those within the Church of England opposed to the Tractarians, and to their revived ritual practices, introduced a stream of bills in parliament aimed to control innovations in worship.{{sfn|Chadwick|1987|p=324}} This only made the dilemma more acute, with consequent continual litigation in the secular and ecclesiastical courts.
=== International bodies ===
 
Over the same period, Anglican churches engaged vigorously in [[Mission (Christian)|Christian missions]], resulting in the creation, by the end of the century, of over ninety colonial bishoprics,{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=318}} which gradually coalesced into new self-governing churches on the Canadian and American models. However, the case of [[John Colenso]], [[Bishop of Natal]], reinstated in 1865 by the English [[Judicial Committee of the Privy Council]] over the heads of the Church in South Africa,{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=324}} demonstrated acutely that the extension of episcopacy had to be accompanied by a recognised Anglican ecclesiology of ecclesiastical authority, distinct from secular power.
The Anglican Communion has no international juridical organisation. All international bodies are consultative and collaborative, and their resolutions are not legally binding on the independent provinces of the Communion. There are three international bodies of note.
 
Consequently, at the instigation of the bishops of Canada and South Africa, the first [[Lambeth Conference]] was called in 1867;{{sfn|Edwards|1984|p=325}} to be followed by further conferences in 1878 and 1888, and thereafter at ten-year intervals. The various papers and declarations of successive Lambeth Conferences have served to frame the continued Anglican debate on identity, especially as relating to the possibility of ecumenical discussion with other churches. This ecumenical aspiration became much more of a possibility, as other denominational groups rapidly followed the example of the Anglican Communion in founding their own transnational alliances: the [[World Alliance of Reformed Churches|Alliance of Reformed Churches]], the [[World Methodist Council|Ecumenical Methodist Council]], the [[World Alliance of Reformed Churches|International Congregational Council]], and the [[Baptist World Alliance]].
# The [[Lambeth Conference]] is the oldest international consultation. It was first convened by Archbishop [[Charles Longley]] in 1867 as a vehicle for bishops of the Communion to "discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action." Since then, it has been held roughly every ten years. Invitation is by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
# The [[Anglican Consultative Council]] was created by a 1968 Lambeth Conference resolution, and meets [[biennial|biennially]]. The council consists of representative bishops, clergy, and laity chosen by the thirty-eight provinces. The body has a permanent secretariat, the Anglican Communion Office, of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is president.
# The [[Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting]] is the most recent manifestation of international consultation and deliberation, having been first convened by Archbishop [[Donald Coggan]] in 1978 as a forum for "leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation."
 
=== United Churches Theories===
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Anglicanism was seen as a middle way, or ''via media'', between two branches of Protestantism, Lutheranism and Reformed Christianity.<ref name="Anglican and Episcopal History"/> In their rejection of absolute parliamentary authority, the [[Oxford Movement|Tractarians]], especially [[John Henry Newman]], looked back to the writings of 17th-century Anglican divines, finding in these texts the idea of the English church as a ''via media'' between the Protestant and Catholic traditions.{{sfn|Morris|2003}} This view was associated – especially in the writings of [[Edward Bouverie Pusey]] – with the theory of Anglicanism as one of three "[[Branch Theory|branches]]" (alongside the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches) historically arising out of the common tradition of the earliest [[ecumenical councils]]. Newman himself subsequently rejected his theory of the ''via media'', as essentially historicist and static and hence unable to accommodate any dynamic development within the church.{{sfn|Morris|2003}} Nevertheless, the aspiration to ground Anglican identity in the writings of the 17th-century divines and in faithfulness to the traditions of the [[Church Fathers]] reflects a continuing theme of Anglican ecclesiology, most recently in the writings of [[Henry Robert McAdoo]].{{sfn|McAdoo|1991}}
In the Indian subcontinent most Anglican churches have entered into formal union with Protestant denominations while remaining part of the Anglican Communion. These agreements, which date from the 1940s and 50s, led to the creation of the [[Church of North India]], the [[Church of South India]], the [[Church of Pakistan]] and the [[Church of Bangladesh]]. The united churches maintain an episcopal and synodical structure and consecrate bishops in apostolic succession. As a percentage of the total population in the region, these united churches are not significant, but aside from [[Bangladesh]], they are numerically very substantial.
 
The Tractarian formulation of the theory of the ''via media'' between Protestantism and Catholicism was essentially a party platform, and not acceptable to Anglicans outside the confines of the [[Oxford Movement]]. However, this theory of the via media was reworked in the ecclesiological writings of [[Frederick Denison Maurice]], in a more dynamic form that became widely influential. Both Maurice and Newman saw the Church of England of their day as sorely deficient in faith; but whereas Newman had looked back to a distant past when the light of faith might have appeared to burn brighter, Maurice looked forward to the possibility of a brighter revelation of faith in the future. Maurice saw the Protestant and Catholic strands within the Church of England as contrary but complementary, both maintaining elements of the true church, but incomplete without the other; such that a true catholic and evangelical church might come into being by a union of opposites.{{sfn|Sykes|1978|p=16}}
Those which did not join with the union agreements in South Asia retained the name Anglican Church of India or adopted a similar one using the word "Anglican." The total membership of these churches has been estimated at 800,000. Most have recently entered into communion with churches of the [[Continuing Anglican Movement]] and have North American parishes.
 
Central to Maurice's perspective was his belief that the collective elements of family, nation, and church represented a divine order of structures through which God unfolds his continuing work of creation. Hence, for Maurice, the Protestant tradition had maintained the elements of national distinction which were amongst the marks of the true universal church, but which had been lost within contemporary Catholicism in the internationalism of centralised papal authority. Within the coming universal church that Maurice foresaw, national churches would each maintain the six signs of catholicity: baptism, Eucharist, the creeds, Scripture, an episcopal ministry, and a fixed liturgy (which could take a variety of forms in accordance with divinely ordained distinctions in national characteristics).{{sfn|Morris|2003}} This vision of a becoming universal church as a congregation of autonomous national churches proved highly congenial in Anglican circles; and Maurice's six signs were adapted to form the [[Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral]] of 1888.{{sfn|Woodhouse-Hawkins|1988}}
=== Anglican Churches outside the Anglican Communion ===
 
In the latter decades of the 20th century, Maurice's theory, and the various strands of Anglican thought that derived from it, have been criticised by [[Stephen Sykes]],{{sfn|Sykes|1978|p=19}} who argues that the terms ''Protestant'' and ''Catholic'' as used in these approaches are synthetic constructs denoting ecclesiastic identities unacceptable to those to whom the labels are applied. Hence, the Catholic Church does not regard itself as a party or strand within the universal church – but rather identifies itself as the universal church. Moreover, Sykes criticises the proposition, implicit in theories of ''via media'', that there is no distinctive body of Anglican doctrines, other than those of the universal church; accusing this of being an excuse not to undertake systematic doctrine at all.{{sfn|Sykes|1978|p=53}}
There are a number of jurisdictions which identify themselves as "Anglican" but are not in communion with Canterbury. They therefore are outside the Anglican Communion. Several, such as the [[Free Church of England]] and the [[Reformed Episcopal Church]] in the United States left the Anglican Communion in the 1800s in reaction to the inroads of the Catholic Revival and the controversy over [[ritualism]] which it produced in the church.
 
Contrariwise, Sykes notes a high degree of commonality in Anglican liturgical forms and in the doctrinal understandings expressed within those liturgies. He proposes that Anglican identity might rather be found within a shared consistent pattern of prescriptive liturgies, established and maintained through [[Canon law of the Anglican Communion|canon law]], and embodying both a historic deposit of formal statements of doctrine, and also framing the regular reading and proclamation of scripture.{{sfn|Sykes|1978|p=44}} Sykes nevertheless agrees with those heirs of Maurice who emphasise the incompleteness of Anglicanism as a positive feature, and quotes with qualified approval the words of [[Michael Ramsey]]:
Later, during the 1960s and 70s, disagreements with certain provincial bodies — chiefly in North America and in the United Kingdom — over such issues as prayer book revision, the remarriage of divorced persons, the ordination of women, and the acceptance by the church of homosexual relationships led to another and quite different schism. These Anglican churches are usually termed "[[Continuing Anglican Movement|Continuing Anglican churches]]" because of their determination to preserve (or "continue") the episcopate in [[Apostolic Succession]], as well as the faith, worship and teaching of traditional Anglicanism and historical Christianity which they believe the Anglican Communion to have deviated from. The older Reformed Episcopal churches maintained the lineage of bishops without accepting the idea that sacraments are valid only if administered by clergy in such a lineage.
 
{{Blockquote|For while the Anglican church is vindicated by its place in history, with a strikingly balanced witness to Gospel and Church and sound learning, its greater vindication lies in its pointing through its own history to something of which it is a fragment. Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the tension and the travail of its soul. It is clumsy and untidy, it baffles neatness and logic. For it is not sent to commend itself as 'the best type of Christianity,' but by its very brokenness to point to the universal Church wherein all have died.{{sfn|Ramsey|1936|p=220}}}}
There are also independent jurisdictions unrelated to the preceding schisms. The [[Church of England in South Africa]] is conservative, long-established, and has a substantial membership. It is separate from the [[Anglican Church of Southern Africa]], which is part of the Anglican Communion. Other churches, however, have adopted the Anglican name, the Book of Common Prayer, Anglican vestments, and — in some cases — the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, but have no historic connection to the Anglican Communion. Unlike the socially conservative Continuing Anglican churches and the Church of England in South Africa, some of these tiny jurisdictions are openly oriented towards the Gay and Lesbian community and do ordain women clergy.
 
==Doctrine==
Given the range of concerns and the grounds for schism, there is as much diversity in the theological and liturgical orientations of the Free Churches, the Continuing Anglican churches, and the independent Anglican bodies as there is among churches of the Anglican Communion. Some are Evangelical, others charismatic and Evangelical, and yet others are [[Anglo-Catholic]]. What they have in common is a conviction that mainstream Anglicanism in North America, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere has departed from acceptable principles of belief and/or practice.
{{Main|Anglican doctrine}}
 
==="Catholic and reformed"===
===Current realignment within the Anglican Communion===
 
The distinction between Reformed and Catholic, and the coherence of the two, is a matter of debate within the Anglican Communion. The [[Oxford Movement]] of the mid-19th century revived and extended doctrinal, liturgical, and pastoral practices similar to those of Roman Catholicism. This extends beyond the ceremony of [[high church]] services to even more theologically significant territory, such as sacramental theology (see [[Anglican sacraments]]). While [[Anglo-Catholic]] practices, particularly liturgical ones, have become more common within the tradition over the last century, there are also places where practices and beliefs resonate more closely with the evangelical movements of the 1730s (see [[Sydney Anglicanism]]).
{{main|Anglican realignment}}
 
===Guiding principles===
The ordination in 2003 of [[Gene Robinson]], an openly gay man, as Bishop of the [[Episcopal Church of the United States of America|Episcopal]] Diocese of New Hampshire brought to a crisis various divisions between conservative and progressive tendencies within the ECUSA. Several dissenting bishops, priests, and congregations have acted to disassociate themselves from the Episcopal Church, and sought to place themselves under the jurisdiction of other Anglican primates with whose theology or practice they have more sympathy, such as the Primates of Nigeria, Rwanda, and Bolivia. The [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] has not recognized such realignments as legitimate. In December 2006, nine congregations in Virginia voted overwhelmingly to realign, and the two largest sought the oversight of the Primate of the [[Church of Nigeria]]. New organizations of conservative churches seeking "realignment" include the [[American Anglican Council]] and the [[Anglican Communion Network]]; in some cases these also include [[Continuing Anglican]] churches currently outside the Communion. Links have also been formed with other conservative Anglican groups such as the [[Anglican Diocese of Sydney]] and [[Anglican Mainstream]].
[[File:Hooker-Statue.jpeg|thumb|[[Richard Hooker (theologian)|Richard Hooker]] (1554–1600), one of the most influential figures in shaping Anglican theology and self-identity]]
For high-church Anglicans, doctrine is neither established by a [[magisterium]], nor derived from the theology of an [[:wikt:eponym|eponymous]] founder (such as [[Calvinism]]), nor summed up in a confession of faith beyond the ecumenical [[creed]]s, such as the [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] [[Book of Concord]]. For them, the earliest Anglican theological documents are its prayer books, which they see as the products of profound theological reflection, compromise, and synthesis. They emphasise the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' as a key expression of Anglican doctrine. The principle of looking to the prayer books as a guide to the parameters of belief and practice is called by the Latin name ''[[lex orandi, lex credendi]]'' ("the law of prayer is the law of belief").
 
Within the prayer books are the fundamentals of Anglican doctrine: the [[Apostles' Creed|Apostles']] and [[Nicene Creed|Nicene]] creeds, the [[Athanasian Creed]] (now rarely used), the scriptures (via the lectionary), the sacraments, daily prayer, the [[catechism]], and apostolic succession in the context of the historic threefold ministry. For some low-church and evangelical Anglicans, the 16th-century [[English Reformation|Reformed]] Thirty-Nine Articles form the basis of doctrine.
Although precipitated by the issue of the ordination of homosexuals, the controversy encompasses other issues such as the authority of scripture and historic church teaching in the formulation of current church teaching and practice, the relationship between independent Anglican provinces and the instruments of unity in the Anglican Communion, and the disposition of congregational and diocesan church properties.
 
====Distinctives of Anglican belief====
(See also [[Anglican views of homosexuality]])
The [[Thirty-Nine Articles]] played a significant role in Anglican doctrine and practice. Following the passing of the 1604 canons, all Anglican clergy had to formally subscribe to the articles. Today, however, the articles are no longer binding,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=Thirty-nine Articles |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thirty-nine-Articles |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date=29 August 2016 |archive-date=26 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726050538/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thirty-nine-Articles |url-status=live }}</ref> but are seen as a historical document which has played a significant role in the shaping of Anglican identity. The degree to which each of the articles has remained influential varies.
 
On the doctrine of [[Justification (theology)|justification]], for example, there is a wide range of beliefs within the Anglican Communion, with some [[Anglo-Catholic]]s arguing for a faith with good works and the sacraments. At the same time, however, some [[evangelical]] Anglicans ascribe to the Reformed emphasis on ''[[sola fide]]'' ("faith alone") in their doctrine of justification (see [[Sydney Anglicanism]]). Still other Anglicans adopt a nuanced view of justification, taking elements from the early [[Church Fathers]], [[Catholicism]], [[Protestantism]], [[liberal Christianity|liberal theology]], and [[latitudinarian]] thought.
== Doctrine ==
{{Main|Anglican doctrine}}
=== Catholic and Reformed ===
 
Arguably, the most influential of the original articles has been Article VI on the "sufficiency of scripture", which says that "Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." This article has informed Anglican biblical [[exegesis]] and [[hermeneutics]] since earliest times.
Rather than theological disagreement, the origin of Anglicanism was based on questions of jurisdiction - namely, the belief that national churches should be autonomous. The effort to create a national church in continuity with its traditions, but inclusive of the doctrinal and liturgical insights of the [[Reformation]] was joined by a real concern to make the institution as hospitable as possible to people of different theological inclinations, so as to maintain social peace and cohesion. The result has been a movement with a distinctive self-image among Christian movements. The question often arises whether the Anglican Communion should be identified as a [[Protestant]] or [[Catholic]] church, or perhaps a distinct branch of Christianity altogether.
 
Anglicans look for authority in their "standard divines" (see below). Historically, the most influential of these – apart from Cranmer – has been the 16th-century cleric and theologian [[Richard Hooker (theologian)|Richard Hooker]], who after 1660 was increasingly portrayed as the founding father of Anglicanism. Hooker's description of Anglican authority as being derived primarily from scripture, informed by reason (the intellect and the experience of God) and tradition (the practices and beliefs of the historical church), has influenced Anglican self-identity and doctrinal reflection perhaps more powerfully than any other formula. The analogy of the "three-legged stool" of [[Bible|scripture]], [[reason]], and [[Sacred Tradition|tradition]] is often incorrectly attributed to Hooker. Rather, Hooker's description is a hierarchy of authority, with scripture as foundational and reason and tradition as vitally important, but secondary, authorities.
The distinction between Protestant and Catholic, and the coherence of the two, is routinely a matter of debate both within specific Anglican Churches and throughout the Anglican Communion by members themselves. Since the [[Oxford Movement]] of the mid-19th century, many churches of the Communion have embraced and extended liturgical and pastoral practices dissimilar to most Reformed Protestant theology. This extends beyond the ceremony of [[High Church]] services to even more theologically significant territory, such as sacramental theology (see [[Anglican sacraments]]). Nevertheless, while Anglo-Catholic practices, particularly liturgical ones, have become much more mainstream within the denomination over the last century, there remain many areas where practices and beliefs remain on the more Protestant or Evangelical side.
 
Finally, the extension of Anglicanism into non-English cultures, the growing diversity of prayer books, and the increasing interest in ecumenical dialogue have led to further reflection on the parameters of Anglican identity. Many Anglicans look to the [[Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral]] of 1888 as the ''sine qua non'' of communal identity.{{sfn|Sydnor|1980|p=80}} In brief, the quadrilateral's four points are the scriptures as containing all things necessary to salvation; the creeds (specifically, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds) as the sufficient statement of Christian faith; the dominical sacraments of [[Baptism]] and [[Holy Communion]]; and the historic [[Episcopalian church governance#Anglican Communion|episcopate]].{{sfn|Sydnor|1980|p=80}}
=== Guiding principles ===
 
===Divines{{anchor|Anglican_divines}}===
[[Image:Hooker-Statue.jpeg|thumb|left|[[Richard Hooker (theologian)|Richard Hooker]] (1554–1600), one of the most influential figures in shaping Anglican theology and self-identity]]
{{See also|Richard Neile|Caroline Divines|Hackney Phalanx|Oxford Movement}}
[[File:Thomas Cranmer by Gerlach Flicke.jpg|thumb|[[Thomas Cranmer]], author of the first two editions of the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'']]
Within the Anglican tradition, "divines" are clergy of the [[Church of England]] whose theological writings have been considered standards for faith, doctrine, worship, and spirituality, and whose influence has permeated the Anglican Communion in varying degrees through the years.{{sfn|Booty|1998|pp=175–176, 197}} While there is no authoritative list of these Anglican divines, there are some whose names would likely be found on most lists – those who are commemorated in [[Calendar of saints (Anglican)|lesser feasts]] of the Anglican churches and those whose works are frequently [[anthology|anthologised]].{{sfn|Booty|1998|pp=163, 174}}
 
The corpus produced by Anglican divines is diverse. What they have in common is a commitment to the faith as conveyed by scripture and the ''Book of Common Prayer'', thus regarding prayer and theology in a manner akin to that of the [[Apostolic Fathers]].{{sfn|Booty|1998|p=163}} On the whole, Anglican divines view the ''[[via media]]'' of Anglicanism not as a compromise, but as "a positive position, witnessing to the universality of God and God's kingdom working through the fallible, earthly ''ecclesia Anglicana''".{{sfn|Booty|1998|pp=164}}
Unlike other Christian movements, Anglican doctrine is neither established by a [[magisterium]], nor derived from the theology of an [[eponymous]] founder (such as [[Lutheranism]] or [[Calvinism]]), nor summed up in a confession of faith (beyond those of the [[creed]]s). Instead, the earliest Anglican theological documents are its prayer books, which were themselves the products of profound theological reflection and compromise. It is within the [[Book of Common Prayer]] that Anglican doctrine was originally expressed in the selection, arrangement, and composition of prayers and exhortations, the selection and arrangement of daily scripture readings (the [[lectionary]]), and in the stipulation of the [[rubric]]s for permissible [[liturgy|liturgical action]] and any variations in the prayers and exhortations. The principle of looking to the prayer books as a guide to the parameters of belief and practice is called by the Latin name ''[[lex orandi, lex credendi]]'' ("the law of prayer is the law of belief"). Within the prayer books are the so-called fundamentals of Anglican doctrine: The [[Apostles' Creed|Apostles']] and [[Nicene Creed]]s, the scriptures (via the lectionary), the sacraments, daily prayer, the [[catechism]], and apostolic succession in the context of the historic threefold ministry.
 
These theologians regard scripture as interpreted through tradition and reason as authoritative in matters concerning salvation. Reason and tradition, indeed, are extant in and presupposed by scripture, thus implying co-operation between God and humanity, God and nature, and between the sacred and secular. Faith is thus regarded as [[incarnation]]al and authority as dispersed.
Beyond the prayer books of various provinces, however, there are other important principles that have had an impact on Anglican belief. The earliest are contained within the ''[[Thirty-Nine Articles]] of Religion'', as they appear in their final, 1604 form. Historically, Anglican clergy had to take an oath of subscription to the Articles, although the practice has become uncommon. Despite this, they have never been considered binding, but rather advisory. The degree to which each of the articles has remained influential varies. Arguably, the most influential of them has been Article VI on the "sufficiency of Scripture," which states that "Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." This article has informed Anglican biblical [[exegesis]] and [[hermeneutics]] since earliest times.
 
Amongst the early Anglican divines of the 16th and 17th centuries, the names of [[Thomas Cranmer]], [[John Jewel]], [[Matthew Parker]], [[Richard Hooker]], [[Lancelot Andrewes]], and [[Jeremy Taylor]] predominate. The influential character of Hooker's ''[[Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity]]'' cannot be overestimated. Published in 1593 and subsequently, Hooker's eight-volume work is primarily a treatise on church-state relations, but it deals comprehensively with issues of [[biblical interpretation]], [[soteriology]], ethics, and [[Sanctification in Christianity|sanctification]]. Throughout the work, Hooker makes clear that theology involves prayer and is concerned with ultimate issues and that theology is relevant to the social mission of the church.
Anglicans also look for authority in their so-called "standard divines" (see below). Historically, the most influential of these - apart from Cranmer - has been the sixteenth century cleric and theologian [[Richard Hooker (theologian)|Richard Hooker]]. Hooker's description of Anglican authority as being derived primarily from Scripture, informed by reason (the intellect and the experience of God) and tradition (the practices and beliefs of the historical church), has influenced Anglican self-identity and doctrinal reflection perhaps more powerfully than any other formula. The analogy of the "three-legged stool" of scripture, reason and tradition is often incorrectly attributed to Hooker.
 
The 17th century saw the rise of two important movements in Anglicanism: [[Cambridge Platonists|Cambridge Platonism]], with its mystical understanding of reason as the "candle of the Lord", and the [[Evangelical Revival]], with its emphasis on the personal experience of the [[Holy Spirit in Christianity|Holy Spirit]]. The Cambridge Platonist movement evolved into a school called [[Latitudinarianism]], which emphasised reason as the barometer of discernment and took a stance of indifference towards doctrinal and ecclesiological differences.
Finally, the extension of Anglicanism into non-English cultures, the growing diversity of prayer books, and the increasing interest in ecumenical dialogue has led to further reflection on the parameters of Anglican identity. Many Anglicans look to the [[Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral]] of 1888 as the "''sine qua non''" of Communal identity. In brief, the Quadrilateral's four points are the Holy Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to salvation; the Creeds (specifically, the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds), as the sufficient statement of Christian faith; the dominical sacraments of [[Baptism]] and [[Holy Communion]]; and the historic [[episcopalian church governance|episcopate]],
 
The Evangelical Revival, influenced by such figures as [[John Wesley]] and [[Charles Simeon]], re-emphasised the importance of [[Sola fide|justification through faith]] and the consequent importance of personal conversion. Some in this movement, such as Wesley and [[George Whitefield]], took the message to the United States, influencing the [[First Great Awakening]] and creating an Anglo-American movement called [[Methodism]] that would eventually break away, structurally, from the Anglican churches after the American Revolution.
=== Anglican divines ===
 
By the 19th century, there was a renewed interest in pre-Reformation English religious thought and practice. Theologians such as [[John Keble]], [[Edward Bouverie Pusey]], and [[John Henry Newman]] had widespread influence in the realm of polemics, homiletics and theological and devotional works, not least because they largely repudiated the old high-church tradition and replaced it with a dynamic appeal to antiquity which looked beyond the Reformers and Anglican formularies.{{sfn|Nockles|1994|pp=7–8, 113, 125, 127}} Their work is largely credited with the development of the [[Oxford Movement]], which sought to reassert Catholic identity and practice in Anglicanism.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kiefer |first=James E. |title=The Oxford Tractarians, Renewers of the Church |url=http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/249.html |work=Biographical Sketches of Memorable Christians of the Past |publisher=Society of Archbishop Justus |access-date=27 September 2017 |archive-date=5 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171205061354/http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/249.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
Within the Anglican tradition, there have been certain theological writers whose works have been considered standards for faith, doctrine, worship, and spirituality. While there is no authoritative list of these Anglican divines, there are some whose names would likely be found on most lists - those who are commemorated in [[Calendar of saints (Anglican)|lesser feasts]] of the Church, and those whose works are frequently [[anthology|anthologized]].<ref>Booty, John, "Standard Divines," in ''The Study of Anglicanism'', op. cit., 163 ff.</ref>
 
In contrast to this movement, clergy such as the Bishop of Liverpool, [[J. C. Ryle]], sought to uphold the distinctly Reformed identity of the Church of England. He was not a servant of the status quo, but argued for a lively religion which emphasised grace, holy and charitable living, and the plain use of the 1662 ''Book of Common Prayer'' (interpreted in a partisan evangelical way){{efn|The 19th-century evangelical interpretation of the Prayerbook, now less frequent, included celebration of Holy Communion while the priest was standing at the northern ''short side'' of the communion table. This misinterpretation was caused by the fact that the 1662 ''Book of Common Prayer'' retained two contradictory rubrics. From 1552 a rubric was retained that the priest should stand at the northern ''long side'' of a communion table standing east-west in the choir (the communicants sitting in the choir stalls by the northern and southern walls). From 1559 was retained the rubric that 'the chancels shall remain as they have done in times past', originally intended to protect the mediaeval interior of church buildings from Calvinist vandalism, and – mainly neglected during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I – it was not consented to generally before the reign of Charles II. During the reign of Elizabeth I, only the [[chapel royal|chapels royal]] retained the mediaeval position of the communion table, standing permanently north-south at the east wall of the choir. The parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, London, began to apply the Chapels Royal arrangement of the communion table in 1599 or 1605, and from there it began to spread. Archbishop [[William Laud]]'s attempt to make it mandatory in the 1630s backfired, with well known consequences. By the reign of Charles II, however, it was applied generally, and the original intention of the ''northward position rubric'' became unintelligible, and easily misunderstood.}} without additional rituals. [[Frederick Denison Maurice]], through such works as ''The Kingdom of Christ'', played a pivotal role in inaugurating another movement, [[Christian socialism]]. In this, Maurice transformed Hooker's emphasis on the [[incarnation]]al nature of Anglican spirituality to an imperative for social justice.
The corpus produced by Anglican divines is diverse. What they have in common is a commitment to the faith as conveyed by Scripture and the Book of Common Prayer, thus regarding prayer and theology in a manner akin to that of the [[Apostolic Fathers]].<ref>Booty, John, "Standard Divines," in ''The Study of Anglicanism'', op. cit., 163</ref> On the whole, Anglican divines view the [[via media]] of Anglicanism, not as a compromise, but "a positive position, witnessing to the universality of God and God's kingdom working through the fallible, earthly ''ecclesia Anglicana''."<ref>Booty, John, "Standard Divines," in ''The Study of Anglicanism'', op. cit., 164</ref> These theologians regard Scripture as interpreted through tradition and reason as authoritative in matters concerning salvation. Reason and tradition, indeed, is extant in and presupposed by Scripture, thus implying co-operation between God and humanity, God and nature, and between the sacred and secular. Faith is thus regarded as [[incarnation|incarnational]], and authority as dispersed.
 
In the 19th century, Anglican biblical scholarship began to assume a distinct character, represented by the so-called "Cambridge triumvirate" of [[Joseph Lightfoot]], [[Fenton John Anthony Hort|F. J. A. Hort]], and [[Brooke Foss Westcott]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Treloar |first1=Geoffrey R. |title=The Cambridge Triumvirate and the Acceptance of New Testament Higher Criticism in Britain 1850–1900 |journal=[[Journal of Anglican Studies]] |date=2006 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=13–32 |doi=10.1177/1740355306064516|s2cid=171035765 }}</ref> Their orientation is best summed up by Westcott's observation that "Life which Christ is and which Christ communicates, the life which fills our whole beings as we realise its capacities, is active fellowship with God."{{sfn|Booty|1998|p=183}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Westcott |first1=Brooke Foss |title=Lessons from Work |date=1901 |publisher=Macmillan |___location=London |page=290 |edition=Reprinted |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/lessonsfromwork00westgoog/page/n306/mode/1up|chapter=Life}}</ref>
Among the early Anglican divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the names of Thomas Cranmer, [[John Jewel]], Richard Hooker, [[Lancelot Andrewes]], and [[Jeremy Taylor]] predominate. The influential character of Hooker's ''[[Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity]]'' cannot be overestimated. Published in 1593 and subsequently, Hooker's eight volume work is primarily a treatise on Church-state relations, but it also deals comprehensively with issues of [[biblical interpretation]], [[soteriology]], [[ethics]], and [[sanctification]]. Throughout the work, Hooker makes clear that theology involves prayer and is concerned with ultimate issues, and also that theology is relevant to the social mission of the church.
 
The earlier part of the 20th century is marked by [[Charles Gore]], with his emphasis on [[natural revelation]], and [[William Temple (bishop)|William Temple]]'s focus on Christianity and society, while, from outside England, [[Robert Leighton (bishop)|Robert Leighton]], Archbishop of Glasgow, and several clergy from the United States have been suggested, such as [[William Porcher DuBose]], [[John Henry Hobart]] (1775–1830, Bishop of New York 1816–30), [[William Meade]], [[Phillips Brooks]], and [[Charles Brent]].{{sfn|Booty|1998|pp=164, 171–172}}
The eighteenth century saw the rise of two important movements in Anglicanism: [[Cambridge Platonists|Cambridge Platonism]], with its mystical understanding of reason as the "candle of the Lord," and the [[Evangelical Revival]], with its emphasis on the personal experience of the [[Holy Spirit]]. The Cambridge Platonist movement evolved into a school called [[Latitudinarianism]], which emphasized reason as the barometer of discernment and took a stance of indifference towards doctrinal and ecclesiological differences. The Evangelical Revival, influenced by such figures as [[John Wesley]] and [[Charles Simeon]], re-emphasized the importance of [[Sola fide|justification through faith]] and the consequent importance of personal conversion. Some in this movement, such as Wesley and [[George Whitefield]], took the message to the [[United States]], influencing the [[First Great Awakening]], and also created an Anglo-American movement called [[Methodism]] that would eventually break away, structurally, from the Anglican churches after the American Revolution.
 
===Churchmanship===
By the nineteenth century, there was a renewed emphasis on the teachings of the earlier Anglican divines: Theologians such as [[John Keble]], [[Edward Bouverie Pusey]], and [[John Henry Newman]] had widespread influence in the realm of polemics, homiletics, and theological and devotional works. Their work is largely credited with the development of the [[Oxford Movement]], which sought to reassert Catholic identity and practice in the Anglican Church. Through such works as ''[[The Kingdom of Christ]]'', [[Frederick Denison Maurice]] played a pivotal role in inaugurating another movement, [[Christian socialism]]. In this, Maurice transformed Hooker's emphasis on the [[Incarnation|incarnational]] nature of Anglican spirituality to an imperative for social justice. Also in the nineteenth century, Anglican biblical scholarship began to assume a distinct character, represented by the so-called "Cambridge triumvirate" of [[Joseph Lightfoot]], [[F.J.A. Hort]], and [[Brooke Foss Westcott]]. Their orientation is best summed up by Lightfoot's observation that "Life which Christ is and which Christ communicates, the life which fills our whole beings as we realise its capacities, is active fellowship with God."
[[File:Tridentine mass.jpg|thumb|An eastward-facing [[Solemn High Mass]], a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] liturgical phenomenon which reemerged in Anglicanism following the [[Oxford Movement|Catholic Revival]] of the 19th century]]
''[[Churchmanship]]'' can be defined as the manifestation of theology in the realms of liturgy, piety and, to some extent, spirituality. Anglican diversity in this respect has tended to reflect the diversity in the tradition's Reformed and Catholic identity. Different individuals, groups, parishes, dioceses and provinces may identify more closely with one or the other, or some mixture of the two.
 
The range of Anglican belief and practice became particularly divisive during the 19th century, when some clergy were disciplined and even imprisoned on charges of introducing illegal ritual while, at the same time, others were criticised for engaging in public worship services with ministers of Reformed churches. Resistance to the growing acceptance and restoration of traditional Catholic ceremonial by the mainstream of Anglicanism ultimately led to the formation of small breakaway churches such as the [[Free Church of England]] in England (1844) and the [[Reformed Episcopal Church]] in North America (1873).<ref>[http://www.fcofe.org.uk/about_the_free_church_of_england.htm Accessed 9 November 2010.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081119122715/http://www.fcofe.org.uk/about_the_free_church_of_england.htm |date=19 November 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://rechurch.org/about.html|title=About the Reformed Episcopal Church|website=rechurch.org|access-date=17 March 2018|archive-date=19 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180319084802/http://rechurch.org/about.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[Image:Choirhabit.jpg|left|thumb|A priest in Anglican [[choir habit]]. Normally worn at non-Eucharistic liturgies and offices, the vesture is also worn by many "low church" or evangelical Anglicans to preside at the Eucharist]][[Image:Chasublepurple.jpg|right|thumb|An Anglican priest in eucharistic [[vestment]]s. Many Anglican clergy vest in a similar way to Roman Catholic clergy, especially at the [[Eucharist]]. While the [[chasuble]] is often considered to be more "high church" by some Anglicans, the [[alb]] and [[stole]] have become common vesture.]]
 
[[Anglo-Catholic]] (and some broad-church) Anglicans celebrate public liturgy in ways that understand worship to be something very special and of utmost importance. [[Vestments]] are worn by the clergy, sung settings are often used, and [[incense]] may be used. Nowadays, in most Anglican churches, the Eucharist is celebrated in a manner similar to the usage of [[Roman Catholics]] and some [[Lutheranism|Lutherans]], though, in many churches, more traditional, "pre–Vatican II" models of worship are common (e.g., an "eastward orientation" at the altar). Whilst many Anglo-Catholics derive much of their liturgical practice from that of the pre-Reformation English church, others more closely follow traditional Roman Catholic practices.
The twentieth century is marked by figures such as [[Charles Gore]], with his emphasis on natural revelation, [[William Temple]]'s focus on Christianity and society, and [[J.A.T. Robinson]]'s provocative discussions of deism and theism. Outside England, one sees such figures as [[William Porcher DuBose]], [[William Meade]], and [[Charles Henry Brent]] in the United States. More recently, theologians such as [[Jeffrey John]], [[N.T. Wright]], and [[Rowan Williams]] have added to the mix.
 
The Eucharist may sometimes be celebrated in the form known as [[Solemn Mass|High Mass]], with a priest, deacon and [[subdeacon]] (usually actually a layman) dressed in traditional vestments, with incense and [[Altar bell|sanctus bells]] and prayers adapted from the [[Roman Missal]] or other sources by the celebrant. Such churches may also have forms of [[eucharistic adoration]] such as [[Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament]]. In terms of personal piety, some Anglicans may recite the [[Anglican Rosary|Rosary]] and [[Angelus]], be involved in a devotional society dedicated to "Our Lady" (the [[Blessed Virgin Mary]]) and seek the intercession of the saints.
=== Ordained ministry ===
{{main|Anglican ministry}}
Like the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] and [[Catholic]] churches (but unlike most Protestant churches), the Anglican Communion maintains the threefold ministry of deacons, priests, and bishops. Bishops of the church are members of the [[historic episcopate]], and derive their authority through [[apostolic succession]] — an unbroken line of bishops that can be traced back to the apostles of [[Jesus]] of Nazareth. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches either do not recognize the apostolic succession in Anglican orders or do not consider that any existing line of succession among Anglicans confers validity. In contrast, the Anglican Communion recognizes Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox ordinations as valid. Outside the Anglican Communion, Anglican ordinations (at least of male priests) are recognized by the Old Catholics, many [[Lutheran]]s, other Protestants, and various [[Independent Catholic]] Churches.
 
In recent decades, the prayer books of several provinces have, out of deference to a greater agreement with Eastern [[Conciliarism]] (and a perceived greater respect accorded Anglicanism by Eastern Orthodoxy than by Roman Catholicism), instituted a number of historically Eastern and [[Oriental Orthodox]] elements in their liturgies, including introduction of the [[Trisagion]] and deletion of the [[filioque]] clause from the [[Nicene Creed]].
=== Churchmanship ===
 
For their part, those [[evangelicalism|evangelical]] (and some broad-church) Anglicans who emphasise the more Protestant aspects of the Church stress the Reformation theme of [[Salvation#Christian views of salvation|salvation]] by grace through faith. They emphasise the two dominical sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, viewing the other five as "lesser rites". Some evangelical Anglicans may even tend to take the inerrancy of scripture literally, adopting the view of Article VI that it contains all things necessary to salvation in an explicit sense. Worship in churches influenced by these principles tends to be significantly less elaborate, with greater emphasis on the [[Liturgy of the Word]] (the reading of the scriptures, the sermon, and the intercessory prayers).
[[Image:Tridentine_mass.jpg|right|thumb|An eastward-facing [[low mass]], an [[Anglo-Catholic]] liturgical phenomenon which appeared in Anglicanism following the [[Catholic Revival]] of the nineteenth century]]
 
The Order for Holy Communion may be celebrated bi-weekly or monthly (in preference to the [[daily office]]s), by priests attired in [[choir habit]], or more regular clothes, rather than Eucharistic vestments. Ceremony may be in keeping with their view of the provisions of the 17th-century Puritans – being a [[Reformed tradition|Reformed]] interpretation of the [[Ornaments Rubric]] – no candles, no incense, no bells, and a minimum of manual actions by the presiding celebrant (such as touching the elements at the [[Words of Institution]]).
"Churchmanship" can be defined as the manifestation of theology in the realms of liturgy, piety, and - to some extent - spirituality. In Anglicanism diversity in this respect has tended to reflect the diversity in the movement's Protestant and Catholic identity. Different individuals, groups, parishes, dioceses, and provinces may identify more with one or the other, or some balance of the two.
 
In the early 21st century, there has been a growth of [[Charismatic Movement|charismatic]] worship among Anglicans. Both Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals have been affected by this movement such that it is not uncommon to find typically charismatic postures, music, and other themes evident during the services of otherwise Anglo-Catholic or evangelical parishes.
The range of Anglican belief and practice became particularly divisive during the 19th century when some clergy were disciplined and even imprisoned on charges of [[ritualism]] while, at the same time, others were criticized for engaging in public worship services with ministers of Reformed churches. Resistance to the growing acceptance of so-called Catholic ceremonial by the mainstream of Anglicanism and the unwillingness of the mainstream churches to require adherence to the existing regulations against certain of the elements of this Catholic "Revival" ultimately led to schism, with the creation of the [[Free Church of England]] in England (1844) and the [[Reformed Episcopal Church]] in North America (1873).
 
The spectrum of Anglican beliefs and practice is too large to be fit into these labels. Many Anglicans locate themselves somewhere in the spectrum of the broad-church tradition and consider themselves an amalgam of evangelical and Catholic. Such Anglicans stress that Anglicanism is the ''[[via media]]'' (middle way) between the two major strains of Western Christianity and that Anglicanism is like a "bridge" between the two strains.
Anglo-Catholic (and some Broad Church) Anglicans undertake public liturgy in a fashion that resembles that of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church, in sometimes an even more traditional manner (e.g., an "eastward orientation" at the altar). The Eucharist may be conducted by priest, deacon, and [[subdeacon]] dressed in their traditional vestments, using incense and [[sanctus bell]]s, and with "secret prayers" said by the presiding celebrant. Such churches may practice [[Eucharistic adoration]], such as solemn benediction of the reserved sacrament. In terms of personal piety, such Anglicans may recite the [[rosary]] and [[angelus]], be involved in a devotional society dedicated to "Our Lady" (the [[Blessed Virgin Mary]]), and seek the intercession of the saints. In recent years, prayer books of several provinces have, out of deference to a greater agreement with Eastern [[Conciliarism]] (and a perceived greater respect accorded Anglicanism by Eastern Orthodoxy than by Roman Catholicism), instituted a number of historically Eastern and [[Oriental Orthodox]] elements in their liturgies, including introduction of the [[Trisagion]] and deletion of the [[filioque]] clause from the [[Nicene Creed]].
 
===Sacramental doctrine and practice===
For their part, those [[Evangelicalism|Evangelical]] (and some Broad Church) Anglicans who emphasise the Protestant nature of the Church stress the Reformation theme of [[Salvation#Christian views of salvation|salvation]] by grace through faith. They emphasize the two dominical sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, viewing the other five as "lesser rites." Such Anglicans tend to take the inerrancy of Scripture literally, adopting the view of Article VI that it contains all things necessary to salvation in an explicit sense. Worship in churches influenced by these principles tends to be significantly less elaborate, with greater emphasis on the Liturgy of the Word (the reading of the scriptures, the sermon, and the intercessory prayers). The Order for Holy Communion may be celebrated bi-weekly or monthly (in preference to the [[daily office]]s), by priests attired in [[choir habit]] rather than Eucharistic vestments. Ceremonial may be in keeping with their view of the provisions of the [[Ornaments Rubric]] of the historic English prayer books — no candles, no incense, no bells, and a minimum of manual action by the presiding celebrant (such as touching the elements at the [[Words of Institution]]).
{{Main|Anglican sacraments}}
In accord with its prevailing self-identity as a ''[[via media]]'' or "middle path" of [[Western Christianity]], Anglican sacramental theology expresses elements in keeping with its status as being both a church in the [[Catholicity|Catholic]] tradition as well as a [[English Reformation|Reformed]] church. With respect to sacramental theology, the Catholic heritage is perhaps most strongly asserted in the importance Anglicanism places on the [[sacrament]]s as a means of [[Grace in Christianity|grace]], [[Sanctification in Christianity|sanctification]], and [[Salvation in Christianity|salvation]], as expressed in the church's [[liturgy]] and [[doctrine]].
 
Of the seven sacraments, all Anglicans recognise [[Baptism]] and the [[Eucharist]] as being directly instituted by Christ. The other five – [[Confession (sacrament)|Confession/Absolution]], [[Christian view of marriage|Matrimony]], [[Confirmation (sacrament)|Confirmation]], [[Holy Orders]] (also called Ordination), and [[Anointing of the Sick]] (also called Unction) – are regarded variously as full sacraments by [[Anglo-Catholic]]s and many [[high church]] and some [[broad church|broad-church]] Anglicans, but merely as "sacramental rites" by other broad-church and [[low church|low-church]] Anglicans, especially [[evangelicalism|evangelical]]s associated with [[Reform (Anglican)|Reform UK]] and the [[Anglican Diocese of Sydney|Diocese of Sydney]].
In recent years, there has been a surge of [[Charismatic Movement|charismatic]] worship among Anglicans. Both Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals have been affected by this movement such that it is not uncommon to find typically charismatic postures, music, and other themes evident during the services of otherwise Anglo-Catholic or Evangelical parishes.
 
====Eucharistic theology====
The spectrum of Anglican beliefs and practice is too large to be fit into these labels. Many Anglicans locate themselves somewhere in the spectrum of the Broad Church tradition, and consider themselves an amalgam of Evangelical and Catholic. Such Anglicans stress that Anglicanism is the "''[[via media]]''" (middle way) between the two major strains of Western Christianity. ''Via media'' may also be understood as underscoring Anglicanism's preference for a communitarian and methodological approach to theological issues rather than relativism.
{{Main|Anglican eucharistic theology}}
Anglican eucharistic theology is divergent in practice, reflecting the essential comprehensiveness of the tradition. A few [[low church|low-church]] Anglicans take a strictly memorialist ([[Zwingli]]an) view of the sacrament. In other words, they see Holy Communion as a memorial to Christ's suffering, and participation in the Eucharist as both a re-enactment of the Last Supper and a foreshadowing of the heavenly banquet – the fulfilment of the eucharistic promise.
 
Other low-church Anglicans believe in the [[real presence of Christ in the Eucharist]] but deny that the presence of Christ is carnal or is necessarily localised in the bread and wine. Despite explicit criticism in the [[Thirty-Nine Articles]], many high-church or Anglo-Catholic Anglicans hold, more or less, the Catholic view of the real presence as expressed in the doctrine of [[transubstantiation]], seeing the Eucharist as a liturgical representation of Christ's atoning sacrifice with the elements actually transformed into Christ's body and blood.
== Social issues ==
 
The majority of Anglicans, however, have in common a belief in the real presence, defined in one way or another. To that extent, they are in the company of the continental reformer [[Martin Luther]] and Calvin rather than [[Ulrich Zwingli]]. The Catechism of the American BCP of 1976 repeats the standard Anglican view ("The outward and visible sign in the Eucharist is the bread and wine"..."The inward and spiritual grace in the Holy Communion is the Body and Blood of Christ given to his people, and received by faith") without further definition. It should be remembered that Anglicanism has no official doctrine on this matter, believing it is wiser to leave the Presence a mystery. The faithful can believe privately whatever explanation they favour, be it transubstantiation, consubstantiation, receptionism, or virtualism (the two{{clarify|reason=which two of the four?|date=January 2021}} most congenial to Anglicans for centuries until the Oxford Movement), each of which espouses belief in the real presence in one way or another, or memorialism, which has never been an option with Anglicans.
Anglican concern with broader issues of social justice can be traced to its earliest divines. Richard Hooker, for instance, wrote that "God hath created nothing simply for itself, but each thing in all things, and of every thing each part in other have such interest, that in the whole world nothing is found whereunto any thing created can say, 'I need thee not.'" This, and related statements reflect the deep thread of [[Incarnation|incarnational theology]] running through Anglican social thought - a theology which sees God, nature, and humanity in dynamic interaction, and the interpenetration of the secular and the sacred in the make-up of the cosmos. Such theology is informed by a traditional English spiritual ethos, rooted in Celtic Christianity, and reinforced by Anglicanism's origins as an [[established church]], bound up by its structure in the life and interests of civil society.
 
A famous Anglican aphorism regarding Christ's presence in the sacrament, commonly misattributed to [[Elizabeth I|Queen Elizabeth&nbsp;I]], is first found in print in a poem by [[John Donne]]:{{sfn|May|2007|pp=54–55}}
Repeatedly, throughout Anglican history, this principle has reasserted itself in movements of social justice. For instance, in the eighteenth century the influential Evangelical Anglican [[William Wilberforce]], along with others, campaigned against the slave trade. In the nineteenth century, the dominant issues concerned the adverse effects of industrialisation. Frederick Denison Maurice was a leading figure advocating reform in this respect, founding so-called "producer's co-operatives" and the [[Working Men's College]]. His work, instrumental in the establishment of the [[Christian socialism|Christian socialist]] movement, influenced later Anglo-Catholics such as Charles Gore, who wrote that "the principle of the incarnation is denied unless the Christian spirit can be allowed to concern itself with everything that interests and touches human life."
 
<blockquote><poem>
Anglican focus on labour issues culminated in the work of William Temple in the 1930s and 40s. The effects of the two world wars led to a growing interest in issues of peace among some Anglicans, such as [[Vera Brittain]] and [[Evelyn Underhill]]. While never actively endorsed by the Anglican Church, many Anglicans unofficially have adopted the Augustinian "[[the Just War Theory|Just War]]" doctrine, reinforced by Article XXXVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which states that "it is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars." Lambeth Conference resolutions, along with those of various provinces, have in recent years sought to provide a clearer position by repudiating modern war and have developed statements asserting a preference for non-violent resistance.
He was the word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it:
And what that word did make it,
I do believe and take it.{{sfn|May|2007|pp=55, 66}}</poem></blockquote>
 
An Anglican position on the eucharistic sacrifice ("Sacrifice of the Mass") was expressed in the response ''[[Saepius officio]]'' of the archbishops of Canterbury and York to [[Pope Leo XIII]]'s papal encyclical ''[[Apostolicae curae]]'': viz. that the Prayer Book contained a strong sacrificial theology. Later revisions of the Prayer Book influenced by the Scottish Canon of 1764 first adopted by the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1789 made this assertion quite evident: "we do make and celebrate before thy Divine Majesty with these thy holy gifts, which we now ''offer'' unto thee, the memorial thy Son has commanded us to make", which is repeated in the 1929 English BCP and included in such words or others such as "present" or "show forth" in subsequent revisions.
[[Image:Archbishop-Tutu-medium.jpg|left|thumb|[[Desmond Tutu]] (born 1931), former Primate of the Anglican [[Church of the Province of South Africa]], and a leading figure in the successful fight against apartheid]]
 
Anglican and Roman Catholic representatives declared that they had "substantial agreement on the doctrine of the Eucharist" in the ''Windsor Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine'' by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Consultation (1971)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/angl-comm-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_1971_eucharistic-doctrine_en.html|title=Eucharistic Doctrine, 1971|website=www.vatican.va|access-date=15 March 2020|archive-date=16 April 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200416083433/http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/angl-comm-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_1971_eucharistic-doctrine_en.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and the Elucidation of the ARCIC Windsor Statement (1979). The final response (1991) to these documents by the Vatican made it plain that it did not consider the degree of agreement reached to be satisfactory.
After World War II, the focus on social issues became increasingly diffuse. On the one hand, the growing independence and strength of Anglican churches in the global south brought new emphasis to issues of global poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources, and the lingering effects of colonialism. In this regard, figures such as [[Desmond Tutu]] and [[Ted Scott]] were instrumental in mobilising Anglicans worldwide against the [[apartheid]] policies of [[South Africa]]. On the other hand, rapid social change in the industrialised world during the twentieth century compelled the church to examine issues of gender, sexuality, and marriage.{{fact}}
 
==Practices==
This led to Lambeth resolutions countenancing [[contraception]] and the remarriage of divorced persons. It also led to most provinces approving the ordination of women. More recently, it has led some jurisdictions to permit the ordination of individuals in same-sex relationships and to authorise rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. More conservative elements within Anglicanism (primarily African churches and factions within North American Anglicanism) are opposed to these changes. Some liberal and moderate Anglicans see this opposition as representing a new [[fundamentalism]] within Anglicanism. The lack of social consensus among and within provinces of diverse cultural traditions has resulted in considerable conflict and even schism concerning some or all of these developments.{{fact}}
{{further|topic=the daily Anglican morning office|Morning Prayer (Anglican)}}
{{See also|Evening Prayer (Anglican)|Prayer of Humble Access}}
In Anglicanism there is a distinction between liturgy, which is the formal public and communal worship of the church, and personal prayer and devotion, which may be public or private. Liturgy is regulated by the prayer books and consists of the Eucharist (some call it Holy Communion or Mass), the other six sacraments, and the daily offices such as Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer.
 
===''Book of Common Prayer''===
These latter trends reflect a countervailing tendency in Anglicanism towards insularity, reinforced perhaps by the "big tent" nature of the movement, which seeks to be comprehensive of various views and tendencies. The insularity and complacency of the early established [[Church of England]] has tended to influence Anglican self-identity, and inhibit engagement with the broader society in favour of internal debate and dialogue. Nonetheless, there is significantly greater cohesion among Anglicans when they turn their attention outward. Anglicans worldwide are active in many areas of social and environmental concern.
{{Main|Book of Common Prayer}}
[[File:Book of common prayer 1596.jpg|thumb|The 1596 ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'']]
The ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' (BCP) is the foundational prayer book of Anglicanism. The original book of 1549 (revised in 1552) was one of the instruments of the [[English Reformation]], replacing the various "uses" or rites in Latin that had been used in different parts of the country with a single compact volume in the language of the people, so that "now from henceforth all the Realm shall have but one use". Suppressed under Queen [[Mary I of England|Mary&nbsp;I]], it was revised in 1559, and then again in 1662, after the [[English Restoration|Restoration]] of [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]. This version was made mandatory in England and Wales by the [[Act of Uniformity 1662|Act of Uniformity]] and was in standard use until the mid-20th century.
 
With [[British Empire|British colonial]] expansion from the 17th century onwards, Anglican churches were planted around the globe. These churches at first used and then revised the ''Book of Common Prayer'' until they, like their parent church, produced prayer books which took into account the developments in liturgical study and practice in the 19th and 20th centuries, which come under the general heading of the [[Liturgical Movement]].
== Religious life ==
 
===Worship===
[[Image:Melanesian sisters.jpg|right|thumb|Melanesian Anglican [[sister]]s at the Archbishop of Canterbury's residence, [[Lambeth Palace]], in 2006]]
{{See also|Church of England parish church}}
[[File:Anglican Church of Canada 1962 and 1959 Book of Common Prayer.jpg|thumb|The 1962 and 1959 editions of the Anglican Church of Canada's [[Book of Common Prayer]].]]
Anglican worship services are open to all visitors. Anglican worship originates principally in the reforms of [[Thomas Cranmer]], who aimed to create a set order of service like that of the pre-Reformation church but less complex in its seasonal variety and said in English rather than [[Latin]]. This use of a set order of service is not unlike the Catholic tradition. Traditionally, the pattern was that laid out in the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]''. Although many Anglican churches now use a wide range of modern service books written in the local language, the structures of the ''Book of Common Prayer'' are largely retained. Churches which call themselves Anglican will have identified themselves so because they use some form or variant of the ''Book of Common Prayer'' in the shaping of their worship.
 
Anglican worship, however, is as diverse as Anglican theology. A contemporary "[[low church]]" service may differ little from the worship of many mainstream non-Anglican Protestant churches. The service is constructed around a sermon focused on Biblical exposition and opened with one or more Bible readings and closed by a series of prayers (both set and extemporised) and hymns or songs. A "[[high church]]" or Anglo-Catholic service, by contrast, is usually a more formal [[liturgy]] celebrated by clergy in distinctive [[vestments]] and may be almost indistinguishable from a Roman Catholic service, often resembling the "pre–Vatican II" [[Tridentine Mass|Tridentine rite]].
{{Main|Anglican religious order}}
 
Between these extremes are a variety of styles of worship, often involving a robed choir and the use of the organ to accompany the singing and to provide music before and after the service. Anglican churches tend to have [[pew]]s or chairs, and it is usual for the congregation to kneel for some prayers but to stand for hymns and other parts of the service such as the Gloria, Collect, Gospel reading, Creed and either the Preface or all of the Eucharistic Prayer. Anglicans may genuflect or cross themselves in the same way as Roman Catholics.
A small yet influential aspect of Anglicanism is its [[Anglican religious order|religious orders]] and communities. Shortly after the beginning of the [[Catholic Revival]] in the Church of England, there was a renewal of interest in re-establishing religious and monastic orders and communities. One of Henry VIII's earliest acts was their dissolution and seizure of their assets. In 1841 [[Marion Rebecca Hughes]] became the first woman to take the vows of religion in communion with the [[Province of Canterbury]] since the Reformation. In 1848, [[Priscilla Lydia Sellon]] became the superior of the [[Society of the Most Holy Trinity]] at Devonport, the first organised religious order. Sellon is called "the restorer, after three centuries, of the religious life in the Church of England."<ref>{{cite book|first=Thomas J.|last=Williams|title=Pricilla Lydia Sellon|___location=London|publisher=SPCK|year=1950}}</ref> For the next one hundred years, religious orders for both men and women proliferated throughout the world, becoming a numerically small but disproportionately influential feature of global Anglicanism.
[[File:Bury Parish Church HDR.jpg|thumb|[[Church of St Mary the Virgin, Bury]]]]
Other more traditional Anglicans tend to follow the 1662 ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' and retain the use of the King James Bible. This is typical in many Anglican cathedrals and particularly in [[royal peculiar]]s such as the [[Savoy Chapel]] and the [[Queen's Chapel]]. These Anglican church services include classical music instead of songs, hymns from the [[New English Hymnal]] (usually excluding modern hymns such as "Lord of the Dance"), and are generally non-evangelical and formal in practice. Until the mid-20th century the main Sunday service was typically [[Morning Prayer (Anglican)|Morning Prayer]], but the [[Eucharist]] has once again become the standard form of Sunday worship in most Anglican churches; this again is similar to Roman Catholic practice. Other common Sunday services include an early morning Eucharist without music, an abbreviated Eucharist following a service of morning prayer, and a service of [[Evening Prayer (Anglican)|Evening Prayer]], often called "Evensong" when sung, usually celebrated between 3:00 and 6:00 pm. The late-evening service of [[Compline]] was revived in parish use in the early 20th century. Many Anglican churches will also have daily morning and evening prayer, and some have midweek or even daily celebration of the Eucharist.
 
An Anglican service (whether or not a Eucharist) will include readings from the Bible that are generally taken from a standardised [[lectionary]], which provides for much of the Bible (and some passages from the [[Biblical apocrypha|Apocrypha]]) to be read out loud in the church over a cycle of one, two, or three years (depending on which eucharistic and office lectionaries are used, respectively). The [[sermon]] (or [[homily]]) is typically about ten to twenty minutes in length, often comparably short to sermons in evangelical churches. Even in the most informal Anglican services, it is common for set prayers such as the weekly [[Collect]] to be read. There are also set forms for [[intercessory prayer]], though this is now more often extemporaneous. In high and Anglo-Catholic churches there are generally prayers for the dead. Although Anglican public worship is usually ordered according to the canonically approved services, in practice many Anglican churches use forms of service outside these norms. Liberal churches may use freely structured or experimental forms of worship, including patterns borrowed from ecumenical traditions such as those of the [[Taizé Community]] or the [[Iona Community]].
Anglican religious life at one time boasted hundreds of orders and communities, and thousands of [[religious]]. An important aspect of Anglican religious life is that most communities of both men and women lived their lives consecrated to [[God]] under the [[vow]]s of [[poverty]], [[sexual abstinence|chastity]] and [[obedience]] (or in [[Benedictine]] communities, Stability, Conversion of Life, and Obedience) by practising a mixed life of reciting the full eight services of the [[Breviary]] in choir, along with a daily [[Eucharist]], plus service to the poor. The mixed life, combining aspects of the contemplative orders and the active orders remains to this day a hallmark of Anglican religious life. Another distinctive feature of Anglican religious life is the existence of some mixed-gender communities.
 
[[Anglo-Catholic]] parishes might use the modern Roman Catholic liturgy of the [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] or more traditional forms, such as the [[Tridentine Mass]] (which is translated into English in the [[English Missal]]), the [[Anglican Missal]], or, less commonly, the [[Sarum Rite]]. Catholic devotions such as the [[Rosary]], [[Angelus]], and [[Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament]] are also common among Anglo-Catholics.
Since the 1960s there has been a sharp decline in the number of professed religious in most parts of the Anglican Communion, especially in North America, Europe, and Australia. Many once large and international communities have been reduced to a single convent or monastery comprised of elderly men or women. In the last few decades of the 20th century, novices have for most communities been few and far between. Some orders and communities have already become extinct. There are however, still several thousand Anglican religious working today in approximately 200 communities around the world, and religious life in many parts of the Communion - especially in developing nations - flourishes.
 
====Eucharistic discipline====
The most significant growth has been in the [[Melanesia]]n countries of the [[Solomon Islands]], [[Vanuatu]] and [[Papua New Guinea]]. The [[Melanesian Brotherhood]], founded at [[Tabalia]], [[Guadalcanal (Pacific Ocean island)|Guadalcanal]], in [[1925]] by Ini Kopuria, is now the largest Anglican Community in the world with over 450 [[monk|brothers]] in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the [[Philippines]] and the United Kingdom. The [[Sisters of the Church]], started by Mother Emily Ayckbowm in England in 1870, has more [[nun|sisters]] in the Solomons than all their other communities. The [[Community of the Sisters of Melanesia]], started in 1980 by Sister Nesta Tiboe, is a growing community of women throughout the Solomon Islands. The [[Society of Saint Francis]], founded as a union of various [[Franciscan]] orders in the 1920s, has experienced great growth in the Solomon Islands. Other communities of religious have been started by Anglicans in Papua New Guinea and in Vanuatu. Most Melanesian Anglican religious are in their early to mid 20s — vows may be temporary and it is generally assumed that brothers, at least, will leave and marry in due course — making the average age 40 to 50 years younger than their brothers and sisters in other countries. Growth of religious orders, especially for women, is also marked in certain parts of Africa.
Only [[Baptism|baptised]] persons are eligible to receive communion,<ref name="communion">{{Cite web |url=http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_resolution-complete.pl?resolution=2006-D084 |publisher=ECUSA |title=Resolution 2006-D084: Uphold Baptism as a Requirement of Receiving Holy Communion |work=The Acts of Convention |date=21 June 2006 |access-date=31 January 2012 |archive-date=6 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140706211624/http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_resolution-complete.pl?resolution=2006-D084 |url-status=live }}</ref> although in many churches communion is restricted to those who have not only been baptised but also [[Confirmation|confirmed]]. In many Anglican provinces, however, all baptised Christians are now often invited to receive communion and some dioceses have regularised a system for admitting baptised young people to communion before they are confirmed.
 
The discipline of fasting before communion is practised by some Anglicans. Most Anglican priests require the presence of at least one other person for the celebration of the Eucharist (referring back to Christ's statement in Matthew 18:20, "When two or more are gathered in my name, I will be in the midst of them."), though some Anglo-Catholic priests (like Roman Catholic priests) may say private Masses. As in the Roman Catholic Church, it is a canonical requirement to use fermented wine for communion.
== Ecumenism ==
 
Unlike in Roman Catholicism, the consecrated bread and wine are normally offered to the congregation at a eucharistic service ("communion in both kinds"). This practice is becoming more frequent in the Roman Catholic Church as well, especially through the [[Neocatechumenal Way]]. In some churches, the sacrament is reserved in a tabernacle or [[aumbry]] with a lighted candle or lamp nearby. In Anglican churches, only a priest or a bishop may be the celebrant at the Eucharist.
Anglican interest in [[ecumenism|ecumenical]] dialogue can be traced to the rise of the Oxford Movement, with its concern on reunion of the churches of "Catholic confession." This desire to work towards full [[Communion (Christian)|communion]] with other denominations led to the development of the [[Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral]], approved by the Third Lambeth Conference of 1888. The four points (the sufficiency of scripture, the historic creeds, the two dominical sacraments, and the historic episcopate) were proposed as a basis for discussion, although they have frequently been taken as a non-negotiable bottom-line for reunion.
 
===Daily office===
=== World Council of Churches ===
[[File:Evensong in York Minster.jpg|thumb|[[Evensong]] at [[York Minster]] in [[York]], England]]
{{main|Daily Office (Anglican)}}
All Anglican prayer books contain offices for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer (called [[Evensong]] when sung chorally). In the original ''Book of Common Prayer'', these were derived from combinations of the ancient monastic offices of [[Matins]] and [[Lauds]]; and [[Vespers]] and [[Compline]], respectively. The prayer offices have an important place in Anglican history.
 
Prior to the [[Oxford Movement|Catholic revival]] of the 19th century, which eventually restored the Eucharist as the principal Sunday liturgy, and especially during the 18th century, a morning service combining Matins, the [[Litany]], and ante-Communion comprised the usual expression of common worship, while Matins and Evensong were sung daily in cathedrals and some collegiate chapels. This nurtured a tradition of distinctive [[Anglican chant]] applied to the [[canticle]]s and [[psalm]]s used at the offices (although [[plainsong]] is often used as well).
Ecumenical dialogue has been particularly fruitful in three realms. The first is the [[World Council of Churches]] and its predecessors, in which Anglicans have been involved from the first. Anglican representatives were particularly engaged in the development of the seminal Faith and Order paper, ''Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry'', which sought to develop common ground concerning these issues.
 
In some official and many unofficial Anglican service books, these offices are supplemented by other offices such as the [[Little Hours]] of [[Prime (liturgy)|Prime]] and prayer during the day such as ([[Terce]], [[Sext]], [[None (liturgy)|None]], and [[Compline]]). Some Anglican monastic communities have a [[Daily Office]] based on that of the ''Book of Common Prayer'' but with additional antiphons and canticles, etc., for specific days of the week, specific psalms, etc. See, for example, [[Order of the Holy Cross]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://holycrossmonastery.com/|title=Home|website=Holy Cross Monastery|access-date=16 January 2019|archive-date=24 December 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071224151105/http://www.holycrossmonastery.com/index.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> and Order of St Helena, editors, ''A Monastic Breviary'' (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1976). The All Saints Sisters of the Poor,<ref>[http://www.geocities.com/xnomad4/index.html] {{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> with convents in Catonsville, Maryland, and elsewhere, use an elaborated version of the Anglican Daily Office. The [[Society of St. Francis]] publishes ''Celebrating Common Prayer'', which has become especially popular for use among Anglicans.
=== Roman Catholic Church ===
 
In England, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and some other Anglican provinces, the modern prayer books contain four offices:
[[Image:P6anglican.jpg|thumbnail|250px|right|[[Michael Ramsey]], 100th [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], meets with [[Pope Paul VI]] in Rome, March, 1966.]]
*Morning Prayer, corresponding to Matins, Lauds and Prime;
*Prayer During the Day, roughly corresponding to the combination of Terce, Sext, and None (Noonday Prayer in the USA);
*Evening Prayer, corresponding to Vespers (and Compline);
*Compline.
 
In addition, most prayer books include a section of prayers and devotions for family use. In the US, these offices are further supplemented by an "Order of Worship for the Evening", a prelude to or an abbreviated form of Evensong, partly derived from [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] prayers. In the United Kingdom, the publication of ''Daily Prayer'', the third volume of ''[[Common Worship]]'', was published in 2005. It retains the services for Morning and Evening Prayer and Compline and includes a section entitled "Prayer during the Day". ''A New Zealand Prayer Book'' of 1989 provides different outlines for Matins and Evensong on each day of the week, as well as "Midday Prayer", "Night Prayer" and "Family Prayer".
The second concerns dialogue with the [[Roman Catholic Church]]. Long-term hostility between the two Communions was engendered by resistance among some English to the declaration of [[royal supremacy]], the confiscation of Church properties, the dissolution of the monasteries, the execution of priests and forced attendance at Anglican worship. There was a brief restoration of communion with Rome during the reign of Mary I. Her death marked the end of Catholic attempts to reconcile by law the English Church to Rome. Subsequently, [[Pope Pius V]]'s excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570 and authorisation of rebellion against her contributed to official suspicion of the allegiances of English Catholics. This, combined with a desire to assert the claims of the established church, led to the promulgation of restrictive laws against their civil and religious rights. Elizabethan era restrictions were only relieved through several legislative reforms in the 19th century, cumulatively known as [[Catholic Emancipation]]. The last restriction on Catholics preventing them from marrying into the royal family remains in effect.
 
Some Anglicans who pray the office on daily basis use the present [[Liturgy of the Hours|Divine Office]] of the Roman Catholic Church. In many cities, especially in England, Anglican and Roman Catholic priests and lay people often meet several times a week to pray the office in common. A small but enthusiastic minority use the [[Anglican Breviary]], or other translations and adaptations of the pre–Vatican II Roman Rite and [[Sarum Rite]], along with supplemental material from cognate western sources, to provide such things as a common of Octaves, a common of Holy Women, and other additional material. Others may privately use idiosyncratic forms borrowed from a wide range of Christian traditions.
In 1896 [[Pope Leo XIII]] issued ''[[Apostolicae Curae]]'' rejecting the Anglo-Catholic claims of the [[Oxford Movement]] and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral such as apostolic succession. In it the pope declared Anglican orders "absolutely null and utterly void." Despite the agreement reached by the [[Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission]] (ARCIC) on the doctrine of the ministry in their [http://www.prounione.urbe.it/dia-int/arcic/doc/e_arcic_elucid_min.html ''Elucidation'' of 1979], this judgement was reaffirmed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now [[Pope Benedict XVI]], when he asserted ''Apostolicae Curae'' as an example of the infallible teaching office of the Catholic Church.<ref>[http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFADTU.HTM Commentary on [[Ad Tuendam Fidem]], 11g]</ref>
Some attempts at dialogue began in 1915, when Pope [[Benedict XV]] approved a British Legation to the Vatican, led by an Anglican with a Catholic deputy. However, discussion of potential reunion in the '[[Malines Conversations]]' eventually collapsed in 1925. Continued efforts resulted in the spread of the [[Week of Prayer for Christian Unity]] in both churches (and others), and the visit of [[George Bell (bishop)|George Bell]], [[Bishop of Chichester]], to Cardinal Montini of Milan, later Pope [[Paul VI]] [http://www.dwightlongenecker.com/Content/Pages/Articles/CatholicIssues/CanterburryAndRomeRevised.asp].
 
===={{anchor|Quires and Places where they sing}} "Quires and Places where they sing"==== <!-- Please do not "correct" the capitalisation or spelling as it is a direct quote -->
Real rapprochement was not achieved until the warming of Catholic attitudes to ecumenism under the leadership of Pope [[John XXIII]], whose foundation of the "[[Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity|Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity]]" encouraged Archbishop [[Geoffrey Fisher]] to make a historic, though not entirely official, visit to the Vatican in 1960. Subsequently the [[Bishop of Ripon and Leeds|Bishop of Ripon]], [[John Moorman]], led a delegation of Anglican observers to the [[Second Vatican Council]]. In 1966, Archbishop [[Michael Ramsey]] made an official visit to [[Pope Paul VI]], and in the following year, the [[Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission]] was established. Its first project focused on the authority of Scripture, and the Commission has since produced nine agreed statements. Phase One of ARCIC ended in 1981 with the publication of a final report, ''Elucidations on Authority in the Church''. Phase Two has been ongoing since 1983. The most recent agreed statement dealt with Marian theology, and was published in 2004.
{{Main|Anglican church music}}
In the late medieval period, many English cathedrals and monasteries had established small choirs of trained [[lay clerk]]s and boy [[choir|choristers]] to perform [[polyphony|polyphonic]] settings of the [[Mass (music)|Mass]] in their [[Lady chapel]]s. Although these "Lady Masses" were discontinued at the Reformation, the associated musical tradition was maintained in the [[Elizabethan Settlement]] through the establishment of choral foundations for daily singing of the Divine Office by expanded choirs of men and boys. This resulted from an explicit addition by Elizabeth herself to the injunctions accompanying the [[Book of Common Prayer (1559)|1559 ''Book of Common Prayer'']] (that had itself made no mention of choral worship) by which existing choral foundations and choir schools were instructed to be continued, and their endowments secured. Consequently, some thirty-four cathedrals, collegiate churches, and royal chapels maintained paid establishments of lay singing men and choristers in the late 16th century.{{sfn|Mould|2007|p=94}}
 
All save four of these have – with interruptions during the [[English Interregnum|Commonwealth]] and the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] – continued daily choral prayer and praise to this day. In the Offices of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in the [[Book of Common Prayer (1662)|1662 ''Book of Common Prayer'']], these choral establishments are specified as "Quires and Places where they sing".
Despite the productivity of these discussions, dialogue is strained by the developments in some provinces of the Communion primarily concerning the [[ordination of women]], and the ordination of those in public same-sex sexual relationships as priests and, in one case, a bishop ([[Gene Robinson]]). More progress has been made with respect to Anglican churches outside the Communion.
 
For nearly three centuries, this round of daily professional choral worship represented a tradition entirely distinct from that embodied in the intoning of [[Parish Clerk]]s, and the singing of "[[West gallery music|west gallery choirs]]" which commonly accompanied weekly worship in English parish churches. In 1841, the rebuilt [[Leeds Parish Church]] established a surpliced [[choir]] to accompany parish services, drawing explicitly on the musical traditions of the ancient choral foundations. Over the next century, the Leeds example proved immensely popular and influential for choirs in cathedrals, parish churches, and schools throughout the Anglican communion.{{sfn|Mould|2007|p=177}} More or less extensively adapted, this choral tradition also became the direct inspiration for robed choirs leading congregational worship in a wide range of Christian denominations.
Pope [[John Paul II]] made [[Pastoral Provision]] for Anglican congregations which as a whole wish to become Catholic. There has been only a small number of [[Anglican Use]] parishes, all of which are in the United States. These are Roman Catholic parishes which are allowed to retain some features of the Book of Common Prayer in worship. Additionally, one of the [[Continuing Anglican Churches]] is currently attempting to achieve the recognition of Rome without abandoning its independence as the Anglican Use parishes chose to do.
 
In 1719, the cathedral choirs of [[Gloucester Cathedral|Gloucester]], [[Hereford Cathedral|Hereford]], and [[Worcester Cathedral|Worcester]] combined to establish the annual [[Three Choirs Festival]], the precursor for the multitude of summer music festivals since. By the 20th century, the choral tradition had become for many the most accessible face of worldwide Anglicanism – especially as promoted through the regular broadcasting of choral evensong by the [[BBC]]; and also in the annual televising of the festival of [[Nine Lessons and Carols]] from [[King's College, Cambridge]]. Composers closely concerned with this tradition include [[Edward Elgar]], [[Ralph Vaughan Williams]], [[Gustav Holst]], [[Charles Villiers Stanford]], and [[Benjamin Britten]]. A number of important 20th-century works by non-Anglican composers were originally commissioned for the Anglican choral tradition – for example, the ''[[Chichester Psalms]]'' of [[Leonard Bernstein]] and the ''[[Nunc dimittis]]'' of [[Arvo Pärt]].
Roman Catholic [[Canon law (Catholic Church)|Canon Law]] forbids Catholics to receive the Anglican Eucharist (canon 844 §2) and permits Roman Catholic ministers to administer to an Anglican the sacraments of Eucharist, Penance and Anointing of the Sick, only in danger of death or some other grave and pressing need, and provided the Anglican cannot approach an Anglican priest, spontaneously asks for the sacrament, demonstrates the faith of the Roman Catholic Church in respect of the sacrament and is properly disposed (canon 844 §4).
 
==Communion==
=== Lutheran and Old Catholic Churches ===
{{Main|Anglican Communion}}
===Principles of governance===
{{AnglicanCommunion}}Contrary to popular misconception, the British monarch is not the constitutional "head" of the Church of England but is, in law, the church's "[[supreme governor]]", nor does the monarch have any role in provinces outside England. The role of the crown in the Church of England is practically limited to the appointment of bishops, including the archbishop of Canterbury, and even this role is limited, as the church presents the government with a short list of candidates from which to choose. This process is accomplished through collaboration with and consent of ecclesial representatives ''(see [[Ecclesiastical Commissioners]])''. Although the monarch has no constitutional role in Anglican churches in other parts of the world, the prayer books of several countries where the monarch is head of state contain prayers for him or her as sovereign.
 
A characteristic of Anglicanism is that it has no international juridical authority. All forty-two provinces of the Anglican Communion are autonomous, each with their own [[primate (bishop)|primate]] and governing structure. These provinces may take the form of national churches (such as in Canada, Uganda or Japan) or a collection of nations (such as the West Indies, Central Africa or South Asia), or geographical regions (such as Vanuatu and Solomon Islands) etc. Within these provinces there may exist subdivisions, called [[ecclesiastical province]]s, under the jurisdiction of a metropolitan archbishop.
In 1994, the [[Porvoo Communion]] was formed, bringing the Anglican churches of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and the Episcopal churches of Portugal and Spain into full communion with the Lutheran churches of Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and Lithuania. In 2001, the [[Anglican Church of Canada]] and the [[Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada]] achieved full communion [http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2001-07-08_a.ans], as did the [[Episcopal Church in the United States]] and the [[Evangelical Lutheran Church in America]] [http://www.episcopal-life.org/26769_70474_ENG_HTM.htm]. In addition, full communion agreements have been reached between various [[ecclesiastical province]]s and smaller, mostly self-described [[Catholicism|Catholic]] denominations, such as the [[Old Catholic Church]] after the [[Bonn Agreement (religion)|Bonn Agreement]] of 1931.
 
All provinces of the Anglican Communion consist of [[diocese]]s, each under the jurisdiction of a bishop. In the Anglican tradition, bishops must be consecrated according to the strictures of [[apostolic succession]], which Anglicans consider one of the marks of [[catholicity]]. Apart from bishops, there are two other orders of ordained ministry: [[deacon]] and priest.
=== Other Protestant denominations ===
 
No requirement is made for [[clerical celibacy]], though many Anglo-Catholic priests have traditionally been bachelors. Because of innovations that occurred at various points after the latter half of the 20th century, women may be ordained as deacons in almost all provinces, as priests in most and as bishops in many. [[Anglican religious order]]s and communities, suppressed in England during the Reformation, have re-emerged, especially since the mid-19th century, and now have an international presence and influence.
Outside the context of the World Council of Churches, direct consultations with Protestant churches other than Lutherans have, for the most part, been less fruitful. Movements toward full communion between the Anglican Church of Canada and the [[United Church of Canada]] were derailed because of the issue of episcopacy and the mutual recognition of ordained ministry (specifically, [[apostolic succession]]). The same issue blocked the first attempt at a covenant between the Church of England and the [[Methodist Church of Great Britain]], but such a covenant was eventually signed in 2003 [http://www.anglican-methodist.org.uk/].
 
Government in the Anglican Communion is [[synod]]ical, consisting of three houses of [[laity]] (usually elected parish representatives), clergy and bishops. National, provincial and diocesan synods maintain different scopes of authority, depending on their [[canon law|canons and constitutions]]. Anglicanism is not [[Congregationalist polity|congregational]] in its polity: it is the diocese, not the parish church, which is the smallest unit of authority in the church. ''(See [[Episcopal polity]])''.
The issue of apostolic succession, as well as the willingness of some North American dioceses to offer partnership blessings and priestly ordination to people in same-sex sexual relationships, have hindered dialogue between Anglicans and [[evangelicalism|evangelical]] Protestant denominations.
 
===Archbishop of Canterbury===
=== Orthodox Churches ===
[[File:Archbishcantarms.PNG|thumb|The [[coat of arms]] of the [[episcopal see]] of Canterbury]]
The [[archbishop of Canterbury]] has a precedence of honour over the other primates of the Anglican Communion, and for a province to be considered a part of the communion means specifically to be in full communion with the [[episcopal see|see]] of [[Province of Canterbury|Canterbury]] – though this principle is currently subject to considerable debate, especially among those in the so-called Global South, including American Anglicans.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Achim |first1=Maseko |title=Church Schism & Corruption |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gC93bLKtMqMC&q=The+Archbishop+of+Canterbury+has+a+precedence+of+honour+over+the+other+primates+of+the+Anglican+Communion&pg=PA199 |publisher=Lulu |isbn=978-1-4092-2186-9 |access-date=22 January 2020 |archive-date=21 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221122726/https://books.google.com/books?id=gC93bLKtMqMC&q=The+Archbishop+of+Canterbury+has+a+precedence+of+honour+over+the+other+primates+of+the+Anglican+Communion&pg=PA199#v=snippet&q=The%20Archbishop%20of%20Canterbury%20has%20a%20precedence%20of%20honour%20over%20the%20other%20primates%20of%20the%20Anglican%20Communion&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> The archbishop is, therefore, recognised as {{lang|la|[[primus inter pares]]}} ("first amongst equals"), even though he does not exercise any direct authority in any [[province (Anglican)|province]] outside England, of which he is chief primate.<ref>{{cite web |title=Archbishop of Canterbury |url=https://www.anglicancommunion.org/structures/instruments-of-communion/archbishop-of-canterbury.aspx |website=Anglican Communion |access-date=31 July 2021 |archive-date=28 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228161920/https://www.anglicancommunion.org/structures/instruments-of-communion/archbishop-of-canterbury.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Tominey |first1=Camilla |title=Archbishop of Canterbury has been secretly volunteering in lockdown – as chaplain at St Thomas's Hospital |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/12/archbishop-canterbury-has-secretly-volunteering-lockdown-as/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/12/archbishop-canterbury-has-secretly-volunteering-lockdown-as/ |archive-date=10 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=31 July 2021 |work=The Telegraph |date=12 May 2020 |quote=the primate of all England and the head primus inter pares of the worldwide Anglican Communion}}{{cbignore}}</ref> [[Rowan Williams]], the archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012, was the first archbishop appointed from outside the Church of England since the Reformation: he was formerly the [[archbishop of Wales]].
 
As "spiritual head" of the communion, the archbishop of Canterbury maintains a certain [[moral authority]] and has the right to determine which churches will be in communion with his [[Episcopal see|see]]. He hosts and chairs the [[Lambeth Conference]]s of Anglican Communion bishops and decides who will be invited to them. He also hosts and chairs the [[Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting]] and is responsible for the invitations to it. He acts as president of the secretariat of the Anglican Communion Office and its deliberative body, the [[Anglican Consultative Council]].
Dialogue has also been less fruitful with churches of the Orthodox Communion. The [[International Commission of the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue]] was only established in 1999, and the [[Anglican Oriental Orthodox International Commission]] was established three years later. So far, most common ground has been established only concerning matters of the historic creeds.
In a move parallel to the parishes of the [[pastoral provision]] in the Roman Catholic Church a small number of United States Anglicans have been received into certain jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church while retaining the use of a revision of the Prayer Book liturgy authorised for use in the Orthodox Church by [[Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow]] in the early twentieth century.
 
===Conferences===
Regarding mutual recognition of ministry, the Eastern Orthodox Churches are reluctant to even consider the question of the validity of holy orders in isolation from the rest of the Christian faith, so in practice they treat Anglican ordinations as invalid. Thus the favourable judgement expressed by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1922 and communicated by him to other Eastern Patriarchs (some of whom, including the Russian Patriarch, signed a contrary declaration in 1948) is in practice without effect. The Eastern Orthodox Church classifies Anglican clergymen who join it as laypeople, and, if they are to function as clergy, administers ordination to them.[http://www.orthodox.clara.net/orthodoxy_and_anglicanism.htm]
The Anglican Communion has no international juridical organisation. All international bodies are consultative and collaborative, and their resolutions are not legally binding on the autonomous provinces of the communion. There are three international bodies of note.
 
* The [[Lambeth Conference]] is the oldest international consultation. It was first convened by Archbishop [[Charles Longley]] in 1867 as a vehicle for bishops of the communion to "discuss matters of practical interest, and pronounce what we deem expedient in resolutions which may serve as safe guides to future action". Since then, it has been held roughly every ten years. Invitation is by the archbishop of Canterbury.
== References ==
* The [[Anglican Consultative Council]] was created by a 1968 Lambeth Conference resolution and meets [[wikt:biennial|biennially]]. The council consists of representative bishops, clergy and laity chosen by the forty-two provinces. The body has a permanent secretariat, the Anglican Communion Office, of which the archbishop of Canterbury is president.
* The [[Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting]] is the most recent manifestation of international consultation and deliberation, having been first convened by Archbishop [[Donald Coggan]] in 1978 as a forum for "leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation".{{sfn|Nunley|2005|p=133}}
 
===Ordained ministry===
<div class="references-small">
{{further|topic=the Anglican priesthood|Anglican ministry}}
<!-- See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the <ref(erences/)> tags -->
Like the Roman Catholic Church and the [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] churches, the Anglican Communion maintains the threefold ministry of [[deacon]]s, [[presbyter]]s (usually called "priests"), and bishops.
[[File:Canterburycathedralthrone.jpg|thumb|The [[Chair of St Augustine]] (the episcopal throne in [[Canterbury Cathedral]], Kent), seat of the archbishop of Canterbury in his role as head of the Anglican Communion{{efn|The [[Chair of St Augustine]] is the seat of the archbishop of Canterbury in his role as head of the Anglican Communion. Archbishops of Canterbury are enthroned twice: firstly as diocesan ordinary (and metropolitan and primate of the [[Church of England]]) in the archbishop's throne, by the [[archdeacon of Canterbury]]; and secondly as leader of the worldwide church in the Chair of St Augustine by the senior (by length of service) archbishop of the Anglican Communion. The stone chair is therefore of symbolic significance throughout Anglicanism.}}]]
 
====Episcopate====
<references/>
{{Main|Bishop}}
</div>
Bishops, who possess the fullness of Christian priesthood, are the successors of the [[Apostles in the New Testament|apostles]]. [[Primate (bishop)|Primates]], archbishops, and [[metropolitan bishop|metropolitans]] are all bishops and members of the [[historical episcopate]] who derive their authority through [[apostolic succession]] – an unbroken line of bishops that can be traced back to the 12 apostles of Jesus.
 
== Bibliography ==Priesthood====
Bishops are assisted by [[Episcopal priest|priests]] and [[deacon]]s. Most ordained ministers in the Anglican Communion are priests, who usually work in parishes within a [[diocese]]. Priests are in charge of the spiritual life of parishes and are usually called the [[Rector (ecclesiastical)|rector]] or [[vicar]]. A [[curate]] (or, more correctly, an "assistant curate") is a priest or deacon who assists the parish priest. Non-parochial priests may earn their living by any vocation, although employment by educational institutions or charitable organisations is most common. Priests also serve as chaplains of hospitals, schools, prisons, and in the armed forces.
 
An [[archdeacon]] is a priest or deacon responsible for administration of an [[archdeaconry]], which is often the name given to the principal subdivisions of a [[diocese]]. An archdeacon represents the diocesan bishop in his or her archdeaconry. In the [[Church of England]], the position of archdeacon can only be held by someone in priestly orders who has been ordained for at least six years. In some other parts of the Anglican Communion, the position can also be held by deacons. In parts of the Anglican Communion where women cannot be ordained as priests or bishops but can be ordained as deacons, the position of archdeacon is effectively the most senior office to which an ordained woman can be appointed.
* Hein, David, ed. (1991) ''Readings in Anglican Spirituality''. Cincinnati: Forward Movement.
* {{cite book
| author = Hein, David, and Gardiner H. Shattuck Jr.
| year = 2005
| title = The Episcopalians
| ___location = New York
| publisher = Church Publishing
}}
* {{cite book
| first = R.C.D. | last = Jasper
| authorlink = R.C.D. Jasper
| year = 1989
| title = The Development of the Anglican Liturgy, 1662-1980
| ___location = London
| publisher = SPCK
}}
* {{cite book
| author = More and Cross
| title = Anglicanism
}}
* {{cite book
| first = Stephen | last = Neill
| authorlink = Stephen Neill
| title = Anglicanism
}}
* {{cite book
| first = William L. | last = Sachs
| authorlink = William L. Sachs
| year = 1993
| title = The Transformation of Anglicanism: From State Church to Global Community
| ___location = [[Cambridge]]
| publisher = Cambridge University Press
}}
* {{cite book
| author = [[Stephen Sykes|Sykes, Stephen]], [[John Booty|Booty, John]], & [[Jonathan Knight (theologist)|Knight, Jonathan]], (eds.)
| title = The Study of Anglicanism
| ___location = Minneapolis, MN
| publisher = Fortress Press
}}
* {{cite book
| first = William | last = Temple
| authorlink = William Temple
| title = Doctrine in the Church of England
}}
 
A [[Dean (Christianity)|dean]] is a priest who is the principal cleric of a cathedral or other collegiate church and the head of the chapter of canons. If the cathedral or collegiate church has its own parish, the dean is usually also rector of the parish. However, in the Church of Ireland, the roles are often separated, and most cathedrals in the Church of England do not have associated parishes. In the Church in Wales, however, most cathedrals are parish churches and their deans are now also vicars of their parishes.
== See also ==
 
The Anglican Communion recognises [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox]] ordinations as valid. Outside the Anglican Communion, Anglican ordinations (at least of male priests) are recognised by the [[Old Catholic Church]], Porvoo Communion Lutherans, and various [[Independent Catholic]] churches.
{| width=100%
|- valign=top
| width=50%|
 
====Diaconate====
* '''Provinces and dioceses'''
{{Main|Deacon}}
** [[Church of the Province of South East Asia|Anglican Church in South East Asia]]
In Anglican churches, deacons often work directly in ministry to the marginalised inside and outside the church: the poor, the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned. Unlike Orthodox and most Roman Catholic deacons who may be married only before ordination, deacons are permitted to marry freely both before and after ordination, as are priests. Most deacons are preparing for priesthood and usually only remain as deacons for about a year before being ordained priests. However, there are some deacons who remain so.
** [[Anglican Church of Australia]]
** [[Anglican Church of Canada]]
** [[Sheng Kung Hui|Anglican Church of Hong Kong]]
** [[Anglican Church of Kenya]]
** [[Anglican Church of Nigeria]]
** [[Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea]]
** [[Church of England]]
** [[Episcopal Church in the United States]]
** [[United and uniting churches]]
*** [[Church of North India]]
*** [[Church of South India]]
*** [[Church of Bangladesh]]
*** [[Church of Pakistan]]
 
Many provinces of the Anglican Communion ordain both men and women as deacons. Many of those provinces that ordain women to the priesthood previously allowed them to be ordained only to the diaconate. The effect of this was the creation of a large and overwhelmingly female diaconate for a time, as most men proceeded to be ordained priest after a short time as a deacon.
* '''Spirituality and worship'''
** [[Anglican Eucharistic theology]]
*** [[Prayer of Humble Access]]
** [[Anglican prayer beads]]
** [[Anglican sacraments]]
** [[Anglican Use]]
** [[Evening Prayer (Book of Common Prayer)|Evensong]]
** [[Morning Prayer]]
 
Deacons, in some dioceses, can be granted licences to [[wedding|solemnise matrimony]], usually under the instruction of their parish priest and bishop. They sometimes officiate at [[Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament]] in churches which have this service. Deacons are not permitted to preside at the [[Eucharist]] (but can lead worship with the distribution of already consecrated communion where this is permitted),<ref>{{cite web |last1=Zolner |first1=Rev. Eric |title=What is a deacon? |url=http://www.allsaintsspringfield.org/the-rambling-rector/what-is-a-deacon |website=All Saints Anglican Church |access-date=25 February 2019 |archive-date=25 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190225103040/http://www.allsaintsspringfield.org/the-rambling-rector/what-is-a-deacon |url-status=live }}</ref> [[absolution (religious)|absolve sins]], or [[blessing|pronounce a blessing]].{{sfn|Moss|1943|p=393}} It is the prohibition against deacons pronouncing blessings that leads some to believe that deacons cannot solemnise matrimony.
| width=50%|
 
===Laity===
* '''Movements in Anglicanism'''
All baptised members of the church are called Christian [[Faithful (baptized Catholic)|faithful]], truly equal in dignity and in the work to build the church. Some non-ordained people also have a formal public ministry, often on a full-time and long-term basis – such as [[lay reader]]s (also known as readers), [[churchwarden]]s, [[verger]]s, and [[sexton (office)|sextons]]. Other lay positions include acolytes (male or female, often children), lay [[eucharistic minister]]s (also known as chalice bearers), and lay eucharistic visitors (who deliver consecrated bread and wine to "shut-ins" or members of the parish who are unable to leave home or hospital to attend the Eucharist). Lay people also serve on the parish altar guild (preparing the altar and caring for its candles, linens, flowers, etc.), in the choir and as cantors, as ushers and greeters, and on the church council (called the "vestry" in some countries), which is the governing body of a parish.
** [[Anglican religious order]]s
** [[Anglo-Catholicism]]
** [[Protestantism]]
** [[Congregationalism]]
** [[Continuing Anglican Movement]]
** [[Gallicanism]]
** [[Methodism]]
** [[Presbyterianism]]
** [[Sydney Anglicans]]
 
===Religious orders===
* '''People in Anglicanism'''
{{See also|Anglican religious order|Anglican devotions}}
** [[John Wesley]]
A small yet influential aspect of Anglicanism is its [[Anglican religious order|religious orders]] and communities. Shortly after the beginning of the [[Catholic Revival]] in the Church of England, there was a renewal of interest in re-establishing religious and monastic orders and communities. One of Henry VIII's earliest acts was their [[Dissolution of the Monasteries|dissolution]] and seizure of their assets. In 1841, Marian Rebecca Hughes became the first woman to take the vows of religion in communion with the [[Province of Canterbury]] since the Reformation.
** [[Rowan Williams]]
** [[Thomas Erastus]]
** [[Charles Wesley]]
 
In 1848, [[Priscilla Lydia Sellon]] became the superior of the Society of the Most Holy Trinity at [[Devonport, Plymouth]], the first organised religious order. Sellon is called "the restorer, after three centuries, of the religious life in the Church of England".<ref>{{Cite book|first=Thomas J.|last=Williams|title=Priscilla Lydia Sellon|___location=London|publisher=SPCK|year=1950}}</ref> For the next one hundred years, religious orders for both men and women proliferated throughout the world, becoming a numerically small but disproportionately influential feature of global Anglicanism.
* '''Anglican History'''
** [[Marian exiles]]
** [[Puritans]]
** [[Ritualism]]
 
Anglican religious life at one time boasted hundreds of orders and communities, and thousands of [[religious order|religious]]. An important aspect of Anglican religious life is that most communities of both men and women lived their lives consecrated to God under the [[vow]]s of [[poverty, chastity, and obedience]], or, in [[Benedictine]] communities, Stability, Conversion of Life, and Obedience, by practising a mixed life of reciting the full eight services of the [[Breviary]] in choir, along with a daily [[Eucharist]], plus service to the poor. The mixed life, combining aspects of the contemplative orders and the active orders, remains to this day a hallmark of Anglican religious life. Another distinctive feature of Anglican religious life is the existence of some mixed-gender communities.
* '''Anglicanism and Christianity
** [[Christianity]]
** [[Christian apologetics]]
 
Since the 1960s, there has been a sharp decline in the number of professed religious in most parts of the Anglican Communion, especially in North America, Europe, and Australia. Many once large and international communities have been reduced to a single [[convent]] or [[monastery]] with memberships of elderly men or women. In the last few decades of the 20th century, novices have for most communities been few and far between. Some orders and communities have already become extinct. There are, however, still thousands of Anglican religious working today in approximately 200 communities around the world, and religious life in many parts of the Communion – especially in developing nations – flourishes.
|}
 
The most significant growth has been in the [[Melanesia]]n countries of the [[Solomon Islands]], [[Vanuatu]], and [[Papua New Guinea]]. The [[Melanesian Brotherhood]], founded at [[Tabalia]], [[Guadalcanal (Pacific Ocean island)|Guadalcanal]], in 1925 by Ini Kopuria, is now the largest Anglican Community in the world, with over 450 [[monk|brothers]] in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the [[Philippines]], and the United Kingdom. The [[Sisters of the Church]], started by Mother [[Emily Ayckbowm]] in England in 1870, has more [[nun|sisters]] in the Solomons than all their other communities. The [[Community of the Sisters of Melanesia]], started in 1980 by Sister Nesta Tiboe, is a growing community of women in the Solomon Islands.
 
The [[Society of Saint Francis]], founded as a union of various [[Franciscan]] orders in the 1920s, has experienced great growth in the Solomon Islands. Other communities of religious have been started by Anglicans in Papua New Guinea and in Vanuatu. Most Melanesian Anglican religious are in their early to mid-20s. Vows may be temporary, and it is generally assumed that brothers, at least, will leave and marry in due course, making the average age 40 to 50 years younger than their brothers and sisters in other countries. Growth of religious orders, especially for women, is marked in certain parts of Africa.
 
===Worldwide distribution===
[[File:Anglican C., Porvoo C., Utrecht Union.svg|thumb|A world map showing the provinces of the '''Anglican Communion''' (blue). Shown are the Churches in full communion with the Anglican Church: The Nordic Lutheran churches of the [[Porvoo Communion]] (green), and the [[Old Catholic Church]]es in the [[Utrecht Union]] (red).|228x228px]]
As of 2024, there are around 110 million Anglicans worldwide.<ref name=":1" /> Of these, as of 2020, around 95 million are members of the Anglican Communion (excluding [[united and uniting churches|united churches]]).<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=How much influence does the global Anglican Communion have in choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury? |url=https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/6-june/features/features/how-will-the-global-anglican-communion-be-represented-in-deciding-the-next-archbishop-of-canterbury |access-date=2025-07-22 |website=www.churchtimes.co.uk}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Zurlo |first=Gina A. |isbn=978-0-310-11361-4 |title=Global Christianity: a guide to the world's largest religion from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe |date=2022 |publisher=Zondervan |___location=Grand Rapids}}</ref>
This makes the Anglican Communion the third largest Christian communion in the world, after the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]].{{sfn|Worsley|2015}}
 
The 11 provinces in Africa saw growth in the last two decades. They now include 36.7&nbsp;million members, more Anglicans than there are in England. England remains the largest single Anglican province, with 26&nbsp;million members. In most industrialised countries, church attendance has decreased since the 19th century. Anglicanism's presence in the rest of the world is due to large-scale emigration, the establishment of expatriate communities, or the work of missionaries.
 
The [[Church of England]] has been a church of [[missionary|missionaries]] since the 17th century, when the Church first left English shores with colonists who founded what would become the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, and established Anglican churches. For example, an Anglican chaplain, [[Robert Wolfall]], with [[Martin Frobisher]]'s [[Arctic]] expedition, celebrated the Eucharist in 1578 in [[Frobisher Bay]].
 
The first Anglican church in the Americas was built at [[Jamestown, Virginia]], in 1607. By the 18th century, missionaries worked to establish Anglican churches in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The great Church of England missionary societies were founded; for example, the [[Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge]] (SPCK) in 1698, the [[Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts]] (SPG) in 1701, and the [[Church Mission Society]] (CMS) in 1799. In the 19th century, social-oriented evangelism with societies were founded and developed, including the [[Church Pastoral Aid Society]] (CPAS) in 1836, [[Mission to Seafarers]] in 1856, [[Girls' Friendly Society]] (GFS) in 1875, [[Mothers' Union]] in 1876, and [[Church Army]] in 1882, all carrying out a personal form of evangelism.
 
In the 20th century, the Church of England developed new forms of evangelism, including the [[Alpha course]] in 1990, which was developed and propagated from [[Holy Trinity Brompton Church]] in London. In the 21st century, there has been renewed effort to reach children and youth. [[Fresh expressions]] is a Church of England missionary initiative to youth begun in 2005, and has ministries at a [[skate park]]<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070728180306/http://www.legacyweb.org/YouthCong.htm Legacy XS Youth Centre & Skatepark, St. George's, Benfleet]</ref> through the efforts of St George's Church, [[Benfleet Urban District|Benfleet]], Essex, the [[Diocese of Chelmsford]], or youth groups with evocative names, like the C.L.A.W (Christ Little Angels – Whatever!) youth group at [[Coventry Cathedral]]. For those who prefer not to actually visit a [[brick and mortar]] church, there are Internet ministries, such as the [[Diocese of Oxford]]'s online Anglican i-Church, which was founded on the web in 2005.
 
===Ecumenism===
{{further|topic=the ongoing dialogue between Anglicanism and the wider Church|Anglican communion and ecumenism}}
Anglican interest in [[ecumenism|ecumenical]] dialogue can be traced back to the time of the Reformation and dialogues with both Orthodox and Lutheran churches in the 16th century. In the 19th century, with the rise of the Oxford Movement, there arose greater concern for reunion of the churches of "Catholic confession". This desire to work towards full [[Communion (Christian)|communion]] with other denominations led to the development of the [[Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral]], approved by the third [[Lambeth Conference]] of 1888. The four points (the sufficiency of scripture, the historic creeds, the two dominical sacraments, and the historic episcopate) were proposed as a basis for discussion, although they have frequently been taken as a non-negotiable bottom-line for any form of reunion.
 
===Theological diversity===
[[File:Lichfield Cathedral High Altar from choir, Staffordshire, UK - Diliff.jpg|thumb|The high [[altar]] at [[Lichfield Cathedral]]]]
Anglicanism in general has always sought a balance between the emphases of [[Catholicism]] and [[Protestantism]], while tolerating a range of expressions of [[evangelicalism]] and ceremony. Clergy and laity from all Anglican [[churchmanship]] traditions have been active in the formation of the Continuing movement.
 
While there are [[high church]], [[broad church|broad-church]] and [[low church|low-church]] Continuing Anglicans, many Continuing churches are [[Anglo-Catholic]] with highly ceremonial liturgical practices. Others belong to a more evangelical or [[low church|low-church]] tradition and tend to support the [[Thirty-nine Articles]] and simpler worship services. [[Morning Prayer (Anglican)|Morning Prayer]], for instance, is often used instead of the [[Holy Eucharist]] for Sunday worship services, although this is not necessarily true of all low-church parishes.
 
Most Continuing churches in the United States reject the 1979 revision of the ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' by the Episcopal Church and use the 1928 version for their services instead. In addition, Anglo-Catholic bodies may use the [[Anglican Missal]], [[Anglican Service Book]] or [[English Missal]] when celebrating Mass.
 
====Internal conflict====
A changing focus on social issues after the [[World War II]] led to Lambeth Conference resolutions countenancing [[contraception]] and the [[remarriage]] of divorced persons. Eventually, most provinces approved the [[ordination of women]]. In more recent years, some jurisdictions have permitted the ordination of people in same-sex relationships and authorised rites for the blessing of same-sex unions (see [[Homosexuality and Anglicanism]]). "The more liberal provinces that are open to changing Church doctrine on marriage in order to allow for same-sex unions include Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Scotland, South India, South Africa, the US and Wales",<ref>{{Cite web |date=11 January 2016 |title=Church Split over Homosexuality Would be a Failure – Welby |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35278124 |work=BBC News |access-date=13 July 2016 |archive-date=21 February 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220221143053/https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35278124 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{harvnb| Heaney|Sachs|2019|pp=223–229}}</ref> while the more conservative provinces are primarily located in the Global South.
 
The lack of social consensus among and within provinces of diverse cultural traditions has resulted in considerable conflict and even schism concerning some or all of these developments, as was the case in the [[Anglican realignment]]. More conservative elements within and outside of Anglicanism (primarily African churches and factions within North American Anglicanism) have opposed these changes,<ref>{{cite news |url=https://religionnews.com/2019/05/29/citing-inclusion-of-lgbt-clerics-anglican-bishops-in-africa-to-shun-lambeth-conference/ |access-date=1 June 2019 |work=Religion News Service |title=Citing inclusion of LGBT clerics, Anglican bishops in Africa to shun Lambeth Conference |first1=Fredrick |last1=Nzwili |date=29 May 2019 |archive-date=1 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601182137/https://religionnews.com/2019/05/29/citing-inclusion-of-lgbt-clerics-anglican-bishops-in-africa-to-shun-lambeth-conference/ |url-status=live }}</ref> while some liberal and moderate Anglicans see this opposition as representing a new [[fundamentalism]] within Anglicanism and "believe a split is inevitable and preferable to continued infighting and paralysis."<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/anglican-church-england-global-schism-homosexuality-gay-rights |access-date=1 June 2019 |___location=London |work=The Guardian |title=Anglican church risks global schism over homosexuality |first1=Harriet |last1=Sherwood |date=12 January 2016 |archive-date=1 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601182136/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/anglican-church-england-global-schism-homosexuality-gay-rights |url-status=live }}</ref> Some Anglicans opposed to various liberalising changes, in particular the ordination of women, have become Roman Catholics or Orthodox. Others have, at various times, joined the [[Continuing Anglican movement]] or departed for non-Anglican evangelical churches.
 
==Continuum==
{{Main|Continuing Anglican movement}}
[[File:Lincoln Cathedral West Front - geograph.org.uk - 7562875.jpg|thumb|[[Lincoln Cathedral]] ]]
The term "[[Continuing Anglicanism]]" refers to a number of church bodies which have formed outside of the [[Anglican Communion]] in the belief that traditional forms of Anglican faith, worship, and order have been unacceptably revised or abandoned within some Anglican Communion churches in recent decades. They therefore claim that they are "continuing" traditional Anglicanism.
 
The modern Continuing Anglican movement principally dates to the [[Congress of St. Louis]], held in the United States in 1977, where participants rejected changes that had been made in the Episcopal Church's ''[[Book of Common Prayer]]'' and also the Episcopal Church's approval of the [[ordination of women]] to the priesthood. More recent changes in the North American churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the introduction of same-sex marriage rites and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the [[priesthood]] and [[Bishop|episcopate]], have created further separations.
 
Continuing churches have generally been formed by people who have left the Anglican Communion. The original Anglican churches are charged by the Continuing Anglicans with being greatly compromised by secular cultural standards and liberal theology. Many Continuing Anglicans believe that the faith of some churches in communion with the archbishop of Canterbury has become [[heterodox|unorthodox]] and therefore have not sought to also be in communion with him. The original continuing parishes in the United States were found mainly in metropolitan areas. Since the late 1990s, a number have appeared in smaller communities, often as a result of a division in the town's existing Episcopal churches. The 2007–08 ''Directory of Traditional Anglican and Episcopal Parishes'', published by the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen, contained information on over 900 parishes affiliated with either the Continuing Anglican churches or the Anglican realignment movement, a more recent wave of Anglicans withdrawing from the Anglican Communion's North American provinces.
 
==Social activism==
A concern for [[social justice]] can be traced to very early Anglican beliefs, relating to an intertwined theology of God, nature, and humanity. The Anglican theologian [[Richard Hooker]] wrote in his book ''The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine'' that "God hath created nothing simply for itself, but each thing in all things, and of every thing each part in other have such interest, that in the whole world nothing is found whereunto any thing created can say, 'I need thee not.'"<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine|last=Hooker|first=Richard|publisher=Oxford, The Clarendon press|year=1888|pages=313}}</ref> Such statements demonstrate a theological Anglican interest in social activism, which has historically appeared in movements such as evangelical Anglican [[William Wilberforce]]’s campaign against slavery in the 18th century, or 19th century issues concerning industrialisation.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Church Schism & Corruption|last=Maseko|first=Achim Nkosi|year=2011|isbn=978-1-4092-2186-9|pages=204|publisher=Lulu.com }}</ref>
 
===Working conditions and Christian socialism===
{{Toryism |expanded=characteristics}}
Lord Shaftesbury, a devout evangelical, campaigned to improve the conditions in factories, in mines, for chimney sweeps, and for the education of the very poor. For years, he was chairman of the [[Ragged school|Ragged School]] Board.<ref>J. Wesley Bready, ''Lord Shaftesbury and social-industrial progress'' (1927).</ref> [[Frederick Denison Maurice]] was a leading figure advocating reform, founding so-called "producer's co-operatives" and the [[Working Men's College]]. His work was instrumental in the establishment of the [[Christian socialism|Christian socialist]] movement, although he himself was not in any real sense a socialist but "a Tory paternalist with the unusual desire to theorize his acceptance of the traditional obligation to help the poor",{{sfn|Norman|1976|pp=171–172}} influenced Anglo-Catholics such as Charles Gore, who wrote that "the principle of the incarnation is denied unless the Christian spirit can be allowed to concern itself with everything that interests and touches human life." Anglican focus on labour issues culminated in the work of [[William Temple (archbishop)|William Temple]] in the 1930s and 1940s."<ref name=":0" />
 
===Pacifism===
A question of whether or not Christianity is a [[pacifist]] religion has remained a matter of debate for Anglicans. The leading Anglican spokesman for pacifist ideas, from 1914 to 1945, was [[Ernest Barnes]], bishop of Birmingham from 1924 to 1953. He opposed both world wars.<ref>Stephen Parker, "'Blessed are the Pacifists': E. W. Barnes of Birmingham and Pacifism, 1914–45", ''Midland History'' 34#2 (2009) 204–219.</ref> In 1937, the [[Anglican Pacifist Fellowship]] emerged as a distinct reform organisation, seeking to make pacifism a clearly defined part of Anglican theology. The group rapidly gained popularity amongst Anglican intellectuals, including [[Vera Brittain]], [[Evelyn Underhill]], and the former British political leader [[George Lansbury]]. Furthermore, [[Dick Sheppard (priest)|Dick Sheppard]], who during the 1930s was one of Britain's most famous Anglican priests due to his landmark sermon broadcasts for [[BBC Radio]], founded the [[Peace Pledge Union]], a secular pacifist organisation for the non-religious that gained considerable support throughout the 1930s.<ref>{{cite book|author=Pat Starkey|title=I Will Not Fight: Conscientious Objectors and Pacifists in the North West During the Second World War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3KaZIfHQHbkC&pg=PA4|year=1992|publisher=Liverpool UP|page=4|isbn=978-0-85323-467-8|access-date=13 April 2018|archive-date=21 February 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240221122738/https://books.google.com/books?id=3KaZIfHQHbkC&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref>
 
Whilst never actively endorsed by Anglican churches, many Anglicans unofficially have adopted the Augustinian "[[Just War]]" doctrine.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ploughshares.ca/pl_publications/no-war-just-war-just-peace-statements-by-the-anglican-church-of-canada-1934-2004/|title=No War, Just War, Just Peace: Statements by the Anglican Church of Canada 1934–2004|language=en-US|access-date=16 August 2018|archive-date=16 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180816061836/http://ploughshares.ca/pl_publications/no-war-just-war-just-peace-statements-by-the-anglican-church-of-canada-1934-2004/|url-status=dead|author-first1=Michael|author-last1=Ingham}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/just-war-theory|title=Just War Theory|date=22 May 2012|work=Episcopal Church|access-date=16 August 2018|language=en|archive-date=16 August 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180816093601/https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/just-war-theory|url-status=live}}</ref> The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship remains highly active throughout the Anglican world. It rejects this doctrine of "just war" and seeks to reform the Church by reintroducing the pacifism inherent in the beliefs of many of the earliest Christians and present in their interpretation of Christ's [[Sermon on the Mount]]. The principles of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship are often formulated as a statement of belief that "Jesus' teaching is incompatible with the waging of war ... that a Christian church should never support or justify war ... [and] that our Christian witness should include opposing the waging or justifying of war."<ref>{{cite web |title=Who We Are |url=http://www.anglicanpeacemaker.org.uk/ |publisher=Anglican Pacifist Fellowship |access-date=27 September 2017 |archive-date=28 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928060404/http://www.anglicanpeacemaker.org.uk/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
Confusing the matter was that the 37th Article of Religion in the ''Book of Common Prayer'' states that "it is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars." Therefore, the Lambeth Council in the modern era has sought to provide a clearer position by repudiating modern war and developed a statement that has been affirmed at each subsequent meeting of the council.
 
This statement was strongly reasserted when "the 67th General Convention of the Episcopal Church reaffirms the statement made by the Anglican Bishops assembled at Lambeth in 1978 and adopted by the 66th General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1979, calling "Christian people everywhere ... to engage themselves in non-violent action for justice and peace and to support others so engaged, recognising that such action will be controversial and may be personally very costly... this General Convention, in obedience to this call, urges all members of this Church to support by prayer and by such other means as they deem appropriate, those who engaged in such non-violent action, and particularly those who suffer for conscience' sake as a result; and be it further Resolved, that this General Convention calls upon all members of this Church seriously to consider the implications for their own lives of this call to resist war and work for peace for their own lives."
 
===Opposition to apartheid===
The focus on other social issues became increasingly diffuse after [[World War II]]. The growing independence and strength of Anglican churches in the Global South brought new emphasis to issues of global poverty, the inequitable distribution of resources, and the lingering effects of colonialism. In this regard, figures such as [[Desmond Tutu]] and [[Ted Scott]] were instrumental in mobilising Anglicans worldwide against the [[apartheid]] policies of South Africa.
 
===Abortion and euthanasia===
While individual Anglicans and member churches within the Communion differ in practice over the circumstances in which abortion should or should not be permitted, [[Lambeth Conference]] resolutions have consistently held to a conservative view on the issue. The 1930 Conference, the first to be held since the initial legalisation of abortion in Europe (in [[Abortion in Russia|Russia]] in 1920), stated:<ref>{{cite web |title=Resolution 16, The Life and Witness of the Christian Community – Marriage and Sex |url=https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127734/1930.pdf |publisher=Anglican Communion Office |access-date=29 December 2023 |___location=London |page=7 |date=2005 |archive-date=9 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231209065235/https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127734/1930.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> "The Conference further records its abhorrence of the sinful practice of abortion."
 
The 1958 Conference's ''Family in Contemporary Society'' report affirmed the following position on abortion<ref>{{cite book |title=The Lambeth Conference 1958: Resolutions and Reports |date=1958 |publisher=SPCK and Seabury Press}}</ref> and was commended by the 1968 Conference:<ref>{{cite web |title=Resolution 22, Responsible Parenthood |url=https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127743/1968.pdf |publisher=Anglican Consultative Council |access-date=19 August 2023 |___location=London |page=10 |date=2005 |archive-date=4 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240104104718/https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127743/1968.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
{{blockquote|In the strongest terms Christians reject the practice of induced abortion or infanticide, which involves the killing of a life already conceived (as well as a violation of the personality of the mother), save at the dictate of strict and undeniable medical necessity ... the sacredness of life is, in Christian eyes, an absolute which should not be violated.}}
 
The subsequent Lambeth Conference, in 1978, made no change to this position and commended the need for "programmes at diocesan level, involving both men and women ... to emphasise the sacredness of all human life, the moral issues inherent in clinical abortion, and the possible implications of genetic engineering."<ref>{{cite web |title=Resolution 10, Human Relationships and Sexuality |url=https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127746/1978.pdf |publisher=Anglican Communion Office |access-date=29 December 2023 |___location=London |page=8 |date=2005 |archive-date=29 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231229211948/https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/127746/1978.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
 
In the context of debates around and proposals for the legalisation of [[euthanasia]] and [[assisted suicide]], the 1998 Conference affirmed that "life is God-given and has intrinsic sanctity, significance and worth".<ref name=1998life>{{cite web |title=Resolution 1.14, Euthanasia |url=https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/76650/1998.pdf |publisher=Anglican Communion Office |access-date=29 December 2023 |___location=London |page=11 |date=2005}}</ref>
 
==Ordinariates within the Roman Catholic Church==
On 4 November 2009, [[Pope Benedict XVI]] issued an [[apostolic constitution]], ''[[Anglicanorum Coetibus]]'', to allow groups of former Anglicans to enter into [[full communion]] with the [[Roman Catholic Church]] as members of [[personal ordinariate]]s.{{sfn|Miller|2011}} 20 October 2009 announcement of the imminent constitution mentioned:
 
{{blockquote|Today's announcement of the Apostolic Constitution is a response by Pope Benedict XVI to a number of requests over the past few years to the Holy See from groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and are willing to declare that they share a common Catholic faith and accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for his Church.}}
 
Pope Benedict XVI approved, within the apostolic constitution, a canonical structure that provides for personal ordinariates which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Roman Catholic Church while preserving elements of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony.
 
For each personal ordinariate, the [[Ordinary (officer)|ordinary]] may be a former Anglican bishop or priest. It was expected that provision would be made to allow the [[Anglican Use|retention of aspects of Anglican liturgy]].<ref>{{cite news | url = https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/20/roman-catholic-church-receives-anglicans | access-date = 20 October 2009 | ___location=London | work=The Guardian | title=Roman Catholic Church to Receive Anglicans | first1=Riazat | last1=Butt | first2=John | last2=Hooper | author2-link=John Hooper (journalist) | date=20 October 2009| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20091022090920/http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/20/roman-catholic-church-receives-anglicans| archive-date= 22 October 2009 | url-status= live}}</ref>
{{clear}}
 
==Notes==
{{Notelist|35em}}
 
==References==
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|year=1976
|title=Church and Society in England, 1770–1970: A Historical Study
|url=https://archive.org/details/churchsocietyine0000norm
|url-access=registration
|___location=Oxford
|publisher=Clarendon Press
|isbn=978-0-19-826435-4
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Nunley
|first=Jan
|year=2005
|chapter=A Summary of the Report and Its Context
|editor1-last=Douglas
|editor1-first=Ian T.
|editor1-link=Ian Douglas (bishop)
|editor2-last=Zahl
|editor2-first=Paul F. M.
|title=Understanding the Windsor Report: Two Leaders in the American Church Speak Across the Divide
|___location=New York
|publisher=Church Publishing
|isbn=978-0-89869-487-1
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Parry
|first=Graham
|year=2008
|title=Glory, Laud and Honour: The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation
|___location=Woodbridge, England
|publisher=Boydell Press
|isbn=978-1-84383-375-8
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Percy
|first=Martyn
|author-link=Martyn Percy
|year=2005
|title=Engaging with Contemporary Culture: Christianity, Theology and the Concrete Church
|series=Explorations in Practical, Pastoral, and Empirical Theology
|___location=Aldershot, England
|publisher=Ashgate
|publication-date=2007
|isbn=978-0-7546-8255-4
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Ramsey
|first=Michael
|author-link=Michael Ramsey
|year=1936
|title=The Gospel and the Catholic Church
|___location=London
|publisher=Longmans
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Russell
|first=Thomas Arthur
|year=2010
|title=Comparative Christianity: A Student's Guide to a Religion and its Diverse Traditions
|___location=Boca Raton, Florida
|publisher=Universal-Publishers
|isbn=978-1-59942-877-2
}}
* {{cite book | last = Scruton | first = Roger | author-link = Roger Scruton | title = A Dictionary of Political Thought | publisher = Macmillan | year = 1996 | isbn = 978-0-333-64786-8}}
* {{cite book
|last=Sydnor
|first=William
|year=1980
|title=Looking at the Episcopal Church
|publisher=Morehouse Publishing
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Sykes
|first=Stephen W.
|author-link=Stephen Sykes
|year=1978
|title=The Integrity of Anglicanism
|___location=London
|publisher=Mowbray
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Taylor
|first=Thomas
|author-link=Thomas Taylor (historian)
|year=1916
|title=The Celtic Christianity of Cornwall
|url=https://archive.org/details/celticchristiani00tayluoft
|___location=London
|publisher=Longmans, Green and Co.
|access-date=25 September 2017
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Thomas
|first=Charles
|author-link=Charles Thomas (historian)
|year=1981
|title=Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500
|___location=Berkeley, California
|publisher=University of California Press
|isbn=978-0-520-04392-3
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Timpson
|first=T.
|year=1847
|title=British Ecclesiastical History, Including the Religion of the Druids, the Introduction of Christianity into Britain, and the Progress and Present State of Every Denomination of Christians in the British Empire
|edition=2nd
|url=https://archive.org/details/britishecclesia00timpgoog
|___location=London
|publisher=Aylott and Jones
|access-date=25 September 2017
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Tyacke
|first=Nicholas
|year=1987
|title=Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590–1640
|___location=Oxford
|publisher=Clarendon Press
|isbn=978-0-19-822939-1
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Wallace
|first=Martin
|author-link=Martin Wallace (bishop)
|year=2009
|title=The Celtic Resource Book
|edition=2nd
|___location=London
|publisher=Church House Publishing
|isbn=978-0-7151-4186-1
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Webber
|first=Christopher L.
|year=1999
|title=The Episcopal Church: An Introduction to Its History, Faith, and Worship
|___location=Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
|publisher=Church Publishing
|isbn=978-0-8192-2520-7
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Wilken
|first=Robert Louis
|year=2012
|title=The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity
|___location=New Haven, Connecticut
|publisher=Yale University Press
|isbn=978-0-300-11884-1
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Wright
|first=J. Robert
|author-link=J. Robert Wright
|year=2008
|title=A Companion to Bede: A Reader's Commentary on ''The Ecclesiastical History of the English People''
|___location=Grand Rapids, Michigan
|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
|isbn=978-0-8028-6309-6
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Woodhouse-Hawkins
|first=M.
|year=1988
|chapter=Maurice, Huntington, and the Quadrilateral: An Exploration in Historical Theology
|editor-last=Wright
|editor-first=J. Robert
|title=Quadrilateral at One Hundred
|___location=London
|publisher=Mowbray
}}
* {{cite encyclopedia
|last=Worsley
|first=Howard
|year=2015
|title=Anglican Church Christian Education
|editor1-last=Kurian
|editor1-first=George Thomas
|editor2-last=Lamport
|editor2-first=Mark A.
|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Christian Education
|volume=1
|___location=London
|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield
|page=50
|isbn=978-0-8108-8493-9
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Zimmer
|first=Heinrich
|author-link=Heinrich Zimmer (Celticist)
|year=1902
|title=The Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland
|translator-last=Meyer
|translator-first=A.
|publisher=Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
}}
{{refend}}
 
==Further reading==
{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}
* {{Cite book
|last=Anson
|first=Peter F.
|author-link=Peter Anson
|year=1955
|title=The Call to the Cloister: Religious Communities and Kindred Bodies in the Anglican Communion
|___location=London
|publisher=SPCK
}}
* {{cite book
|author=Archbishops' Commission on Christian Doctrine
|year=1938
|title=Doctrine in the Church of England
|___location=London
|publisher=SPCK
}}
* {{cite book
|year=1990
|editor-last=Armentrout
|editor-first=Donald S.
|title=This Sacred History: Anglican Reflections
|___location=Cambridge, Massachusetts
|publisher=Cowley Publications
|isbn=978-1-56101-003-5
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Bess
|first=Douglas
|year=2006
|orig-year=2002
|title=Divided We Stand: A History of the Continuing Anglican Movement
|___location=Berkeley, California
|publisher=Apocryphile Press
|isbn=978-1-933993-10-2
}}
* Buchanan, Colin. ''Historical Dictionary of Anglicanism'' (2nd ed. 2015) [https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Dictionary-Anglicanism-Dictionaries-Philosophies/dp/1442250151 excerpt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190401183815/https://www.amazon.com/Historical-Dictionary-Anglicanism-Dictionaries-Philosophies/dp/1442250151 |date=1 April 2019 }}
* {{cite book
|last=Fitch
|first=John
|year=2009
|title=Anglican Eirenicon: The Anglican Concept of Churchmanship in the Quest for Christian Unity
|___location=Cambridge, England
|publisher=The Lutterworth Press
|isbn=978-0-7188-9212-8
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Griffith Thomas
|first=William Henry
|author-link=William Henry Griffith Thomas
|year=1930
|title=The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles
|___location=London
|publisher=Longmans, Green & Co.
}}
* {{cite book
|year=1991
|editor-last=Hein
|editor-first=David
|title=Readings in Anglican Spirituality
|___location=Cincinnati, Ohio
|publisher=Forward Movement
|isbn=978-0-88028-125-6
}}
* {{cite journal
|last=Hein
|first=David
|author-mask=2
|year=2009
|title=Thoughtful Holiness: The Rudiments of Anglican Identity
|journal=Sewanee Theological Review
|volume=52
|issue=3
|pages=266–275
|issn=1059-9576
}}
* {{cite book
|year=2010
|editor1-last=Hein
|editor1-first=David
|editor2-last=Henery
|editor2-first=Charles R.
|title=Spiritual Counsel in the Anglican Tradition
|___location=Cambridge, England
|publisher=James Clarke and Co.
|doi=10.2307/j.ctt16wdm91
|isbn=978-0-227-90349-0
|jstor=j.ctt16wdm91
}}
* {{cite book
|last1=Hein
|first1=David
|last2=Shattuck
|first2=Gardiner H. Jr.
|year=2004
|title=The Episcopalians
|___location=Westport, Connecticut
|publisher=Praeger Publishers
|isbn=978-0-313-22958-9
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Jasper
|first=R. C. D.
|author-link=Ronald Jasper
|year=1989
|title=The Development of the Anglican Liturgy, 1662–1980
|___location=London
|publisher=SPCK
|isbn=978-0-281-04441-2
}}
* {{cite book
|year=1935
|editor1-last=More
|editor1-first=Paul Elmer
|editor1-link=Paul Elmer More
|editor2-last=Cross
|editor2-first=Frank Leslie
|editor2-link=Frank Leslie Cross
|title=Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century
|___location=Milwaukee, Wisconsin
|publisher=Morehouse Publishing
|hdl=2027/umn.319510014971092
|hdl-access=free
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Neill
|first=Stephen
|author-link=Stephen Neill
|year=1977
|title=Anglicanism
|edition=4th
|___location=London
|publisher=Mowbrays
|isbn=978-0-264-66352-4
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Nichols
|first=Aidan
|author-link=Aidan Nichols
|year=1993
|title=The Panther and the Hind: A Theological History of Anglicanism
|___location=Edinburgh
|publisher=T&T Clark
|isbn=978-0-567-29232-2
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Norman
|first=Edward
|author-link=Edward Norman (historian)
|year=2004
|title=Anglican Difficulties: A New Syllabus of Errors
|___location=London
|publisher=Morehouse Publishing
|isbn=978-0-8192-8100-5
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Ramsey
|first=Michael
|author-link=Michael Ramsey
|year=1991
|editor-last=Coleman
|editor-first=Dale
|title=The Anglican Spirit
|___location=London
|publisher=SPCK
|isbn=978-0-281-04523-5
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Sachs
|first=William L.
|year=1993
|title=The Transformation of Anglicanism: From State Church to Global Communion
|___location=Cambridge, England
|publisher=Cambridge University Press
|isbn=978-0-521-39143-6
|url-access=registration
|url=https://archive.org/details/transformationof0000sach
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Tavard
|first=George
|author-link=George Tavard
|year=1963
|title=The Quest for Catholicity: A Study in Anglicanism
|___location=London
|publisher=Burns & Oates
}}
* {{cite book
|last=Williams
|first=Rowan
|author-link=Rowan Williams
|year=2003
|title=Anglican Identities
|___location=London
|publisher=Darton, Longman & Todd
|isbn=978-1-56101-254-1
}}
* {{cite book
|year=1982
|editor-last=Wolf
|editor-first=William J.
|title=Anglican Spirituality
|___location=Wilton, Connecticut
|publisher=Morehouse-Barlow Co.
|isbn=978-0-8192-1297-9
}}
{{refend}}
 
== External links ==
{{Commons}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://www.anglicancommunion.org/ Anglican Communion website]
* [http://www.cofe.anglican.org/faith/anglican/ What it means to be an Anglican article] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110830191043/http://www.churchofengland.org/our-faith/being-an-anglican.aspx |date=30 August 2011 }}
* [https://anglicanhistory.org/ Anglican History website]
* [https://www.anglicansonline.org/ Anglicans Online website]
* [http://justus.anglican.org/resources Online Anglican resources]
 
{{Anglicanism (footer) |state = expanded }}
* [http://www.anglicancommunion.org Anglican Communion] - The official site of the Anglican Communion.
{{Christianity footer}}
* [http://www.cofe.anglican.org/faith/anglican/ What it means to be an Anglican: Official CofE site]
{{Religion topics |state = collapsed }}
* [http://www.anglicansonline.org Anglicans Online] - An unofficial site of the Anglican Communion. One of the biggest resources of Anglicanism in the world.
{{Portal bar|Christianity}}
* [http://anglicanhistory.org Anglican historical texts]
* [http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/denominations/anglicanism.htm Anglicanism: ReligionFacts.com] - Articles on Anglican history, ritual, and organisation, plus an image gallery of people and places.
 
{{Authority control}}
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