The Christian Church Historically Broke up Into a Number of Regional

Anglican Studies I (Aug. 2010), part 1

SCHISMS IN THE EARLY CHURCH: ‘Schism’ means a breaking-apart. Schismatic tendencies were part ofthe very earliest Christian churches, both ethnic schisms (Acts 6:1; the Hellenists, or Greek-speaking Middle Easterners, vs. theHebrews, or Aramaic-speaking Palestinian Jews like the apostles), andtheological schisms (I Corinthians, 1:11-12).

The Christian Church historically broke up into a number of regional

Churches: the Eastern Syriac Church separated from the mainstream

Church after the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D.; the Western Syriac,

Ethiopian, and Egyptian (Coptic) Churches separated after the Council

of Chalcedon in 451; the Eastern Orthodox Churches separated from the

Western Church after the so-called Great Schism in 1054; Protestant Churchesseparated from the Roman Catholic (Western) Church after the

Reformation c. 1520.

1500: THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ENGLAND: But in 1500, all Englishmen were members of the Western CatholicChurch, which was headed by the Pope in Rome. The average Englishman was a poor farmer who probably could not read English. He certainly did notunderstand Latin, the language in which the Western Catholic Church held its services. The Bible was available in England almost entirely in the Latin Vulgate translation of St. Jerome. English people learned their (Latin) prayers by heart, and learned aboutthe Bible stories from preaching in church, or from sources like the paintings on the walls of the churches and from church-sponsored popular plays based on Bible stories. If an Englishman wanted to marry, or to bury his parents, he could only do so through the Church. He paid a portion (tithe) of hisharvest as a tax to the Church.

In addition to poor country churches, there were bigger churches in

England’s towns, and grand cathedrals in some cities. There were many

monasteries in England where monks (or in nunneries, nuns) vowed to

spend their lives in prayer and work, and in poverty, chastity, and

obedience. Some of the monasteries had declined, with few members.

Others had grown rich from donations over the centuries; their members

lived in great comfort which had little in common with the povertythey had vowed. Bishops administered great landed estates. They satin the House of Lords in Parliament, along with the other greatlandowners. It is estimated that by 1500, between one-fifth andone-third of all the real estate (land and buildings) in Englandbelonged to the Church.

TAXES TO ROME: Since the early Middle Ages (c. 800-1500 A.D.), the English Church hadpaid a tax called ‘Peter’s Pence’ to the Papacy in Rome. After losinga dispute with the Pope in 1213, King John agreed that the English Churchwould pay more taxes to the Papacy; after c. 1300, it is estimatedthat England’s clergy paid the Papacy a tax amounting to 1/10 of theirincome. Later, the growing Papacy requested more money to pay its

rising expenses.

THE CONVOCATIONS: Early 13th-century Archbishop of Canterbury Stephen Langton did notwant the Church to act only as an arm of the government (in thosetimes, the Crown). Bishops called their clergy together from time totime to discuss diocesan issues. In 1225, Archbishop Langton calledthe clergy of southern England to a Convocation in Canterbury, todiscuss how and whether to meet the Crown’s request for money to pay national expenses. England’s other Archbishopric, in the northat York, soon organized its own Convocation. The Convocations, like England’s Parliament (which was also organized in the 13th century), each consisted of an Upper House (for bishops) and a Lower House (for representatives of the clergy); not until 1885 would the Convocations include representatives of the laity. The Convocations of Canterbury and York are, jointly, the ancestor of the Church of England’smodern General Synod.

Anglican Studies I (Mar. 2010) – part 2

ENGLISH CRITICISM OF THE CHURCH OF ROME: In the later Middle Ages, some English clerics criticized the Churchfor its growing wealth and its neglect of poor Christians. They saidthat many things in the medieval Church did not come from the Bible –which of course most Englishmen could not read. In 1382, the scholarJohn Wycliffe and some of his followers (later known as ‘Lollards,’originally a name for wandering singers) completed an Englishtranslation of the Latin Bible text so that England’s Christians could understandit and be guided by it. Wycliffe also denounced the wealth of theChurch, saying that this was not what the Gospels taught. The Churchwas angered by his criticism. Wycliffe, already an old man, was triedfor heresy but not condemned. However, in 1401, Parliament passed alaw (De heretico comburendo, 2 Henry IV, c. 15) making it legal to burn heretics at the stake, and some Lollards wereexecuted in this way.

Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Arundel in the 1409 Constitutions of Oxford forbade Englishmen to own an English-language Bible without diocesan consent. This made England the only country in Northern Europe to forbid or restrict translations of Scripture into local languages. Nonetheless, the Wycliffe Bible remained so popular in England that we have more full or partial pre-Reformation manuscripts of it than we do of Geoffrey Chaucer’s enormously popular ‘Canterbury Tales’ from the same period.

INDULGENCES: From c. 1476, Papal indulgences were sold in England. Thislate-medieval invention enabled a Catholic to purchase from the Church, for money,the assurance that, in return, the penalties some dead relative or friend was suffering in Purgatory would be cancelled or shortened (technically, indulgences were only supposed to free people from temporal penalties, but the distinction was often obscured). Manypeople criticized the indulgences. They said it was not Christian to make the forgiveness of penalties for sins depend on how much money your relatives could pay. In 1517, a German Augustinian monknamed Martin Luther nailed to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral a listof 95 ‘theses’ or ideas he was willing to defend in debate, about thecorruption in the Catholic Church that needed reform. He named theindulgences as one of the most corrupt practices. In general, Luthersaid that Christian practices should be only those laid down in theBible.

1517, THE REFORMATION BEGINS IN GERMANY: Many people agreed with Martin Luther. This was the beginning of theReformation in northern Europe. Reformed (‘Protestant’) Churches quickly began to break away from the Catholic Church, usually on a nationalbasis. Some Protestant leaders were more radical than others.Disputes arose about the proper nature of Protestant Reform. Localwars quickly broke out in Europe between Catholics and Protestants, orbetween competing groups of Protestants. Over the next 130 years, religious wars caused enormous suffering and loss of life in ContinentalEurope.

England in the late 15th century had suffered a series of civil wars, the ‘Wars of the Roses’ (named for the badges of the two opposing sides, Lancaster and York). They were resolved by the death in battle of thelast Yorkist King, Richard III, and the victory of Henry Tudor. Crowned King Henry VII, Henry Tudor brought peace and stability toEngland.

KING HENRY VIII: Henry VII had two sons, Arthur and a second Henry. The older son, Arthur, was married when he was 15, to a Spanish princess, Catherine of Aragon,but he died, probably of tuberculosis, only a few months later. Henry VII didnot want to send Catherine back to Spain because he did not want tohave to return her dowry. When he died a few years later, his sonHenry was crowned King Henry VIII, and married Catherine. Henry VIIIand Queen Catherine had 6 children. However, only one of the six, their daughter Mary, lived to grow up. England had not been ruled by a queen since the 12th century, and that led to a civil war. Henry VIII and many other English people were worried that without a male heir, civil war couldfollow. At this time (c. 1526), Henry VIII fell in love with ayounger woman, Anne Boleyn, from a great family at court. He hoped she could give him a son.

Anglican Studies I (Mar. 2010) – part 3

HENRY SEEKS AN ANNULMENT: Henry VIII thought he had found a legitimate way to annul his marriageto Catherine, so that he could marry Anne; Leviticus 20:21 said that a manshould not marry his brother’s wife (of course, Deuteronomy 25:5-10 said that a man SHOULD marry his brother’s widow if she had no sons by her previous marriage, but that would not have been helpful to Henry’s case). Henry sent a messenger to Pope Clement VII in 1527 to ask for an annulment. Suchannulments were sometimes granted. However, earlier that year thetroops of the Spanish king had occupied Rome, killing manypeople, and they were keeping the Pope a virtual prisoner in his owncastle. The Spanish king was Queen Catherine’s nephew, and the Popewas afraid to anger him. He refused to make a judgment that might offend either party.

Henry VIII decided to resolve the problem himself. In 1529, he convened Parliament to discuss the question of his annulment. Gradually, under great pressure from Henry, both Parliament and the English Church yielded to the king’s wishes. In 1532, Henry forcedthe Convocation of Canterbury to agree to treat the King, not thePope, as head of England’s Church, and to make no Church laws(‘canons’) without the King’s approval. Later that year, Henry appointedThomas Cranmer, an important scholar and a chaplain in the householdof Anne Boleyn’s father, as Archbishop of Canterbury. By this time,Henry had secretly married Anne, and she was pregnant – with a son,Henry hoped (unfortunately, it was a daughter, Elizabeth). In January 1533, ArchbishopCranmer recognized the annulment of Henry’s marriage to Catherine andlegalized Henry’s marriage to Anne.

HENRY PRESSURES THE CHURCH AND PARLIAMENT INTO APPROVING HIS ANNULMENT – AND AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH OF ENGLAND: In April 1533, Parliament passed the Statute in Restraint of Appeals (also known as the Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532, 24 Henry VIII c. 12). This law forbade all Englishmen to appeal to Rome on religious or other matters. It made the King the final legal authority in all such matters in England and its possessions. Three months later, Pope Clement excommunicated Henry. Early in 1534, Parliament passed the Act Concerning Peter’s Pence and Dispensations (also known as the Ecclesiastical Licences Act 1533, 25 Henry VIII, c. 21), outlawing the payment of Peter’s Pence and other payments to the Church of Rome. Parliament also passed the Act of Supremacy (26 Henry VIII, c. 1), by which it recognizedthe King, not the Pope, as the head of the Church in England.

HENRY CLOSES ENGLAND’S MONASTERIES, LAUNCHES SOME REFORMS: In 1536, Henry VIII needed money. Many of England’s monasteries were wealthy, andas a group they were not widely popular. Henry began to dissolve themonasteries, seize their valuables, and sell their land to wealthyEnglish landowners and businessmen at favorable prices. In this waymany Englishmen benefited from the closure of the monasteries, so theysupported Henry. Henry appointed bishops with Protestant sympathies because they tended to support him, so Protestant theology becameinfluential in the Church of England. In 1536, Henry published the so-called10 Articles, which introduced mild Protestantism into the Church (that is, they questioned the idea of intercession for the dead, rebuked theadorning of saints’ images as idolatrous, etc.). However, in 1539 he had Parliament pass the ActAbolishing Diversity of Opinions, also known as the Six Articles (31 Henry VIII, c. 14), which forbade many Protestant practices such as marriage of the clergy.Henry VIII did authorize the publication of the Great Bible in bothEnglish and Latin, to be available in all parishes as a kind ofreference book for any who wanted to use it, but it was not requiredfor use in church services.

Henrywas not a radical reformer. He continued to worship using the same Latin liturgy, in the same kinds of churches, that he had known all his life. Despite his excommunication, he apparently did not regard himself as cut offfrom the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, he laid the political framework that established the Church of England as Britain’s state Church.

Anglican Studies I (Mar. 2010) – part 4

ENGLAND BECOMES MORE PROTESTANT UNDER EDWARD VI: The theological framework of English Protestantism was established

mainly under Henry VIII’s son Edward VI (1547-53). Edward was only 9

years old when he became King, but he had been brought up by

Protestant teachers and was surrounded by Protestant advisers. In

1547 under their direction, Parliament repealed the 1539 Act of Six

Articles (1 Edw. VI, c. 1); in 1549, it legalized marriage of the clergy and otherProtestant practices (2 & 3 Edw. VI, c. 21, reinforced in 5 & 6 Edw. VI, c. 12). Also in 1549, the Book of Common Prayer,written largely by Archbishop Cranmer, was issued for the Church ofEngland, replacing the traditional Latin-language liturgy with anEnglish-language one. The Act of Uniformity (2 & 3 Edw. VI, c. 1) made this liturgy the sole legal form of worship in England. In 1552, to accompany a more ‘Protestant’revision of the Book of Common Prayer, Cranmer issued a list of 42Articles (later reduced to 39 under Queen Elizabeth) to outline theProtestant theology and practice of the Church of England.

QUEEN MARY BRIEFLY RETURNS ENGLAND TO CATHOLICISM: Like his uncle Arthur, Edward VI died at the age of 15, probably from tuberculosis. Henry VIII’s eldest surviving child Mary, his daughter by his first marriage, was proclaimed Queen (1554-58). Mary was adevout Roman Catholic. She married her cousin King Philip V of Spain,another firm Catholic. Under Mary’s rule, the Latin Mass again became the only legal one. She wanted a peaceful restoration of theCatholic Church in England, but many Englishmen had sincerely accepted Protestantism and were unwilling to abandon it. Over 300 bishops, clergy,and others who refused to renounce Protestantism were burned at thestake for heresy, including Archbishop Cranmer, already an old man. They became martyrs to many English people, who increasingly regarded theCatholic Church as foreign.

THE ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT: After Mary died of cancer, the crown passed to Henry VIII’s lastsurviving child, his younger daughter Elizabeth. Parliament‘s 1559 Act of Supremacy (1 Eliz., c. 1) again made the Crown the head of the Church of England. Elizabeth was highlyeducated, very clever, and a Protestant from childhood. She wanted apeaceful, stable kingdom. The religious compromises her bishops andcouncilors worked out between Catholic and Protestant ideas are known as the Elizabethan Settlement, thebasis of the Anglican Church of today. This began in 1559, when shepersuaded Parliament to pass the Act ofUniformity (1 Eliz., c. 2) with some difficulty (it passed by only three votes). This Act again replaced the Latin Masswith the English-language services in the Book of Common Prayer as the only legalliturgy in England.

SCOTLAND FOUNDS ITS OWN PROTESTANT NATIONAL CHURCH: In Scotland in 1560, the Scottish Parliament, guided byradical-Protestant Scottish Church of England clergyman John Knox, abolishedthe jurisdiction of the Pope in Scotland and founded the Scottishnational church, or Kirk, which was Presbyterian (that is, its churches were governed by representatives of their congregations, not by a hierarchy of bishops). Elizabeth’s cousin-once-removed Mary (granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister Margaret, who had married KingJames V of Scotland) was the Queen of the Scots, but Mary was Catholic,and Scotland expelled her in 1569, keeping her infant son James to bebrought up as Protestant King James VI of Scotland. Mary took refuge in England. In 1570 Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabethand any of her subjects who obeyed her. Catholic sympathizers inEngland thought Mary Queen of Scots should be queen of England ratherthan the Protestant Elizabeth. Mary apparently thought so too, andElizabeth had her executed in 1587 for plotting to seize the Englishthrone.

SOME PURITANS ARE STILL NOT SATISFIED: As Catholicism increasingly became identified with foreign intrigue,it became less popular in England. Elizabeth had more trouble withradical Protestants (‘Puritans’) for whom her reforms were not radicalenough. Puritans objected to things like the wearing of ceremonialrobes (surplices, etc.) by the clergy – who in the Bible wore suchthings, they asked? They objected to anything that looked evenremotely Catholic (which they called ‘papist’ or ‘Popish’), such as making thesign of the Cross at baptism. Some Puritans thought that even inchurch, all prayer should be spontaneous and from the heart, not a setformula from the prayerbook. Puritans particularly disliked bishopsand other signs of the Church’s worldly wealth and prestige, which they consideredunChristian. Elizabeth’s personal preferences were conservative; she thought clergymen should remain unmarried, and she preserved the old elaborate liturgy and liturgical furnishings in her private chapel. Nonetheless, she made many compromises to accommodate thePuritans, allowing ‘images’ (and much great art with them) to bedestroyed in English churches to eliminate idolatry. Despite all this, some Puritans still were not satisfied, and began to set up independent services of their own. In 1593, Elizabeth had Parliament pass theAct Against Seditious Sectaries, also known as the Act AgainstPuritans (35 Eliz., c.1). This act banned formal (Puritan) worship services outsidethe regular services of the Church of England. It also required allEnglish citizens to attend Church of England services regularly. Afew radical Protestants, especially in eastern England, continued tohold Puritan services in the privacy of their homes.