The Canon · No. 072
Anglicanism
The Church of England and the Anglican Communion; Episcopalianism
1534 CE – present · Abrahamic · Living · England, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, US, Australia, Canada
VI. REFORMATION & EARLY MODERN — 1500 – 1800
How many
About 85–110 million. Nigeria and Uganda now have far more practising Anglicans than England does.
Who began it
Institutionally, Henry VIII, whose 1534 Act of Supremacy made the monarch head of the church in England after the pope refused to annul his marriage. Theologically the shaping figures are Thomas Cranmer and, under Elizabeth I, Richard Hooker.
What it is for
Initially dynastic and jurisdictional rather than doctrinal. The lasting settlement, from 1559, was a deliberate via media — a church Catholic in structure and Reformed in doctrine, designed so that as many English people as possible could belong to it.
What it worships
The Trinity.
What it holds
Scripture, tradition and reason as a three-legged stool. The Thirty-Nine Articles (1571) are Reformed in content but deliberately worded to permit a range of readings — the Eucharist article, in particular, was drafted so that both Catholic-minded and Reformed clergy could sign it. Anglicanism has always been defined more by common prayer than common belief: what unites it is a liturgy, not a confession.
What it does
The Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552, 1662), one of the most influential books in English. Bishops in apostolic succession. Two sacraments as generally necessary, five other rites retained. Choral tradition; parish structure; married clergy.
After death
Standard Christian resurrection and judgment. Purgatory is explicitly rejected by Article XXII. Beyond that, Anglicanism is characteristically reticent and permits a wide range of views including annihilationism and hopeful universalism.
Its texts
Bible, especially the King James Version (1611). Book of Common Prayer. Thirty-Nine Articles. Hooker's Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.
Its branches
42 autonomous provinces. Internally: Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, Broad Church and charismatic strands, which disagree with one another more than with some other denominations.
Of note
Anglicanism is the clearest example of a religion whose identity is procedural rather than doctrinal. Its unity has always rested on shared worship and mutual recognition, which is exactly why the current conflict is so hard to resolve.
Its timeline
- 1534 CE Act of Supremacy.
- 1536–41 CE Dissolution of the monasteries; the largest transfer of property in English history.
- 1549, 1552 CE Cranmer's prayer books.
- 1553–58 CE Mary I restores Catholicism; Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley are burned.
- 1559 CE Elizabethan Settlement.
- 1611 CE King James Bible.
- 1642–60 CE Civil War; episcopacy and the prayer book abolished, then restored in 1660.
- 1662 CE The Act of Uniformity ejects around 2,000 clergy who will not conform, creating English Nonconformity.
- 1784 CE Samuel Seabury consecrated in Scotland for America; the Episcopal Church becomes the first Anglican province outside the British Isles.
- 1807, 1833 CE William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect drive the abolition of the slave trade and then of slavery in the British Empire — while the church itself had owned plantations and slaves, for which it apologised in 2006.
- 1833 CE Oxford Movement; Anglo-Catholic revival.
- 1867 CE First Lambeth Conference.
- 1944, 1974, 1994, 2014 CE Women ordained: Hong Kong, then Philadelphia, then England as priests, then as bishops.
- 2003–present The consecration of an openly gay bishop in the US precipitates a sustained realignment; GAFCON forms; the communion remains formally intact and functionally fractured.
Sources
Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.