Historical Roots

An Ancient Church

The roots of the Anglicanism go back to the time of the Roman Empire when a Christian church came into existence in what was then the Roman province of Britain. The early Christian writers Tertullian and Origen mention the existence of a British church in the third century AD and in the fourth century British bishops attended a number of the great councils of the Church such as the Council of Arles in 314 and the Council of Rimini in 359. The first member of the British church whom we know by name is St Alban, who, tradition tells us, was martyred for his faith on the spot where St Albans Abbey in England now stands.

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The British church was a missionary church with figures such as St Illtud, St Ninian and St Patrick evangelising in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but the invasions by the pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes in the fifth century seem to have destroyed the organization of the church in much of what is now England. In 597 a mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great and led by St Augustine of Canterbury landed in Kent to begin the work of converting these pagan peoples. What eventually became known as the Church of England (the Ecclesia Anglicana - or the English Church) was the result of a combination of three streams of Christianity, the Roman tradition of St Augustine and his successors, the remnants of the old Romano-British church and the Celtic tradition coming down from Scotland and associated with people like St Aidan and St Cuthbert.

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These three streams came together as a result of increasing contact and a number of local synods, of which the Synod of Whitby in 664 has traditionally been seen as the most important. The result was an English Church, and the tradition that we now know as Anglicanism.

A Reformed Church

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At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Western Church became divided between those who continued to accept Papal authority and the various Protestant churches that did not. The Church of England was among the churches that broke with Rome. The catalyst for this decision was the refusal of the Pope to annul the marriage of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, but also a Tudor nationalist belief that authority over the English Church properly belonged to the English monarchy.

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During this time, Thomas Cranmer emerged as a central architect of the English Reformation and the development of Anglicanism. As Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1556, Cranmer wielded considerable influence in steering the Church towards Protestant principles. 

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Cranmer's theological convictions aligned closely with the burgeoning Protestant movement sweeping across Europe. He championed doctrines such as justification by faith alone and the priesthood of all believers, reflecting the influence of reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin. Cranmer's commitment to reform extended to the realm of worship, where he spearheaded the development of the Book of Common Prayer. This seminal work provided a standardized liturgy in English, replacing Latin and making worship more accessible to the laity.

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The religious settlement that eventually emerged from the Elizabethean Settlement gave Anglicanism its distinctive identity. The result was a Church that consciously retained a large amount of continuity with the Church of the Patristic and Medieval periods in terms of its use of the catholic creeds, its pattern of ministry, its buildings and aspects of its liturgy, but which also embodied Protestant insights in its theology and in the overall shape of its liturgical practice. The way that this is often expressed is by saying that Anglicans are 'reformed catholics.'​​​​​​​​​​​