What Anglicans Believe
The History of Anglicanism
What is the Anglican Communion?
The Anglican Communion is a worldwide family of churches. It’s the third-largest Christian communion globally, after the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches. The communion consists of 42 independent national or regional churches, including the Church of England, the Episcopal Church (USA), the Anglican Church of Kenya, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and many others. Each church is autonomous, meaning they govern themselves, but united by shared history, liturgy, and episcopal structure.
The ‘Anglican Way’
The story of Anglicanism is not the story of a single founder or a rigid confession of faith. It is the story of the ‘Anglican Way’ —a particular and historic expression of the Christian faith that seeks to be a faithful continuation of the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ’. This ‘Way’, which forms a core part of what Anglicans believe, was forged in the unique crucible of the English Reformation, establishing a distinctive approach to faith, worship, and mission that now connects a global family of churches.
Foundations and History
Ancient Roots
The Anglican Communion grew out of the Church of England. This has its roots in the ancient Celtic churches of Ireland and Britain and in the mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury and his fellow monks from Rome, a mission that landed in Kent in 597 AD. He and subsequent Archbishops of Canterbury, especially Theodore, played a major part in establishing Christianity in England. For nearly a thousand years, the church in England was an integral part of the Western Church in communion with Rome.
Canterbury Cathedral
When Augustine was sent to Kent in 597 AD by Pope Gregory the Great, he established his seat and the first cathedral. In the 1170s, the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket transformed the cathedral into a major European pilgrimage site. As Anglicanism spread around the world over the centuries, Canterbury Cathedral came to be seen by many Anglicans as a place of historic and symbolic significance.
The Church of England breaks with Rome
The English Reformation, initiated by Henry VIII in the 1530s, cut the ties of the Church in England with Rome, establishing the monarch as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. It also shifted England toward Protestantism, causing lasting religious, political, and cultural change.
After a period of religious volatility, Queen Elizabeth I’s Religious Settlement (c. 1559) established a unified national church. It followed a path that has come to be known as the via media, or “middle way”, one of considering different points of view and finding pastoral and practical ways forward for church and nation. It created a church that was both ‘Catholic and Reformed’ – one that retained the ancient, catholic order of bishops, priests, and deacons while embracing the Protestant Reformation’s emphasis on the supreme authority of Scripture. This identity was given its intellectual foundation by the theologian Richard Hooker, who championed a balanced approach to authority.
The Three Pillars: Scripture, Tradition, and Reason
Flowing from Hooker’s work is the classic Anglican theological method, often described as a ‘three-legged stool’. This is not a static formula but a dynamic and interactive method for discerning truth.
- Scripture: The Holy Scriptures are the ultimate standard of faith, containing all things necessary for salvation.
- Tradition: The wisdom of the Church passed down through the centuries—including the Creeds and the teachings of the early Church—is a vital resource that helps us faithfully interpret Scripture.
- Reason: The God-given faculty for critical thought allows us to interpret Scripture, learn from Tradition, and apply our faith to the challenges of our contemporary context.
This balanced method allows Anglicanism to be a thoughtful, non-fundamentalist, and contextually sensitive faith, providing the ‘software’ that enables a diverse global Communion to navigate complex issues over time, though not always without disagreement and debate.
Anglicanism and the Book of Common Prayer
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was a major theological architect of the era during the English Reformation. He crafted the Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552), a revolutionary liturgy in the English language. This embedded reformed theology—like the authority of Scripture and justification by faith—into the hearts and minds of the people through their weekly worship. This established a defining Anglican characteristic: finding unity through common prayer, or lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief).
The Book of Common Prayer became a significant book to many Anglicans around the world. It has evolved into a global family of prayer books used in over 50 countries and 150 languages.
The Anglican Communion: A global network of churches
Historically, sharing the faith and missionary activity have always been a distinctive feature of Christianity. In the “Great Commission” (Matthew 28: 18–20), Jesus instructed his followers to make disciples of all nations and this continues to be central calling on the global Church.
Like many Christian churches, Anglicanism became a worldwide communion through several interconnected processes. During the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, the missionary work of the Church became intertwined with European exploration and colonial expansionism of the era.
Missionary Endeavours Anglican missionary societies established churches, schools, and hospitals in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. These efforts were complex: while missionaries often operated within colonial power structures, many also advocated for indigenous peoples and translated scriptures into local languages, inadvertently providing tools for both cultural preservation and transformation.
Indigenous Leadership and Adaptation Indigenous Christians often adapted Anglican traditions to their own cultural contexts, creating distinctly local expressions of faith. African, Asian, and Pacific Island Christians developed their own theological voices and eventually assumed leadership roles.
A Complex Legacy While Anglicanism provided community and spiritual meaning to millions, its spread often came at tremendous cost to indigenous cultures and was implicated in colonial oppression. An honest appraisal of this history requires acknowledging.
A post-colonial Anglican Communion
The mid-20th century brought a fundamental shift. Former colonial churches became autonomous provinces within the Anglican Communion, led by local bishops and clergy.
A crucial development in Anglican history was the evolution from mission dioceses, controlled by the Church of England, to fully self-governing (autonomous) churches. This was not merely a political necessity but a theological fulfilment of Anglicanism’s own principles of shared governance and local leadership through bishops.
The Episcopal Church in the USA, formed after the American Revolution, set the first precedent. This was followed by churches across the globe, especially in the mid-20th century, as they gained political independence and began to adapt their worship and life to their own cultural contexts.
The Anglican Communion Today
The result of this history is the Anglican Communion of the 21st century: a global family with an estimated 90 million members in over 165 countries. It links 42 autonomous and interdependent national and regional churches, known as provinces.
A defining feature of the modern Communion is the dramatic demographic shift of its centre of gravity. The vast majority of active Anglicans now live in the Global South, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, a reality that shapes the Communion’s priorities and conversations.
The Instruments of the Anglican Communion
What holds this diverse, global family of churches together? The Anglican Communion has no central government or single figure with binding legal authority.
Instead, unity is sought through a set of relational and consultative bodies known as the Instruments of Communion. Their purpose is to convene the leaders and people of the Communion for prayer, counsel, and fellowship, fostering the ‘bonds of affection’ that are the glue of our global family.
- The Archbishop of Canterbury: A ‘focus of unity’ for the Communion, who convenes its members in different ways.
- The Lambeth Conference: A gathering of bishops from across the Communion for prayer, study, and shared discernment, traditionally held every ten years.
- The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC): The representative body of the Communion, uniquely including bishops, clergy, and laity in its membership.
- The Primates’ Meeting: An gathering of the senior archbishops and presiding bishops from each province for prayer and consultation.
Serving the World: Our Ecumenical and Missionary Vocation
The Anglican Way is not an end in itself. From its foundations, Anglicanism has understood itself as a part of the universal Church, with a mission that extends beyond its own boundaries.
A Gift for Christian Unity
Anglicans are deeply committed to building ecumenical relationships and working for the visible unity of the Church. Our unique identity as both ‘Catholic and Reformed’ allows Anglicanism to act as a ‘bridge church’, finding common ground with Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches as well as with Protestant traditions.
The Anglican Communion is actively engaged in formal dialogues with most of the world’s major Christian families. We are in ‘full communion’ with bodies like the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar, allowing us to share a common Eucharistic life.
Anglicans and Mission in the World
The ultimate purpose of the Church is to participate in the mission of God (missio Dei). Missio Dei is Latin for ‘the Mission of God’. It refers to the belief that God is the primary agent of mission, actively working to reconcile, restore and redeem all of creation through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Instead of the church having a mission, the church is an active participant in God’s mission. In the Anglican tradition, this idea is expressed through the Five Marks of Mission, which are widely adopted across the Communion as a framework for our work.
- Tell: To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom.
- Teach: To teach, baptise and nurture new believers.
- Tend: To respond to human need by loving service.
- Transform: To seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation.
- Treasure: To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.
