Associating with Anglicans (Part 1)

Introduction

As we turn in this series to address my own tradition of Anglicanism and the major tendencies within it, we have to start by acknowledging that much of what makes Anglicans who they are arises out of the history of the place where they learned to pray. This is one of the traits that unites them to the other autocephalous ancient churches. The presence of the Church in the British Isles has known eras of ecclesial fecundity as well as dearth. We should admit from the start that Anglicans are currently in a season of extended drought in the Northern Hemisphere. The average Anglican at the moment is probably a young adult in Africa, which is not me. I have great hope that the growing Anglican provinces and their dioceses and parishes will eventually re-evangelize all of us. At St. Matthew’s Church, where I am the priest, we have already benefitted from the pastoral wisdom of bishops in places like Sudan, South Africa, and Haiti. Lord willing, that will continue and draw us back to the font of our spiritual heritage.

The beginnings of the Anglican way, however, take us back to a remote corner of the Roman Empire in the 1st Century. Even then, we will see some of the taproots of liturgical pluriformity that at times grace Anglicanism with a fruitful discourse within itself, and at times mire it in contradiction. Yet it is also from those roots that we see emerge the unique contribution of Anglicanism to the Church, that spirit of common prayer. This chapter of our exploration of the Church will take two parts, as it is the tradition I know most thoroughly, and I am loath to skip the good parts of the story.

The Taproots of the Church in England

The history of English spirituality begins with the Gallican Rite arriving in the British Isles. This rite, derived from the liturgy of St. John at Ephesus, became one of two rites that would vie for prominence among the English people. The second rite derived from the Petrine liturgy in Rome, and arrived in Britain with the landing of St. Augustine in 597 A.D. with a charge from Pope Gregory the Great to missionize the Britons. His arrival, though famous, was preceded in 429 A.D. by the Bishops Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes in Gaul, who journeyed to Britain to quell the issue of Pelagianism, which was condemned in the region at the Synod at Verulam. Eighteen years later, Bishop Lupus’ disciple Severus returned to Britain and introduced the Gallican Rite as the standard. The renowned landing of St. Augustine of Canterbury commenced the grand charge to missionize the Britons. Yet, at his arrival at St. Martin’s Church in Canterbury, he found the Gallican Liturgy already in use. In a subsequent letter to Pope Gregory the Great in which he explained his observations and desire to substitute the Gallic Rite with the Roman, the pope replied that divergences were to be allowed: “for things are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.”

These two liturgies and their scions would continue side by side until two monumental synods three centuries later. The Synod of Whitby in 664 A.D. would establish a precedent for Papal and Roman authority in Britain to the subjugation of the British rite. The principal issues of the Synod were over how the date of Easter was to be calculated, but more abstractly, between whether the Celtic Ionan Rite (descended from the Gallican Rite) or the Roman Rite was to be practiced in Northumbria. Centuries earlier, Pope Gregory the Great had sent missionaries to Britain, during which time Edwin of Northumbria had converted under the Roman Rite. However, his successor, Oswald of Northumbria, had been trained under the Ionan Rite while in exile among the monks at the famous monastery of Iona. As such, two divergent rituals with two different means for calculating Easter were popularized in Northumbria through two successive monarchs. Ionan tables for determining Easter had been declared erroneous by Rome, Gaul, and Ireland. Even so, the King of Northumbria remained an ardent Ionan.

The ostensible issue was about how to calculate the most important holiday in Christianity, but more significantly the synod became concerned with the manner by which to decide among divergent rites of Christian practice. The controversy was especially charged because of the mounting competition between Rome and Constantinople on the European Continent (which we outlined in a previous post). The local synod, therefore, symbolized a massive shift of ecclesial influence abroad. The result of this Synod made the Roman practice the norm in Northumbria. The historical significance of this Synod was in the establishment of the Roman Church over the native British Church, a precedent that would be challenged and rejected later in the Protestant Reformation. Later, the Council of Cloves in 747 A.D. would clarify the earlier synod’s decision to establish the Roman Rite as the authoritative rite for worship throughout the Isles.

The English Church During The Great Schism

The decisions at Whitby and Cloves experienced meandering implementation. It was not until several years after the Norman Conquest of Britain (A.D. 1066) that Pope Gregory VII (1073-1086 A.D.) instituted a reformation—or a rearrangement and abbreviation—of the Benedictine Rule of Prayer which was ascendant in the monasteries of England. The reorganization of the Rule was not unusual, as any Rule that endures for centuries admits of the accretions of local practice that get codified in subsequent generations. Every ancient rule of prayer admits of the need for reformation. The Pope’s reform of the Rule yielded the Breviary consisting of four parts: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Each part contained liturgical appointments for Holy Communion and Daily Prayer, as well as other devotional and pastoral offices. Collectively, this book was popularly known at the time as the “Portiforium.” Subsequent reform of the Portiforium came under Bishop Osmund of Sarum (Salisbury Cathedral) in 1087 A.D. What resulted from this reform became known as the Sarum Rite, the purpose of which was to put a final end to the diversities of Rites and Ceremonies in Britain.

To enhance tensions, the late 11th Century witnessed what was known as the Investiture Controversy. King Henry I of England began to resist papal authority by claiming the sole right to appoint men to ecclesial offices. At the Concordat of London in 1107 A.D., the issue was settled when the king renounced a right to investiture but retained the right to require homage from ecclesiastical titles and lands. As such, the Church retained the right to appointment, while allowing monarchs to gain governance over the Church in England. Aside from this being evidence of an increased intermingling between the Church and various monarchies, it was also a sign of Rome’s desire to solidify its ecclesial position in Europe by means of temporal powers. Similar dealings ensued with France and Spain, creating the elements of a political crisis when national interests collided, with both players calling on Rome for her support. Meanwhile, the ensuing 12th and 13th Centuries in England were marked by a decreasing influence of monasteries in secular society and a general neglect of public worship. The monasteries became inwardly turned upon their own interests and activities, and slowly lost the once-great esteem of civil government. Moreover, the increasing differentiation and corresponding taxes associated with ecclesial offices became burdensome to the people, contributing to the sense of a ‘mercenary’ spirit in the Church.

By the early 14th Century, this spirit took flesh in the Great Western Schism, arising over the emergence of two popes, one in Rome and the other in Avignon. With the controversial election of Clement V in 1305, the Pope moved the Papacy to Avignon, where it remained until Gregory XIII returned it to Rome in 1377. Nevertheless, the Cardinals in support of the Avignon Papacy broke in relationship with Gregory and established an illegitimate line of popes. This period in which two papal lines existed constituted the Great Western Schism. The Council of Constance in 1417 ended the schism and declared the Papacy of Rome as legitimate. The historical import of this decision is that it was a Council that decided the legitimacy of the Papacy and not a Pope validating a Council. As a precedent to the Reformation, the Conciliar Movement became an ideological stance that suggested the authority of councils over a pontiff. The suggestion that papal authority was not the final location of church unity embarrassed attempts by Rome to reassert itself as the center of Christendom in the face of a waning Byzantine Empire. The Conciliar Controversy would prove valuable in establishing the legitimacy of breaking away from the monolithic Roman authority during the Reformation.

In England, the state of the general health of the Church went from bad to worse. The 14th and 15th Centuries witnessed perhaps the lowest point of the English Church. Sacramentals were desecrated in churches, there was open commerce in places of worship, services were suspended, and the divide between sacred and secular society seemed to be at its most unbridgeable. At the same time, on the Continent and in Britain, the assumption of Roman authority was eroding despite the mounting rigor of its application. Meanwhile, the rise of humanists like Desiderius Erasmus and a renewal of the university system became the birthplace of a revival of learning and letters in the late 15th Century. The revitalization of the study of Greek and Latin brought a softening of public opinion toward classical thought, which had become associated with the abuses of the monastic and clerical orders in England. The most notable effect of this renewed interest in Biblical Studies was to make people dissatisfied with the isolated and limited role that they had to play in public worship, which spurred them to desire more involvement and, moreover, the liturgy in their vernacular language. Britain was primed for reformation.

The English Reformation

It is still too common to hear that the reason for the English Reformation was that Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife. Yet Roman Catholic propaganda aside, the English Reformation has known perhaps the most attempts to co-opt its meaning from both Catholics and Protestants alike, for the fact that, in the West, it is the only viable example of a Church that retained her catholicity and the fullness of her holy orders and sacraments while also redefining her relationship to the historical, primatial See at Rome. The ensuing centuries, however, have witnessed Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Evangelicals, and Roman Catholics all attempting to explain how the English Reformation was really about something that vindicates their ecclesial position. But, in truth, the Reformation in England was something different than all those other ecclesial projects. That said, Anglicanism still bears the marks of those warring vantage points who attempt to define her faith and practice according to their confessional position. Hence, we see in the Reformation the beginnings of the sometimes cumbersome range within the Anglican way.

We start with Henry VIII, who was declared “defensor fidei” or defender of the faith by Pope Leo X for his treatise condemning what he called the Lutheran heresy. No friend to the continental reformers, Henry married into the staunchly Roman Catholic royal family of Spain, taking Catherine of Aragon as his wife. When Catherine was unable to provide a male heir for Henry, however, a political crisis emerged; the marriage opened the door to Spanish influence in matters of succession. This influence and its attending anxiety for Henry was further enhanced by the relative dependence that Rome had on the Spanish monarchy at the time for security. As was not uncommon among royals at the time, Henry appealed to the Pope for a decree of nullity, loosing him of his marriage to Catherine on grounds of consanguinity (too near relation), though obviously concerned about her infertility. This brought the Pope to an impasse. On the one hand, such decrees of nullity had been granted in the past without controversy, especially with those monarchies with which Rome was favorable. At the same time, Rome’s indebtedness to Spain disinclined the Pope from offending the Spanish crown, especially since the Spaniards had a standing army in the field near the Vatican. In a calculating decision that would have massive implications, the Pope acted from under Spain’s influence against Henry and the English monarchy. It was all but certain that Spain would gain a powerful foothold in England.

Henry, however, was not going to accept this decision. Wagering all, he initiated a series of legal statutes to pass through Parliament that would effectively dissolve the jurisdictional authority of the Roman Church in England, while attempting to retain the catholic character of the English Church against the influence of the broader Protestant Reformation. When Henry VIII declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England, he was excommunicated by Pope Paul III. Deepening the enmity between England and Rome, Henry became progressively unhinged, especially in his moral life. By the end of his days, as is widely spoken of him, Henry had married and divorced numerous wives and became known as a dissolute womanizer. In his old age, he finally fathered Edward, the son that would carry on the English succession after his father’s death. Yet before he could come of age, Henry died, leaving England in a staggeringly unstable condition politically and ecclesially.

The 1530s witnessed a series of actions by Parliament that distanced the formal connection between England and Rome. The Act of Supremacy and Act of Treason in 1534 identified the monarch as the governor of the Church in England and declared as treasonous any political obedience to a foreign power, including the papacy. By 1538, Henry had softened toward the Lutheran theologians who began seeking asylum in England as a haven from Roman influence, who met with Abp. Thomas Cranmer and other Anglican divines to discuss an English reformation. Even so, the Six Articles of 1538 A.D. upheld Roman Catholic dogma against reformation ideals. The monarch at the time was Henry VIII, declared “Defender of the Faith” by Rome, who would proceed to negotiate a careful path between the fervor of the Continental Reformation on the one hand, and the monolithic power of the Roman Catholic Church on the other, on the eve of the English Reformation.

With this change of the spiritual climate in the academy came the somewhat related dissolution of the contemporary monastic system and the reformation of Service Books. At the time, the chief books were the Breviary, the Missal, the Manual, and the Pontifical. While the majority of dioceses opted for the Sarum Rite, there were competing rites that emerged in Bangor and Hereford. With the dissolution of the monastery system under Henry, a need arose for reconstruction of the Breviary to maintain the practice of private devotion. The movement focused the laity’s attention on the need for daily prayer, which spurred them to request a book that was at least virtually compatible with the realities of secular duties and occupations. The Sarum Breviary and Missal were to be revised to the end of simplifying the rubrics for services and of propagating the public reading of Scripture. Though reluctant at first, it was Henry VIII who ordered the production of the English Bible and then appointed the First Committee of Revision. The First Committee (1542) was hampered from the beginning by the “bloody” Statues of 1539, which forbade the questioning of the doctrines of Transubstantiation, Auricular Confession, Perpetual Obligation in Vows of Chastity, the disapproval of Communion, the Efficacy of Solitary Masses, and the Celibacy of Priests. Even given these restrictions, the Committee created the text for an English form of Communion (1547), which authorized communion of both kinds for the laity. Such reform proved prophetic of the more sweeping reforms to come just two years later.

The Book(s) of Common Prayer

The first Book of Common Prayer (1549) compiled together what Abp. Cranmer and his colleagues felt to be the essentials from among the various medieval service books, and in such a way as to be both appealing to the clergy and intelligible to the people. Above all, it presented, for the first time in a millennium, a form of worship in the vernacular of the people who worshipped, which helped to recover the laity’s privilege to participate in worship. The reading of the Scriptures was given a primary place in that worship; the rites of celebrating the sacraments were clarified to remove confusing accretions and redundancies, while attempting to retain catholicity. Conspicuously absent from the book, however, were the practices of confession and absolution. Even so, the rite of Holy Communion staunchly affirmed the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The book privileged the concept of uniformity of ritual by creating a rite that could be adapted for use in any parish setting. Following the Prayer Book was an Act of Uniformity enforcing its use to the suppression of all other rites, as reflected in the Preface that “all the whole realm shall have but one use.” Despite the Act, though, a “Prayer Book Rebellion” erupted which was quickly quelled though nevertheless showed a factional disdain for the text. Almost concurrent with its passing, too, was the call for more incisive reforms from parties aligned with the sweep of the Continental Protestant Reformation.

Henry’s young son, King Edward VI, was amenable to the Protestant cause and, in the first and second prayer book revisions, displayed a dramatically increasing tolerance for Lutheran and Calvinist theology, particularly in the Eucharistic Rite. The Church under Edward swayed strongly toward the Protestant camp. If the 1549 BCP could be qualified as “clarified” rather than “reformed,” the second Edwardian book proved to be quite the opposite. When Edward VI invited Protestant exiles to England, they immediately began to appeal for sweeping ecclesial reform. Their efforts extended to attacks on the doctrine of the sacrificial quality of the Eucharist and of the use of Vestments and other ornaments in worship. The Upper House of Parliament and the King became increasingly sympathetic and pushed for another revision of the Prayer Book. The Church and the Lower House, however, refused to assent to this call. Eventually, an Act of Parliament passed to mandate the revision. The spirit of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer was pronouncedly Protestant, which meant the overturning of any components that suggested Romanism of any type. It became the Puritan prayer book, as it was willing to sacrifice the ancient and historical, lest it should be tainted in any way by the traditions of man that had so wounded the Church. Notable among the revisions is the condition for prayers being that the preacher must face the congregation rather than facing with the congregation to the East. Also included were the prefixing of Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, and Absolution to Matins in order to discourage the perceived necessity of sacramental confession. Similarly, in the visitation service, the anointing, confession, and reserve Sacrament were withdrawn. The 1552 BCP solidly reformed what was seen to be merely a clarified Romanism in the 1549 version and satisfied to a greater extent the hardline-Protestant element in England.

Edward’s reign and reforms came to a sudden halt, however, with his untimely death shortly after his accession. In his place, England saw the rise of Queen Mary I, known later as “Bloody Mary,” who took to the throne to inaugurate a violent reassertion of Roman Catholicism in every facet of English life. An inquisition ensued that rooted out anything but the purest and most ardent Roman Catholicism from English spirituality. Prayer Books were burned along with the theologians who had drafted them. The universities, which had fomented such a renewed interest in classical learning and study of the Scriptures, became a locus of the ecclesial crackdown. Clergy were interrogated for their conformity, and those who had been swayed by Protestant tendencies and had cast off celibacy were exiled or executed. If Mary had not died in short order, then the early reformation efforts may have indeed been stamped out. And yet, just as we cannot look through propaganda at Henry, so we ought not do so through Mary. One of the gifts she gave to the English Church during her brief tenure was the regularizing of Holy Orders that had become problematic during the reign of Henry VIII, who had largely exiled Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals from his domain. Mary I saw to it that duly ordained clerics were in place, many of whom remained in place during the more temperate and cunning reign of Mary’s sister, the illustrious Elizabeth I.

With Elizabeth’s accession, however, came a tenuous peace in compromise. Elizabeth renewed the Act of Supremacy and declared that the Church of England would be Catholic in form and Protestant in belief. The ensuing Act of Uniformity would make that position official for the country. These Acts collectively became known as the Elizabethan Settlement and were implemented fully by 1559. This tenuous peace was maintained during the long reign of Elizabeth, during which time the reactive tensions of the previous three monarchs were allowed to cool. Meanwhile, another revision of the Prayer Book sought to mediate between the hardline extremes of Roman thought and Continental Protestantism. The Elizabethan prayer book set out in 1559 took as its practical guide the 1552 book but reintroduced provisions for ornamentation and a revived sacramentalism. Perhaps most notable was the alteration of the words of administration in the Eucharist, which combined the language of 1549 and 1552 to reflect both an affirmation of the real presence of Christ and the inward disposition of the recipient. This revision represented a paradigmatic shift to one of mediation and comprehensiveness that was to characterize all subsequent revision efforts.

Here, we would be remiss not to note the contributions of Richard Hooker, who was an Anglican priest in the 16th Century, and a prominent theologian of the day whose thoughts on the idea of ‘redeemed reason’ laid the foundation for the theological progress attained by the Caroline Divines of the 17th Century. In his master-work, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker rebuts the claims made by the English Puritans against episcopal authority. His gargantuan work seeks to determine the best methods by which churches are to be governed. The primary issue of the text surrounds the question of where power and church authority is allocated. On the one hand there were the opinions of the Lutherans and other reformers who maintained the concept of “the priesthood of all believers,” which would make the episcopal structure impossible. At the same time, Hooker acknowledged the problem of lofty episcopal authority in light of the problems of investiture and of the problem of men holding ecclesiastical offices who were under-qualified either in terms of competence or piety. The interesting literary quality of the text is that Hooker adopts the thought of Aquinas but applies it in a distinctively Anglican manner. Hooker navigates between the extreme positions of the reformers and the traditionalists and achieves a thoughtful via media. He concludes that church authority is commanded by Scripture and by the traditions of the early church, but that this authority was to be granted on the basis of piety and reason rather than on politics or obscure ideas of automatic investiture or dynastic principles.

At the same time, the theological polarity began to grow again in England. As Elizabeth aged and no heir was apparent, the people began to fear a Catholic reprisal, the likes of which had been known under Mary I. At the same time, there was a mounting apprehension over a wholesale adoption of Protestant theology as the glorious reformation on the continent cooled into a new and convoluted movement. The Calvinistic party had solidified an influence in Scotland, and so with the accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England came the possibility of a spread of Calvinistic thought—notorious even then for its unyielding character—into the compromise that had ensured an era of peace. In the famous “Millenary Petition” to James I, the Calvinist Presbyterian Church in Scotland sought to steer the prayer book back toward a more staunchly Protestant position like that of the 1552. At the Hampton Court Conference of 1603-4, however, King James confirmed the position of the Elizabethan Settlement by restricting the extent to which either of the extreme parties in attendance could sway the revision efforts. Meanwhile, in Scotland, the return of John Knox from exile brought the discontinuation of the 1552 BCP in favor of the extremely Protestant Book of Common Order, which persisted in use until James asserted uniformity under the English Prayer book.

Revision efforts were resumed under King Charles I, who favored a more catholic tendency in English spirituality. During Charles’ reign a group of theologians called the Caroline Divines (among whom were William Laud and Lancelot Andrewes) worked to establish the Anglican position in positive terms rather than as merely a compromise between two positions. They asserted that the Anglican Church was a via media and established authority within Anglicanism as deriving from Scripture through the lens and aid of history and tradition. In essence, they clarified theologically the presiding ethos of Henry, Elizabeth, and James. Meanwhile, the political tension over the pronounced catholic tendencies of King Charles. Not all were pleased, especially a group of fervent Protestants called the Puritans, who sought with discontented factions within Parliament to stage a coup against the king, which resulted in the execution of the king led by Oliver Cromwell, who presided over the ensuing Long Parliament of 1640. Under Cromwell’s Presbyterian regime, England witnessed the abolition of the episcopacy and all previous prayer books for fifteen years. In their place was the Knox-inspired “Directory of Public Worship,” which was relentlessly modified by dissenting parties among the revolutionaries. Notable among these was the brilliant Jeremy Taylor, who adapted the Directory and conjoined it to elements of the Byzantine Liturgy of St. James to maintain a sense of primitive Christian liturgy throughout the tumultuous period. His careful work not only aided the continuity of the Prayer Book tradition, but also represented a resourcement of patristic sources, giving English spirituality a renewed sense of its primitive dialogue with the East.

Cromwell’s death brought the end of the interregnum, at which time Charles II returned to England amid attempts to court his favor arising from the Scottish Presbyterians in an attempt to protect the Protestant cause against backlash over the revolution. With Charles, the episcopal officials of the English Church also returned home, many looking for a reprisal against the Puritans. The Savoy Conference of 1661 was to decide the next move. During the Conference, Charles accounted for Protestant claims, but most of the issues were decided among the bishops and clergy of the Church, who maintained the catholic character of the English Church against the Puritans. With the ratification of the Prayer Book of 1662, the ideology of the Elizabethan Settlement was again concretized in English spirituality. It would remain the governing prayer book for centuries, though the opposed tendencies toward Protestantism and Catholicism would persist in various forms. The Anglican Reformation came to a close, having established a via media, however challenged, between two extreme positions.

Preliminary Observations

As we reach the halfway point of our discussion of Anglicans, we can observe some of the tendencies that define our faith and practice. The first is a comfort with liturgical range. While the Church in England was ‘officially’ either Roman Catholic or Protestant at various points in history, it would be a gross over-simplification to say that this official stance reflected the parochial reality of Anglican parishes. For instance, while England was nominally Presbyterian under the Commonwealth, Bp. Jeremy Taylor was conducting BCP services from memory in the absence of his physical copy of the book. Further, that synods were constantly called to impose uniformity on ritual and theological movements, to fleeting success, suggests that the hegemony of Rome or even Parliament was up for debate. Anglicans are comfortable with diverse emphases in worship and theology, and there are many thoughtful ways to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

A second tendency is a commitment to what Fr. Martin Thornton calls the ‘speculative-affective synthesis.’ In terms of our exploration here, this term means holding in tension the timeless and objective marks of the Church’s life in the midst of a flowing stream of emergent experiences. Anglican faith and practice is uniquely adaptive while also remaining capable of continuity with the great catholic tradition. Thornton uses the image of a large rock set in the midst of a flowing river to describe this quality of the Anglican way. This tendency is also, at times, a liability. It is very difficult to hold tradition and emergent experience in a harmonious tension. Instead, many have erred by suppressing or exiling one or the other of them.

Yet a third tendency, and perhaps the most important, is the Anglican commitment to common prayer, perhaps the central Anglican conviction. In the presence of liturgical range, Anglicans are rooted to a regulated practice of the Christian life defined by Eucharist, daily fixed prayer, and personal devotion. The traditional rule governed by Prayer Book spirituality is the most rigorous rule of prayer offered to lay people in any Christian tradition. In Roman Catholicism, the laity are often left to their own devices when forming a rule of prayer as many Rules concern life among monastic communities. In Eastern Orthodoxy, a similar tendency emerges excepting those fortunate enough to find a spiritual director who can distill a complex spiritual tradition into a traversable path for a novice. It is in Anglicanism that one finds a Rule shared by clergy and laity alike that can lead one systematically through the life of Christ, the Holy Scriptures, and the remembrance of the saints. It is there that we find an instantiation of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in the slum and shire alike, in cathedrals of unspeakable beauty and in country parishes of utter humility. It is where we find Christ being worshipped on His throne of glory in heaven, in the Blessed Sacrament of the altar, and in the hearts and minds of His faithful people in all ages.