When did the official Church of England start?

pdudgeon

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I would go with St. Augustine.
Every church, just like every house, has a foundation before anything else can happen.
Before that foundation is laid would be many questions, or dreams, but nowhere to realize those ambitions or to answer the inevitable questions.
So a foundation is necessary.
 
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Trusting in Him

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The first church of england book of common prayer was written during the reign of King Henry the eighth, but after Henry the eighth died, his daughter Mary burnt a lot of the protestants at the stake and afterwards the Queen Elizabeth the first came along, so was the Church of England founded when the prayer book was written during the reign of Henry the eighth, or in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Truthfully, I have no idea!
 
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Philip_B

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Was it when St. Augustine of Canterbury brought Christianity to England? or when King Henry broke with Rome? Or when Elizabeth I organized the Anglican Church?
Matthew Parker* in his work On the Antiquity of the Church in England takes a very different view.

Matthew Parker, On the Antiquity of the Church in Britain, De antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae (1572) | Anglican.net


I have attached a pretty ordinary translation of the start of this work for those who prefer English.

*Matthew Parker was The Archbishop of Canterbury appointed by Elizabeth 1. He was responsible for the publication of the 39 Articles, and a great architect of the Elizabethan Settlement.
 

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  • 2a. About the Old British Church - Evidence (1).pdf
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  • 1. Introduction (1).pdf
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RileyG

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I would go with St. Augustine.
Every church, just like every house, has a foundation before anything else can happen.
Before that foundation is laid would be many questions, or dreams, but nowhere to realize those ambitions or to answer the inevitable questions.
So a foundation is necessary.
AFAIK, Henry still considered him Catholic, had the Traditional Tridentine Mass said, etc. He didn't change the theology or anything. That was Cranmer. correct me if i'm wrong
 
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Paidiske

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I would argue that the Church of England - as we have it today - is a product of the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and the Clarendon Code which set in place a bunch of what have since become Anglican norms.

However, as noted, that was not inventing out of thin air but drawing extensively on what had been before.
 
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Philip_B

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AFAIK, Henry still considered himself Catholic, had the Traditional Tridentine Mass said, etc. He didn't change the theology or anything. That was Cranmer. correct me if I'm wrong
I think a lot is not well understood. Henry VIII was indeed one of the most Catholic Kings in Europe, and Archbishop Cranmer was his confessor. It would be wrong to say his theology did not change during his reign. He did while influenced by Anne Boelyn take the view that the Bible should be available in English, and indeed ordered it be done. He. Was profoundly influenced also by Sir Thomas More and his friend Erasmus, and knew much of Luther and did not agree with all of it. He died penitent, without a Pope, but not looking like a child of the reformation. Henry was reasonably literate, and viewed highly the worth of scholars and education. The one thing Henry did not intend to do was start a new church.
 
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RileyG

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I think a lot is not well understood. Henry VIII was indeed one of the most Catholic Kings in Europe, and Archbishop Cranmer was his confessor. It would be wrong to say his theology did not change during his reign. He did while influenced by Anne Boelyn take the view that the Bible should be available in English, and indeed ordered it be done. He. Was profoundly influenced also by Sir Thomas More and his friend Erasmus, and knew much of Luther and did not agree with all of it. He died penitent, without a Pope, but not looking like a child of the reformation. Henry was reasonably literate, and viewed highly the worth of scholars and education. The one thing Henry did not intend to do was start a new church.
thanks for the info
 
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RileyG

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I would argue that the Church of England - as we have it today - is a product of the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and the Clarendon Code which set in place a bunch of what have since become Anglican norms.

However, as noted, that was not inventing out of thin air but drawing extensively on what had been before.
Thanks for the answer. It helped clear things up.
 
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Shane R

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When Augustine of Canterbury went to England there was already a Christian presence with an episcopate. Whether this existing church adhered to Nicene orthodoxy is sometimes questioned.

Some believe that St. Joseph of Arimathea was the first to evangelize the British Isles.
 
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Christoph Maria

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Some believe that St. Joseph
of Arimathea was the first to evangelize the British Isles.
Is there anything remotely factual to support that belief? ;)
 
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Shane R

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Is there anything remotely factual to support that belief? ;)
That's a complicated question that hours of research could be spent on. The belief is that perhaps he participated in some mining projects in Cornwall.
In 1989 A. W. Smith critically examined the accretion of legends around Joseph of Arimathea, by which the poem hymn of William Blake And did those feet in ancient time is commonly held as "an almost secret yet passionately held article of faith among certain otherwise quite orthodox Christians" and Smith concluded "that there was little reason to believe that an oral tradition concerning a visit made by Jesus to Britain existed before the early part of the twentieth century". Sabine Baring-Gould recounted a Cornish story how "Joseph of Arimathea came in a boat to Cornwall, and brought the child Jesus with him, and the latter taught him how to extract the tin and purge it of its wolfram. This story possibly grew out of the fact that the Jews under the Angevin kings farmed the tin of Cornwall." In its most developed version, Joseph, a tin merchant, visited Cornwall, accompanied by his nephew, the boy Jesus. Reverend C.C. Dobson (1879–1960) made a case for the authenticity of the Glastonbury legenda. The case was argued more recently by the Church of Scotland minister Dr Gordon Strachan (1934–2010) and by the former archaeologist Dennis Price.
(St. Joseph of Arimathea - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online)​
 
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RileyG

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When Augustine of Canterbury went to England there was already a Christian presence with an episcopate. Whether this existing church adhered to Nicene orthodoxy is sometimes questioned.

Some believe that St. Joseph of Arimathea was the first to evangelize the British Isles.
I never knew that! Interesting
 
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RileyG

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Another question, how important is the English monarchy to the worldwide Anglican Communion? For example, does King Charles III have any influence over the Episcopal Church in the United States or Scotland (Anglican Communion, not the Church of Scotland)?

Thanks
 
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PloverWing

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For example, does King Charles III have any influence over the Episcopal Church in the United States or Scotland (Anglican Communion, not the Church of Scotland)?

No influence over the Episcopal Church in the US. Immediately after the Revolution, the Episcopal Church quickly had to figure out its relationship to the Church of England. The Prayer Book and the Articles were revised to omit prayers for the king, and in general political ties were severed.

I wish King Charles III well, but he is king over a nation that is separate from mine.
 
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Paidiske

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Similarly here. The monarch has no role in the governance of the Anglican Church of Australia (although the monarch does remain our head of state, but the church is not Established and is autonomously governed through our constitution and synods).

That said, there is some indirect influence. The monarch appoints bishops in England. Those bishops, while not having any direct control over affairs here, do have episcopal authority. Particularly for the senior ones (Archbishops of Canterbury and York, for example) their writings enjoy a wide reading audience. They pull audiences when they visit and speak. Initiatives they take are often taken up overseas, especially if they're successful. I can, without having to think about it, name a handful of contemporary English bishops whose work has significantly shaped my own thinking and ministry* (and I'd be hard pressed to do so for any other country, including my own). They are "thought leaders" even if they have no hands directly on the levers of power (as it were).

*Eg. Rowan Williams, Stephen Cottrell, N.T. Wright, Justin Welby, Rose Hudson-Wilkin.

So there's that.
 
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PloverWing

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The monarch appoints bishops in England.

I didn't realize this was still the case. Does the monarch genuinely choose, or just rubber-stamp choices made by some sort of gathering/synod/convention of the church?

If Queen Elizabeth II was the one who chose people like N. T. Wright and Rowan Williams to be bishops, we have much to thank her for.
 
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RileyG

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Thanks for clearing it up! I was aware certain prayers were removed from the BOC for the Episcopal Church, and the original Episcopal bishops were consecrated by Scottish Anglicans rather than English Anglicans etc
 
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