You’ve read wrong. Martin Luther and the founders of the Anglican church all affirmed the Perpetual Virginity of the Theotokos. This doctrine was also affirmed by John Wesley, and even by John Calvin. Also, all of the above (reluctantly, in the case of Calvin, who was accused of Nestorianism by the Lutherans, who he in turn accused of Monophysitism, which is actually extinct as a heresy, but the Lutherans are in good company being falsely accused of Monophysitism, for indeed Martin Luther realized from the example of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, at the time part of the Coptic Orthodox Church, an Oriental Orthodox jurisdiction, that communion with Rome was something that had to be maintained at all costs for ecclesiastical legitimacy.
Indeed, Martin Luther prayed the Hail Mary frequently as part of his prayer rule. Now, it is true that the version he prayed omitted the intercessory petition; Martin Luther disagreed with the idea of asking saints for intercessory prayer; this is one of only a few points of difference between him and confessional Lutherans such as my friends
@MarkRohfrietsch @Ain't Zwinglian @ViaCrucis and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics*. However, to be fair, Martin Luther
thought he was praying an older Eastern Orthodox version of the
Ave Maria used by the Eastern Orthodox which lacked an intercessory petition, and this belief remains common among Lutherans. What he was actually praying a Marian hymn called a Theotokion from Orthros (Matins), the primary variable portion of the Orthodox Divine Office, which often closely resembles the Hail Mary, albeit not necessarily with an intercession, but rather with a glorification. The Stavrotheotokia, which are hymns lauding the Blessed Virgin Mary at the foot of the Cross during the passion of her Son, Christ our God, are some of the most beautiful and powerful hymns in use in the Christian church, and also, like the rest of the Theotokia, very ancient - most of the hymns from this part of the Byzantine Rite liturgy were composed by St. John of Damascus or the monks at Studion, some being older and some being newer, but with an average age of around 1300 years.
With Anglicanism, there is a thing called Churchmanship, in that in order to provide for the unity of the Church of England, the Elizabethan Settlement allowed for Anglicans to co-exist in one church despite some leaning more in a Reformed Calvinist or Zwinglian “low church” orientation and the others in a more Lutheran/Catholic and indeed Orthodox**-influenced “high church” orientation. There are also broad church parishes, which aim to include both groups (the height of this movement was with the Latitudinarians of the 18th century, who can be seen as English counterparts to the Pietist movement that had such a disastrous impact on the Lutheran church; Pietism coupled with Rationalism, imposed by the Calvinist Prussians in order to minimize theological dissent between the Lutheran majority in their vast and newly formed Kingdom and Calvinist minority, brought to an end the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy, in which the Church of Sweden and the Church of Saxony produced the exquisite liturgical music of Dietrich Buxtehude and his protege Johann Sebastian Bach, respectively, with a focus on doctrinal purity and correct worship (Orthodoxy literally means “Right Glorification”, and the Slavonic translation, Pravoslavie, means “True Glorification”). At any rate, since the 19th century there have been more strata of Anglican churchmanship: Anglo-Catholics, who are the highest of high church Anglicans, Evangelicals, who are more low church than the traditional Low Church Anglicans, some of whom, in terms of their formality, look High Church to the uninitiated, Liberal Catholics, who consist partially of malcontented former Roman Catholics and would-be Catholics who have an issue with some of the moral teaching of the Catholic Church surrounding divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, and other issues (the rise of Liberal Catholicism has largely pushed traditional conservative Anglo Catholicism out of the Episcopal Church in many dioceses; the Episcopal Church has always been very high church, but since 1979, in the dioceses under the control of more liberal bishops, things became increasingly uncomfortable for traditional Anglo Catholics, and they left - some joining the initial wave of departures in 1979, being part of the Continuing Anglican movement which also includes my dearly beloved High Church friends including one on this forum, others joining the more recently formed ACNA, and still others being a member of dioceses which left the Episcopal Church, in the case of the Diocese of Fort Worth taking their property with them. Still other Anglo Catholic dioceses such as that of Baton Rouge, Louisiana continue to retain a conservative character; there is also a conservative high church Anglo Catholic parish in Detroit which is so traditional, I was convinced it was Continuing Anglican and was genuinely shocked to discover it was still a part of the Episcopal Church (Detroit is also home to the Mariner’s Church, an independent liturgically Anglican parish serving the merchant marine that sails the Great Lakes, along with similar churches in other major ports on the US and Canadian shore; there are also churches in the coastal cities of the US and Europe which cater to mariners of different nationalities, often related to the national church if one exists, including several in London, despite the fact that London’s traditional seaports have been redeveloped, with commerce moving further away from the city). The Episcopal Church unsuccessfully attempted to assert control over the Mariner’s Church. There are also Anglo-Papalists, who are members of the Anglican Communion who believe in Papal Supremacy; most of them have joined the Anglican Ordinariates but a few remain in the Church of England and other Anglican bodies, agitating for submission of the Archbishop of Canterbury or their provincial archbishop or metropolitan to Ultramontanist authority.
* In the case of Lutheranism, it should be recognized that in general Martin Luther was trying to restore Patristic standards. The issues where his views, likely unbeknownst to him and to the shock of second generation Lutheran theologians who were finally able to dialogue with Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople, that have been divisive, include the idea of the episcopate as optional, the various solas, monergism, the rejection of intercessory prayer of the saints, and in terms of the liturgy, Martin Luther took a dim view of the Roman sacrament of Extreme Unction, but my understanding is that the pan-Orthodox liturgy of the anointing of the sick and those fasting with oil, which lacks the components of the Roman liturgy administered only to the dying that made Luther regard it as a curse, is not offensive to Lutherans (this liturgy is remarkable in that it is celebrated by Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox with very few variations; I have not examined the Armenian or Ethiopian forms of it but expect the Ethiopian would follow either the Coptic or Syriac pattern, as the Ethiopic liturgy was adopted from an older Jewish liturgy by the Seven Syrian Sages, a group of Syriac speaking liturgists from Antioch, in the fourth century, who were able to speak the Semitic Ge’ez language with greater ease than the mostly Greek and partially Coptic speaking Alexandrian clergy of the time; there are also naturally Coptic influences on the Ethiopian liturgy. In each case this liturgy consists of seven (or in the case of the Syriac Orthodox and Indian Orthodox use, five) sets of prayers and Scripture readings, in which seven Psalms, Epistles and Gospels are read and seven prayers for the sick are made, and, typically, seven oil lamps or wicks into a bowl of oil being consecrated are lit (this is always done in the Coptic and Syriac rite but I’m not sure if the Eastern Orthodox always do this). The person is then anointed with the oil, either on the forehead, or on multiple parts of the body.
** There is a long history of Eastern Orthodox influence on Anglicanism, going back to the Book of Common Prayer which includes among the prayers said at the end of at Morning Prayer and Evensong
A Prayer of St. Chrysostom which is in fact the Prayer of the Second Antiphon from the Eastern Orthodox syanaxis or liturgy of the catechumens (liturgy of the Word in Roman Catholic and modern Protestant parlance), most commonly used with the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, but also used with the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil (except in its vesperal form) and a few others, including the Armenian Orthodox liturgy, which implemented the same synaxis more or less during a period of Byzantine influence (there was also a period of Latin influence, so the Armenian liturgy has been, since the 15th century, a blend of Byzantine, Latin, Syro / Antiochene and indigenous Armenian influence as well as heavily influence from the Church of Jerusalem, whose liturgies influenced all of the other ancient churches). This has ohly intensified since then: for example, the Scottish and non-Juring English Episcopalians added the Epiclesis from the Orthodox DIvine Liturgy of St. James to the Anglican Communion Service (from which it made it into the traditional American Anglican liturgy) and indeed the Episcopal Church even came close to union with the Russian Orthodox Church, until the Bolshevik Revolution shattered that dream.
