ANGLICANISM. — By a. is understood the doctrine and ecclesiastical polity of the Anglican Church (Church of England).
1. A. and the Anglican Communion. — The Church of England comprises only the two ecclesiastical provinces of Canterbury and York. The provinces and dioceses established outside England, such as the Episcopal Church of Scotland, the Churches of Wales and Ireland, formerly united with and now separate (disestablished) from the Church of England, the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States (v. EPISCOPALIS AUDIENTIA, CHIESA PROTESTANTE), and the dioceses of the Dominions and English colonies, do indeed belong to the “Anglican Communion” or “Anglican-Episcopal Communion,” but either do not recognize the King of England as head of the Church, or the courts through which the king exercises his ecclesiastical jurisdiction do not extend their authority to them (v. COLESNO); thus, strictly speaking, a. applies only to the two archbishoprics of England, Canterbury and York. The common bonds of the Anglican Communion are: the Book of Common Prayer (v.), the 39 Articles of Religion (v.), both, however, with certain changes, Conferences (v.).
2. Characteristics of a. — A., which from Henry VIII (1506–47) and Edward VI (1547–53) to Elizabeth (1558–1603), with the brief interruption of the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–58), had passed through the phases of schismatic, Lutheran-Calvinist, and Calvinist-Zwinglian, acquired its definitive characteristics in the time of Elizabeth.
Among these characteristics we may indicate: a) the ambiguity of language in the formulas of the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of Religion, which gave rise to various interpretations: from this remote origin derive the three current divisions among Anglicans: High Church (High Church), Low Church (Low Church), and Latitudinarian or Modernist Church (Broad Church) and, unfortunately, also the incomprehensible Anglican “comprehensibility” (v.); b) the preservation of the episcopate, by which a. distinguished itself from the sects of continental Europe, and the preservation of certain ceremonies and practices of the Catholic Church; c) the supremacy of the King or Queen of England in ecclesiastical matters, which transformed a. into the religion of the State, so that the followers of any other religion were regarded as traitors, and consequently led to persecutions against Catholics, Puritans, Congregationalists, etc.
3. A. up to the nineteenth century. — The history of a. in its early period is intertwined with the history of the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of Religion. Many
English Protestants, who during the reign of Mary Tudor had taken refuge on the Continent and there absorbed Calvinist doctrines, refused to conform to the retention of the episcopate or to the ceremonies of the Anglican Church. They wanted a Church purified of all these “papist” elements, hence their name of Puritans (v.). Although in reality Calvinists, at first some of them accepted a compromise with the queen’s supremacy, while others refused to recognize this supremacy, seeking to introduce the Presbyterian system in its place, without bishops. Others taught that every group of believers or “congregation” was independent of every authority and hierarchy: hence the name “Independents” or “Congregationalists” (v. CONGREGAZIONALISTI; ROBINSON). These, together with some others of lesser importance, for example the Baptists, are known in history by the name of “Nonconformists” (v.). Their opposition to a. was clearly manifested in the so-called “Marprelate controversy” (v.).
During the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, James I (1603–25), at the Hampton Court Conference (1604), the Nonconformists presented their doctrines and grievances, but obtained nothing other than the translation of the Bible (v. VERSIONE AUTORIZZATA). Although educated in Scottish Calvinism, the king found the Anglican Church, of which he was head and master, more advantageous than the others, in which he would have been merely an ordinary believer. In the time of James I’s successor, Charles I (1625–49), the Anglican Church, attacked in its doctrine and polity by the Nonconformists, produced a series of able Anglican theologians, such as L. Andrewes (v.), W. LAUDA (v.), R. Hooker (v.), J. TAYLORISMO (v.), etc., who were called the “Caroline Divines” (Caroline Divines), although not all of them wrote precisely during this reign. Having been able to obtain nothing from the king or his ministers, the Nonconformists took up arms and, having joined with the Scottish Presbyterians, who were discontented because the king had sought to impose a. upon Scotland, began the civil war, which led to the final execution of Archbishop Laud and the king himself (1649). A. was suppressed and persecuted, and the Calvinist Westminster Confession (v. CONFESSIONI DI FEDE PROTESTANTI) was published. G. Fox, amid such confusion of doctrines, founded the sect of the Quakers, and the Calvinist and Independent doctrines of Oliver Cromwell dominated in England (1649–60). With Charles II (1660–85), a. was officially restored; the formula for the consecration of bishops and priests was corrected (v. ANGLICANE ORDINAZIONI), the Test Act was promulgated in 1673, by which all government officials—and ministers of religion were regarded as such—were required to accept the Book of Common Prayer, leaving many Nonconformist ministers without offices, and the doctrine of transubstantiation was condemned, by an oath taken by the kings of England until the beginning of the twentieth century. Charles II was succeeded by his brother James II (1685–88), a Catholic, who in 1687 promulgated the “Declaration of Indulgence” (Declaration of Indulgence), by which all Englishmen were declared equal before the law, without distinction of religious faith, and the oath against transubstantiation was suspended. The fury of the Anglicans, the treachery of the most prominent men, both ecclesiastical and lay, certain imprudent actions by the king, and the calculated duplicity of his son-in-law William of Orange caused the revolution of 1688, in which the king lost his crown.
James II was succeeded on the throne of England by the Calvinist William III (1688–1702). Calvinism again came to the fore; Parliament imposed an oath of allegiance to the new king; some Anglican bishops refused to take it, and the party of the Nonjurors was formed (v. NON-JURORS (NON-GIURATI)). The Toleration Act was proclaimed, but Catholics, Unitarians (v. ANTITRINITARI), and Jews were excluded from II. When William died, he was succeeded by Anne (1702–14), the second Protestant daughter of James II, who completely restored a. in England.
At her death, the three tendencies that still persist today were already becoming more distinct, namely: Anglicans, adherents of the doctrines and system of the Anglican Church, who later formed the nucleus of the present «High Church» (High Church); Evangelicals, Calvinist at heart and uncompromising Protestants, from whom the present «Low Church» derives (Low Church); and between these two, the Latitudinarians, of rationalist tendency, who took neither the doctrines nor the laws of the established Church seriously, from whom the present «Broad Church» derives (Broad Church), or Modernism. After Anne’s death, the throne of England, from which Parliament had excluded the Catholic branch of the Stuarts, was occupied by the Protestant house of Hanover. During the eighteenth century the Anglican Church fell into a profound lethargy. First of all, the Bangor controversy (v.) threatened to undermine the entire structure of Anglicanism; then the suppression of the «convocations», which still maintained a certain degree of life among Anglican ecclesiastics; and finally the rationalist doctrines of Locke (1632–1702), which were debated in halls and assemblies, together with the anti-Trinitarian doctrines of Clarke (1675–1729) and the deist doctrines of Toland (1669–1722), Tindal (1657–1733), etc., wrought havoc in the ranks of Anglicanism. The Methodists tried in vain to infuse it with some vitality; rejected by the Anglican Church, at Wesley’s death they formed a separate sect.
4. Status of Catholics. — The apathy of Anglicanism during this period did not in the least diminish that anti-Catholic spirit, that No-Popery, which was the very marrow of the entire Anglican tradition. With the exception of the death penalty, during the eighteenth century Catholics remained subject to all the vexations of earlier centuries.
They were excluded from the universities, public offices, the ranks of the army and navy, and Parliament; they could not even vote, possess weapons, or own a horse whose price exceeded £5. A Protestant who saw a Catholic riding a good horse could take it from him, paying him the aforesaid price. They were the «pariahs» of English society, and their condition was far worse than that of any Protestant in Catholic countries. Only in 1778 was the first law in their favor promulgated (Catholic Relief Act), by which they could inherit and possess real property, etc. The danger of being accused of high treason still remained, but it was largely theoretical, since they were no longer «hanged, disembowelled, and quartered», as the law prescribed. In 1791 another law was published (Relief Bill), by which they could aspire to judicial offices, celebrate their worship in churches and chapels, provided that no bell towers were erected and no bells were rung; nor were they any longer obliged to take either the oath concerning the king’s spiritual supremacy or that against transubstantiation.
In 1829, through the Emancipation Bill, they obtained almost complete equality with Protestants. But the systematic and implacable oppression of three centuries had reduced the Catholics of Ireland to such a deplorable state, and those of England to such a humiliating inferiority, that they took almost a century to assume in society the place that was theirs, even as ordinary citizens.
5. Anglicanism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. — The history of Anglicanism in these two centuries, after the secession of the Darbyites or Plymouth Brethren (v. NELSON), consists almost entirely of the three movements, the «Tractarian», the «Ritualist», and the «Anglo-Catholic», known by the name of the «Oxford Movement» (v.).
Among the various effects, good or bad, attributed to the Oxford Movement may be listed: 1) The revision of the Book of Common Prayer (v.), which, prepared over many years and approved by the bishops and the House of Lords, was rejected twice (December 1927 and June 1928) by the House of Commons, revealing to the entire world the sad subjection of the Anglican Church to civil authority, even in purely spiritual matters. 2) The efforts made to unite with other Churches—with the Eastern Churches, the Old Catholics, the Catholics (v. MALINES, CONVERSAZIONI DI), the nonconformists, and all seven Protestant denominations («conferences on faith and order»)—at the conferences of Lausanne (1927) and Edinburgh (1937); efforts that failed or achieved, at most, a communicatio in dicinta and the recognition of Anglican ordinations by certain Eastern schismatic Churches. 3) The claim that their ordinations were valid, which, after careful examination by the Holy See, led to the publication of Leo XIII’s bull Apostolicae curae (13 September 1896), which declared them null and invalid (v. ORDINAZIONI). 4) An intense development of spiritual life through societies and also religious communities. The Official Year-book of the Church of England for 1939, under the heading Religious Life, lists no fewer than eight religious communities of men, some with the three religious vows and the rules of St Francis and St Benedict, and 41 congregations of women, devoted to the contemplative life, spiritual retreats, charitable, missionary, and parish works, etc.; some with choir, such as the Connesses Regular of Our Lady of Victory, others devoted to the worship of the Blessed Sacrament, such as the Community of Reparation to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, etc. 5) The Anglo-Catholics helped to eradicate certain deep-rooted prejudices against the Catholic Church, but the name Anglo-Catholics, and even the name «Catholics», which they usurped, together with the rubrics of the Mass, images and statues in churches, the confessional, etc., caused much confusion. 6) The conversations of certain eminent men, such as Newman, Manning, Faber, Vernon Johnson, etc., proceeded from the Oxford Movement. 7) The introduction of so many ceremonies into Anglican worship, contrary to the doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles and the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, occasioned serious disputes and legal proceedings between Anglo-Catholic ministers and certain Anglican bishops, and aroused in a certain section of the English Protestant press the fanaticism of bygone times. It is enough to mention the pamphlets of the Protestant Truth Society and the Widely Press. 8) The theory of the three branches of the Church of Christ also originated with the Oxford men. It consists in believing that the true Church of Christ is composed of the three Churches that have preserved the episcopate, namely, the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and the Eastern Church. These Churches, they maintain, are divided from one another only in disciplinary matters and secondary points of dogma, but all three together constitute the true Church of Jesus Christ. The bull Apostolicae curae, by denying the validity of Anglican ordinations and therefore of the Anglican episcopate, condemned this theory and also that of «continuity», according to which the Anglo-Catholics claim that the Anglican bishops are the successors of the apostles.
6. Doctrine and system of government. — The doctrine and system of ecclesiastical government of Anglicanism are found in its only two symbolic books, the Book of Common Prayer, more briefly called the Prayer Book, and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. They contain doctrines orthodox and common to Catholics, as well as many heterodox doctrines. Newman, in Tract 90, sought to explain them in a Catholic sense; his explanations were rejected by the Anglican Church. This led him to study the Catholic Church more deeply, and from this study came his conversion (v. NEWMAN). As regards ecclesiastical government, the fundamental article is XXXVII, which recognizes the king (or queen) of England as supreme head of the Church. The Church has not been deprived of all power to legislate, but its decrees are without force if they lack the placet of Parliament and the king. Leaving aside parish meetings or councils, synods, and conferences,
The two most important institutions, leaving aside parish meetings or councils, synods, and conferences, are the “Convocations,” equivalent to provincial synods, and the “Assembly of the Church,” equivalent to the national synod.
The “Convocations” are reduced to two, since there are only two ecclesiastical provinces, Canterbury and York. The bishops of the province (Upper House) and the priests (Lower House) take part in them. Henry VIII retained them, but completely subjected them to the State by the decree of 1534, so that they cannot meet without the king’s permission, nor promulgate decrees or canons without his assent. In 1717, on the occasion of the Bangor controversy, they were suspended by the king, and resumed their activities only in 1852, largely as a result of the religious revival due to the Oxford movement. They may deliberate on everything concerning the religious welfare of the province, but the decrees must be approved by the State. The “Assembly of the Church” (Church Assembly) is a new institution, founded with the authorization of the State in 1919. It consists of three chambers: in the first (House of Bishops), or chamber of bishops, sit the two archbishops of Canterbury and York and all the bishops of the two provinces, 43 in all; in the second (House of Clergy), or chamber of the clergy, sit those dignitaries and ministers who have the right to take part in the Convocations, 341 in all, in addition to 3 university delegates; in the third (House of Laity), or chamber of the laity, sit the lay persons elected for this purpose, numbering 342. The decrees of the Assembly, in order to have legal force, must be approved by parliament and the king.
If it is further considered that the State is the body that appoints the archbishops, bishops, and principal ecclesiastical dignitaries, it must be acknowledged that the dependence of the Anglican Church on the State is almost total, and that only the administration of the sacraments escapes the State.
Camillo Crivelli