Anglican Reformation
The Anglican reform was enacted in 1534 by King Henry VIII of England. Using as a pretext the pope's refusal to accept his divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon Spanish. Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church and creates Anglicanism. It is recognized as supreme head of the Church of England.
Between 1553 and 1558 there is the Catholic reaction, the reign of Mary Tudor. Her marriage to Philip II of Spain becomes the religious reform a national issue. Between 1559 under Elizabeth I, the sovereignty of the Crown over the Church is renewed and ratified the Anglican liturgy, based on the reformed Calvinist confession.
Henry VIII (1491-1547) was born in Greenwich and becomes heir to the throne of England in 1502, after the death of his older brother. In 1509 is crowned and married to Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his brother. Polyglot, sportsman and theology scholar, takes up the doctrine of Luther, which earns him the title of defender of the faith, granted by Pope Leo X. With the support of Parliament and the people unhappy with the privileges and ecclesiastical powers, nomeia- is head of the Church of England in 1531.Em 1533, obtained the annulment of his marriage and confirms the union with Anne Boleyn, who three years later is beheaded for adultery. House four more times.
The Anglican Church is classically studied in history books as a church that arose in the sixteenth century, a movement known as the Protestant Reformation, founded by Henry VIII, King of England, for purely personal reasons (the annulment of their marriage) and political ambitions -economic (confiscation of property of the Roman Catholic Church and increased absolutist centralization).
Historian Claudio Vincentian, in his book History - Living Memory says that the issue of Henry VIII's marriage annulment was only a pretext to seize the lands of the English Church, thus removing the basis of the Church's temporal power.
VICENTINO, Claudio, in his book General History, emphasizes the multiple marriages of King Henry VIII, "The first wife of Henry VIII, Catherine of Ararão, was the daughter of the Catholic Kings of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, and had six children, of which only princess Mary survived. In relation to King Henry VIII, it can not be considered the true founder of the Anglican Church, as it only established in England a Catholicism without the Pope. And the Reform only began to be realized thanks to the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer and Henry's son, Edward, and this reform is realized only in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
If we examine the history of Christianity we can say that the Edict of Milan was motivated by political and economic reasons, the Great Schism occurred by political differences between the Western Church and the Eastern Church. The Pope eventually delegate to Cardinal Wolsey and Campeggio the judgment of the king in England.
The Bishop Fisher, Queen's lawyer, supported the validity of the royal wedding, inferring the law of levirate expressed in Deuteronomy 25: 5 and Matthew 22:24. However, the Queen and called to Rome, the Pope dissolved the court of legacy and called the matter to the Roman court in July 1529.
Appeals in cases touching the king should be decided by the High House of Convocation.
The major shortcoming of textbooks to treat about the Anglican Reformation is to omit the importance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, in particular Thomas Cranmer who was the theological mentor of the English Reformation, the developer of the Book of Common Prayer, a book that contains the basic liturgy used in the Church Anglican and in the reign of Elizabeth becomes the top leader of Anglicans and not the king as some books imply.
The doctrine of justification by faith, and are only condemned the abuses concerning the worship of saints and images. In 1539 came the "bloody scourging six-string", which Parliament approved by the king's order and against the will of the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, made impossible any progress in doctrinal reform. The great role of Henry VIII to the Anglican Reformation was the political break with Rome, but theologically the church had not assimilated the basic ideas of the Reformation.
Another distinguishing factor in the English Reformation is that the vast majority of the clergy accepted the nationalization of the English Church, and so there was no break in the succession of Canterbury Archbishops which began in 597 AD with St. Augustine of Canterbury and already today is the 104th with his grace Rowan Williams.
The Church of England ceased to be Roman Catholic to be Catholic Reformed. Among the employees of the Reformation in this period we have Hugh Latimer, whom the refusal of the Six Articles valera prison, became the ardent and sincere preacher of the Reformed Church, denouncing the abuses of the Church and society. This period will be marked by a Protestant offensive mainly in the liturgy, the six articles were abolished; the pictures were taken and the Mass was eliminated their sacrificial character through the adoption by Parliament of the Book of Common Prayer (1549) written by the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer.
Now if Henry VIII had founded a church, she would have come to an end during the reign of Mary, the sanguinary.
In the nineteenth century, the Catholic renewal movement within the Anglican Church, Oxford Movement, brought back the religious Orders the Church of England. The Protestant opposition but was great in England and outside England, it prevented the unity of the kingdom and threatened the public peace.
According RABOUT Louis: "nothing, neither in education nor in the character of sovereign young man predisposed to adopt an extremist religious policy favorable to Roman Catholicism or Calvinism continental. Unlike his three predecessors, it was not really, no theologian, nor devout. No one can ever say what its position from the religious point of view, unless you prefer prudence to the middle of the absolute extreme risks. "
The Puritans wanted to "purify" the Anglican Church taking all the "rags of popery." Most Puritans wanted to play in the Anglican Church, the liturgical model, copied from Geneva Calvinism. delicate work, for which your firm and your personal tolerance contributed more than the devotion of its employees and the episcopate.
Some bishop tried to remedy the anarchy of liturgy and ecclesiastical discipline, publishing in 1556 his "warnings". The opponents of the Anglican position, Catholics and Puritans responded two distinguished Anglican theologians: John Jewel and Richard Hooker.The celebrated treatise of the Bishop of Salisbury, Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1562), became, soon, the best defense of the Anglican Church and his Catholicism, based on Scripture and the Doctors of the first six séculos.A most of the clergy paid oath to Elizabeth, has nothing extraordinary that a large part of the people, the example of their priests, whether the good or the evil supporters of his queen.
Category: General history
