Every so often any Roman Catholic messageboard gets a visit from a well-meaning Protestant asking "why do you guys follow all those Pagan rites" -- and the members have to explain that, they don't. Anglicans don't get those. We get well-meaning Roman Catholics asking why we split from the Church, and we have to explain, we didn't. Both questions evoke the same level of frustration on the part of the people answering the question. So in that light...
Just
a little bit about "the start of the English Church".
The
English Church was started in the middle of first century to early in
the second century. The Venerable Bede quotes a letter dated 153
making reference to an indiginous Christian Church. This was about a
century and a half before the conversion of Constantine, before their
was any hierarchy in Rome with any power or imperial connections to
extend the influence of the Roman See over other jurisdictions. Oral
history in the Isles is that the missionary who founded the church
was sent by Saint John the Evangelist. Oral tradition from
Lindisfarne is that the missionary in question was Saint Joseph of
Arimethea. Either of these traditions would point to the date of the
English Church's inception being no later than the latter half of the
first century. By the time of the Council of Arles in 314 the English
Church was sufficiently stable and had sufficient resources to send
three bishops, a priest, and a deacon. This church also sent
missionaries to Northern Europe to evangelize their Celtic cousins in
those lands.
The Church in Britain thrived for centuries with
its own usages and rites. When the Bishop of Rome was finally able to
send missionaries to Britain in the fourth century, they found a
Church already there. And they came into conflict with the British
church, because the ancient usages and rites of that church weren't
the Roman use. Probably, in fact, they were more ancient than the
Roman use, since in the distant frontier Christians were protected by
distance from imperial persecution and were able to practice their
religion and celebrate their rites with relative security. The Roman
missionaries, however, took the perspective that different was
wrong and embarked on a campaign of coercion to bring the
British Church into line with Rome.
In the seventh century,
the Council of Whitby was called, where a majority of British Bishops
agreed to adopt the Roman rite and Roman dating of Easter, for the
sake of Christian unity. Bishops in the North dissented and retained
the Celtic use. Religious houses were exempt from the ruling of
Whitby, and also preserved the ancient Celtic use. And all the
Bishops, whether they adopted the Roman liturgy or not, retained
their ancient and historic independance.
In 1066, the Bishop
of Rome resorted to force of arms to carry his influence into
Britain, and sponsored William the Conqueror's invasion of Britain.
In William's train came proper Roman clerics, who over the years of
Plantagenet rule ousted the abbots and abbesses of the old Celtic
religious houses, outlawed the old Celtic order of Canons, and
gradually established Roman dominion in Britain. And it was not
particularly welcome. Have you never wondered why fat, rich abbots
featured so prominently among the Norman villians that were opposed
by the Saxon Robin Hood? (Or don't children read Louis Rhead any
more...)
In 1215, the Saxon barons rose up against their
papally-sponsored hated Norman overlord, and forced King John to sign
the Magna Carta that included the famous line "The Church in
England always shall be free." Disestablishmentarians would
argue that this declaration referred to the King's influence over the
church, not to the Church's freedom from foreign influence. But in
fact the King himself was a foreigner, and his affairs were so
tangled in his relationship with Rome that there was very little
difference between the two.
The House of Tudor gained the
throne by marrying into the distaff Plantagenet line, but Henry VII
also claimed descent from the Celtic kings, and based on that claim
he was able to position himself as the people's King, rather than a
foreigner. When his son had a falling out with the Bishop of Rome,
three local English bishops were able to step up and remind Henry
VIII of the English Church's historical independance. Henry's own
Celtic and British roots were fuzzy at best, but he could see for
himself the weakness of Rome's claim to authority over Britain.
In
taking the power of the Pope to himself, Henry acted completely
outside the tradition and temperament of the Celtic church. His
illigitimatized-and-relegitimized-alternately-commoner-and-noble
daughter Elizabeth, however, had a much stronger understanding of the
people she ruled. She never reinstituted her father's Act of
Supremacy that her Roman Catholic sister had revoked. Elizabeth's Act
of Supremacy declares her NOT the "supreme head of the church"
but rather "supreme governor of the realm" and makes very
clear that no other person, no foreign power, no prelate from another
See, has the right to wield power over Britons, temporally or
spiritually.