Religious conflict is the number one reason for waging war today. Everyone desires to have a monopoly of the truth and to put his or her faith above the others. As a result, many branches of faith have emerged. Just as the Anglican Church separated from the Roman Church and became independent, with the head of state also at the head of the church. Here is a brief summary of the origins of the Anglican Church.
The Origin of the Anglican Church
During the time of the Reformation, a political struggle arose between Henry VIII (Tudor) of England and the Pope of Rome around 1534, which caused England to establish its own church and separate it from the Church of Rome. The problem was that the King of England wanted to marry his mistress, but the Pope did not allow him to annul his current marriage. Mistress Anna Boleyn reportedly encouraged her future husband to take matters into his own hands and establish his own church, of which he would be the head. He was not only head of the country, but also head of the church, which had a lot of power at that time. In this way, Henry’s power was only further expanded.
Act of Supremacy
Through the ‘Act of Supremacy’, the English Parliament agreed to make Henry head of the church and recognized the king as ‘Supreme Head in earth, immediately under God, of the Church of England’, meaning that he was the man who had the most power on earth, directly under God, of the Church of England. This gave Henry deep influence and power in the government and management of the church. The problem, however, was that he was not very well versed in religious doctrine and strongly opposed Luther’s work. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, was more reform-minded and ensured that entire new congregations were created from Protestant refugees. In 1549 the ‘Book of Common Prayers’, the liturgy of the Anglican Church, was created, which had incorporated influences from Luther. After the separation from the Anglican Church, things also changed on the mainland. From 1563 onwards, the Counter-Reformation was launched in Rome to strengthen Rome’s position.
Catholic character
The Anglican Church also had a Catholic character for some time under the leadership of Mary the Catholic (Mary Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon). She was married to Philip of Spain. However, when Elizabeth I (daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn) came to power, there was unrest between Protestants and Catholics. There was a conflict with the predominantly Catholic Spain. When she was in power, there was a lot of war going on on the mainland. The Eighty Years’ War had begun, with Europe revolting against the King of Spain, Philip II. When Elizabeth I refused to participate in this war in 1585, but did promise to send auxiliary troops, the Anglican Church also became involved in the war. Naturally, Philip was not happy with this news and sent an ‘invincible’ war fleet through the Pas de Calais. However, this resulted in a defeat for Spain, in which the English fleet seriously damaged them. The Eighty Years’ War ended with a defeated Spain and, partly due to the intervention of England, brought freedom to Europe.
The Anglican Church of today
Today the Anglican Church has two main streams. We speak of the ‘High Church’ and the ‘Low Church’. The first, the High Church, has a liturgical and Roman Catholic character. The Low Church focuses more on the Evangelical. With these two main streams, the Anglican Church tries to be Protestant and Catholic at the same time and takes a central place in the ecumenical movement. There are also two other movements, the Broad Church which strives for innovation and the Moderates which falls outside all the above movements and strives for peace between the movements. Today the Anglican Church has 75 million members, spread all over the world. The largest number of members, 42 million, live in England.