Ask an Anglican Anything

[nfinke]

There is no process for canonization. The only saints we recognize are pre-reformation.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful but…If you recognize those saints, which were canonized by the Catholic Church…why do you think the RCC suddenly lost the authority to canonize at the arbitrary date you guys decided to split off from them? I can’t see a reason why accepting canonized saints wouldn’t be an all or nothing deal.

 

[Bithynian]

I can’t see a reason why accepting canonized saints wouldn’t be an all or nothing deal.

Anglicans view sainthood differently from Roman Catholics. Generally their use of the title “saint” is in the sense of “holy person” rather than referring to them having successfully undergone canonisation. Most (but not all) pre-Reformation saints are still referred to as “saints” out of esteem and tradition.

Post-Reformation canonisation in the Church of England has occurred once: King Charles I was canonised after the Restoration due to his attempts to retain the episcopacy during the English Civil War.

That being said, there are others in recent history of the Anglican Communion who are esteemed as saints even if they are have not undergone any particular process of canonisation. For e.g., the seven Melanesian Brothers who were martyred in 2003 while attempting to sustain a peace agreement. There’s an icon of them in the Chapel of Saints in Canterbury Cathedral.

 

[GKMotley]

I’ll watch. I’ve never seen this level of inability to follow what a post(s) has said.

 

[Bithynian]

Spiritual head? How do you define “spiritual”?

The role of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican Communion is far more comparable to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Eastern Orthodoxy than to the Pope.

In general, the ecclesiology of the Anglicanism is closer to Eastern Orthodoxy than to Catholicism. There is an emphasis on local (whether diocesan or national) autonomy, and so the AoC has no legislative or administrative roles in dioceses other than his own.

His spiritual role is in fostering communion across dioceses: shared celebration of the Eucharist, shared reading of the Scriptures, enabling discussion, arbitrating inter-church disputes, etc. As one example at a very local level, the AoC commissions a Lenten book every year, and many parishes in the Australian Anglican Church would read and study it for Lent.

It has also been mentioned that the AoC is one of the Four Instruments of Communion. It should also be noted that he also chairs, presides or convenes the other three instruments (the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Consultative Council). The Lambeth Conference is especially significant, and for a bishop to be invited to this conference by the AoC is a recognition of communion.

 

[De_Maria]

The role of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican Communion is far more comparable to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Eastern Orthodoxy than to the Pope.

It doesn’t sound like it to me. GK Motley said, above, that Anglicans really have a bunch of churches that do their own thing. Now, I’ve also heard, for many years, that some Anglican churches are high church, barely distinguishable from the Catholic Church. While others are low church, barely distinguishable from any non-liturgical Protestant church. I’ve never heard of such a thing in existence within the Orthodox Church.

That leads me to believe that the relationship between the Anglican churches and their “spiritual” leader is completely different than that between the Orthodox and their Patriarch.

 

[GKMotley]

Good luck, Bythnian.

 

[ltwin]

Hm…the question asked is “So why then do you accept the Archbishop of Canterbury as the supreme head of your church?”

Basically, as I understand your answer, you . . .

I’m not Anglican. I have a brother who is Anglican but not English, so Canterbury is nothing to me.

. . . accept the Archbishop of Canterbury as the supreme head of your church?”

The whole premise of the question is nonsense from the Anglican perspective. There is no “supreme head” of the Church of England other than Christ. The last person to claim the title “supreme head” was Edward VI. When Edward died, his sister, the Catholic Mary, rejected that title and had the Act of Supremacy which bestowed it upon the monarch repealed. When the Protestant Elizabeth I inherited the throne, Parliament granted her the title “Supreme Governor” of the Church of England and that is the title the current monarch holds. Elizabeth was denied the title “Supreme Head” specifically due to Protestant theological objections to anyone but Christ being “head” of the Church. John Calvin called Henry VIII’s assumption of that title “blasphemy”.

Basically, as I understand your answer, you accept the AoC because the AoC has no influence and therefore, is basically powerless.

He’s a bishop. He leads a diocese, so he isn’t powerless in that regard. But he’s not the “supreme head” of the Church of England. He’s the senior clergymen in the church and along with the Archbishop of York he presides over the General Synod and councils of the CofE, but he is not “supreme”. He is not a pope. It’s not about what I accept or want or like. It’s just what is.

Do you see any Bishops thus described in Scripture? For example, St. Paul readily casts out any members which he finds leading sinful lives. And Jesus said, “if he doesn’t believe the Church, treat him as a heathen” Matt 18:17.

And if he wants to do that in his diocese he probably could, but his authority over other dioceses is limited. And he has no authority outside of the Church of England. Each national Anglican Church has its own primate (whether that be an archbishop or a presiding bishop).

 

[AlNg]

There are 45 Anglican churches in the Communion, 40 of which are independent. There are plenty more outside the Communion.

Do those in the Communion disagree on whether or not abortion is a serious sin?

 

[PickyPicky]

Do those in the Communion disagree on whether or not abortion is a serious sin?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I would be surprised if the answer were not affirmative. As to the CofE, its position as I understand it is:

The Church of England combines principled opposition to abortion with a recognition that there can be strictly limited conditions under which it may be morally preferable to any available alternative. This is based on our view that the foetus is a human life with the potential to develop relationships, think, pray, choose and love

I take that from this document:

Search results | The Church of England

 

[twf]

I find point 5 a bit odd. Certainly the Anglican Church of Canada was VERY much involved in the residential schools and the systematic abuse and oppression of First Nations people / children. I don’t understand why you would list that as a reason to convert from Catholicism to Anglicanism?

 

[GKMotley]

Elizabeth was denied the title “Supreme Head” specifically due to Protestant theological objections to anyone but Christ being “head” of the Church.

Elizabeth objected to the title, herself.

 

[GKMotley]

And here’s a brief continuation. The taxes are not yielding and an issue of termite contracts on certain properties has arisen. But…

Henry was pressed by 3 issues in his Great Matter: his long standing concern for a male, legitimate heir (he had an illegitimate one), his fairly recent infatuation with La Boleyn, and an historical atmosphere in England that had been building for many years.

What Henry did, in taking the Church in England private, was a difference in degree, not in kind, of a process that had been on going in England for +/- 300 years; the increasing struggle for independence of the ruling class (monarchy, at the time) from any control from outside the realm. History is complicated, and to see what I mean, you would have to go back at least to Henry II, in the 12th century. Acts of Parliament and Royal decrees limiting and abolishing Papal and Church prerogatives were numerous (Council of Westminster, Council of Clarendon, First Statute of Winchester, Statute of Mortmain, the Writ Circumspecte agatis , the Statute of Carlisle, and the double Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire, for example.). Had Henry produced a regiment of legitimate male heirs, with Catherine, eventually, some sort of break would have come.

The issue of Henry’s annulment /dynastic quest was only the last straw in this process that had been ongoing in England for several hundred years, of limiting the influence of the Holy See. Clement (who fervently wished that Catherine would take the veil, Henry would die, anything, to let the problem pass from him without incurring Charles V’s wrath) finally pushed a rash and impetuous monarch to the final break, in the Henrician Acts of 1532-34, following the denial of his request for a decree of nullity.

The incredibly complex world of annulments, dispensations and impediments by which the sacrament of marriage was managed, in the day, and the world of statecraft were used routinely to make and break dynastic marriages as real-politic demanded.Henry’s case presented a reasonable argument, though not the most powerful one, that the original dispensation Julius issued at Henry VII’s request was incomplete, and the decree of nullity a reasonable request. Certainly that is the way the system worked at the time, and Henry had no reason to suspect his causa would be rejected. Look, after all, at the result of his sister’s petition for a decree of nullity, in March 1527, 2 months before Henry’s own case was presented.

There is, of course, more history. But there is also more taxes, legal documents and computer problems at hand.

 

[Inquiry]

I looked into this a while back. So the party line in the CofE, to the extent that there is a party line, is that Saints exist but that they do not have the capability of intecessing for us. Personally I think that puts to much limitation on the nature of Heaven, but I was not consulted.

The CofE was considering canonizing Saints early on and there is some argument over whether they did or not for Charles I. Even if they did, they haven’t for anyone else.

 

[PickyPicky]

And of course the British Isles are stuffed with churches dedicated to saints who have not gone through Rome’s canonisation procedures, since they lived and died in obscurity long before those procedures were put in place.

 

[Symphorian]

Canonisation in the history of the Church has not been limited to one particular method, notably the juridical model currently utilised by Rome. Orthodoxy has a different system.

In the late 1950’s an Anglican report ‘Saints and Heroes’ acknowledged that Anglican values as reflected in its practices about the Saints were closer to the autocephalous churches of Orthodoxy than to Rome.

The report said that “the cult of a true saint should be spontaneous, springing from the devotion of the people among whom he/she lived and worked; second, that a bishop or a synod — provincial, national or general — is the proper authority to control the cult.”

King Charles the Martyr was canonised by Convocation of the Church of England according to the three fold pre-10th custom. Several churches in England are dedicated to Charles and there have been a few alleged miracles ascribed to him. There is a small but active cultus including relics.

The 1958 Lambeth Conference issued the following guidlines regarding the commemoration of Saints and heroes of the Christian Church in the Anglican Communion:

"The Conference is of the opinion that the following principles should guide the selection of saints and heroes for commemoration:

(a) In the case of scriptural saints, care should be taken to commemorate men or women in terms which are in strict accord with the facts made known in Holy Scripture.

(b) In the case of other names, the Kalendar should be limited to those whose historical character and devotion are beyond doubt.

(c) In the choice of new names economy should be observed and controversial names should not be inserted until they can be seen in the perspective of history.

(d) The addition of a new name should normally result from a wide-spread desire expressed in the region concerned over a reasonable period of time."

The current CofE Calendar contains several post Reformation Roman Canonised Saints as well as figures such as Florence Nightingale. To take Nightingale as an example, she is honoured for her humanitarian work with the poor and her nursing role in the Crimea. She is seen as a renewer of society and worked tirelessly towards this by lobbying Parliament. A formidable task for a ‘mere woman’ of her time.

I live in a Celtic region of Britain where many of our churches are dedicated to 5/6th century Celtic Saints. As Picky has already noted, the majority of these have never been canonized in the Roman sense but there is no doubt that we consider them Saints with a capital S and honour them as such. Our Cathedral Church celebrates them with great dignity to include a Solemn First Evensong on the eve of the feast followed by a Solemn Eucharist on the day itself.

 

[De_Maria]

I’m not Anglican…

Well, then, that’s it for me. I thought I was talking to an Anglican.

Is there an Anglican in the house answering this question?

 

[GKMotley]

Several have done so, above, and ltwin is knowledgeable and accurate.

But do keep pressing on.

 

[StephenBales]

Shall we not criticize heresy because someone asked us politely to go easy on it?

 

[ltwin]

Well, then, that’s it for me. I thought I was talking to an Anglican.

The question was directed at the OP. I was just explaining to the person who asked why the question was misguided.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

Female deacons - sure. Priests? Never gonna happen, but agree to disagree.

There are still some credible scholarly types out there making a case for geo-centrism. Dr. Robert Sungenis comes to mind.