Chapter VII: The Reformation Was in No Way a Revolution
A fair–minded review of past events would seem to warrant two conclusions. Firstly, the history of the English Church is an unbroken continuum running back to its founding in the Apostolic Age, or least shortly thereafter. Secondly, its legitimacy is in no way dependent on Rome.
The fact that it stayed in communion with Rome long after the Eastern Orthodox Churches severed their relationship with the Roman Pontiff is to its credit—for the relationship was maintained despite uncanonical and illegal Roman meddling in the English Church’s affairs. One might add—with sincere regret—it was Rome, not the English Church, that severed that communion in the wake of the Reformation.
The English Reformation was exactly that: a reformation, not an ecclesiastical revolution. The Anglican Church reclaimed what had always been Her’s: Her right as a free, independent jurisdiction to return to the pure Apostolic Faith—a faith untrammeled by theological novelties and foreign traditions.
This is not mere rhetoric. It is easily documentable that the Reformation genuinely did restore to the English Church its original theological truths. Take, for example, the doctrine of the Eucharist expounded by Archbishop Ælfric, who was translated from the See of Wilton to Canterbury in 1005. In a long and learned letter to Bishop Wulsin, shortly after the latter’s consecration, Aelfric explains the mystery of the Eucharist in precisely the same way it is explained in Article XXVIII of the Articles of Religion.
That Aelfric—and the whole Church at the time—espoused the Anglican understanding of the real presence is clear from the fact that he repeats his explanation (in more succinct form) in another pastoral letter. “This sacrifice of the Eucharist,” he writes, “is not Our Savior’s Body in which He suffered for us; nor His Blood which He shed on our account: it is made His Body and Blood spiritually, as the manna was, which fell from the sky, and the water, which flowed from the rock in the wilderness. “
That’s not the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation. It is the true voice of the English Reformation a full 500 years before it took place. The Pope, I might add, did not have the temerity to call Ælfric a heretic. And nor did anybody else. For Ælfric was simply enunciating the official doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church.
As to the domestic polity of Ecclesia Anglicana, one certainly cannot maintain that no Englishman—layman or prelate in a position of authority—acknowledged Rome as the English Church’s spiritual and temporal overlord. Clearly, plenty did. Monastics did so in their struggle to usurp the prerogatives of the secular clergy. So, did nobles in battles with the monarch, the Church, and their peers. So, did bishops in their wrangling
with kings. And kings genuflected to the Pope in exchange his support shoring up shaky claims to the throne. But then, of course, a particularly painful flaw in the human character is our ability to rationalize away any betrayal and falsehood, our willingness to grasp at any straw, in order to further personal ambitions. But those who bent the knee to Rome did so in breach of both English Canon Law and English Common Law, and in direct contradiction of the continuum of the Church’s history and tradition.
History, you see, does not uphold the assertions of Romanist or Protestant. The Church of England was never the creature of Rome. Neither was it cut out of whole cloth during the Reformation. The English Church is what it has always claimed to be: An independent and autonomous branch of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. And to deny that is to deny history—admittedly something that historians are very good at doing.
But does any of this matter? I believe it does. We are, after all, members of a Church that has lost its way. The best means of regaining our sense of direction is to trace our steps along the path we have travelled. In doing so, we will discover signposts to put ourselves back on track. And those signposts point neither to Rome, nor to Germany, and certainly not to Geneva. Our path will lead us back directly to the uniquely English Reformation Prayer Book tradition and, thence, to Canterbury, York, Winchester, Salisbury, Whitby and, yes, to Glastonbury.
It is a journey back in time we would be wise to take—for only by understanding where we came from can we learn the way to where we should be going.
For more information:
Aelfric | Old English, Abbot, Monasticism | Britannica
The Saint Aelfric Customary – offering Insight & Advice on Anglican Liturgy