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Recent comments by a number of our readers have implied that the reason we are not in full communion with either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Churches (RCC and EOC henceforth, respectively) is that we have separated from them both. A correlative assertion is that we have done so for reasons of incompatible dogma in one area or another, such that this self-imposed isolation was obligatory. Deriving from this position is a syllogism such as that following, and a claim that we cannot accept reunion with either the RCC or EOC until they are restored to an orthodoxy which we, almost alone apparently, represent. ...

Stirring up the Faithful After the reign of William and Mary ended in 1702, the throne passed to a younger daughter of James II named Anne. Queen Anne was a generous patron of the Church and set up a fund to help supplement the incomes of the poorer clergy. When she died in 1714, however, the crown of England passed to the German House of Hanover. George I and his son George II, had both been reared as German Protestants, and had no particular sympathy for the Church of England. Under the government of these two Georges, many bishops were worldly and of questionable orthodoxy. Some were non-resident in their dioceses and indifferent toward the duties of their office. Many parish churches were in the hands of priests who were disinclined to work as pastors. Religious life sank to a low level, and in many parishes, the daily services which were customary in Queen Anne’s time were abandoned, with the Eucharist only celebrated a few times each year. ...

The modern papacy and its claims to universal, ordinary jurisdiction and to infallible teaching authority constitute a major alternative to the understanding of authority in the Church as understood within the Anglican tradition. Before presenting an Anglican interpretation of the papacy, a correct understanding of what papal claims are and are not is needed. The word 「Pope」 comes from 「papa,」 Greek papas, meaning 「father.」 Not until Pope Gregory VII in 1073 was use of the title 「Pope」 formally restricted to the Bishop of Rome, but already in 998 the Archbishop of Milan was rebuked for using the title. However, in the ancient Church, and to this day in the Eastern Churches, the title is more widely used. In par­ticular the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria is commonly styled Pope, as in Pope Shenouda III. Likewise, the honorific 「Holiness,」 also restrict­ed to the Bishop of Rome in the West, is used by all Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople known as 「His All-Holiness.」 ...

Christianity in Roman Britain We cannot tell exactly when Christianity first came to Britian. There are some very early writings about missionary travels which may refer to the British Isles, but there is little certainty. About the year 70, Clement who was then Bishop of Rome, wrote that St. Paul went 「to the extreme limits of the West.」 Irenaeus wrote about 180 that Christianity had already been taught 「among the Germans and Britons.」 Then about 208, Tertullian remarked that 「some countries of the Britons」 were subject to Christ. However, in those days, words which we might translate as 「Celts」 or 「Britons」 were used so loosely for different peoples of northern or western Europe that it is sometimes impossible to be certain which were meant. ...

James I and the new English Bible Elizabeth I died in 1603. Since she had no children of her own, her heir was her cousin’s son, James VI of Scotland. James was a descendant of Henry VII and had been King of the Scots since infancy, when a group of Protestant lords forced his Roman Catholic mother to abdicate in his favor. With this new, Scottish dynasty, coming to the throne, the Puritan faction within the English Church hoped effect significant change in the form of worship. James, having agreed to hear their proposals, called a conference at Hampton Court to allow both Puritans and Churchmen to make their case. ...

One of the great barriers to Anglican Catholics considering corporate reunion with Rome is that we perceive a demand on the other side of the Tiber for a mere submission which would involve two deliberate lies by us. The first would be an unqualified affirmation that Rome’s actions and common or approved teachings in the past (relevant to the broken relationship between our Churches) have not been at fault. The second, related to the first, is a dishonest denial of our identity. This demand is implicit in the official approach, wherein we are characterised as properly schismatic, heretical and without valid Orders, and explicit in the polemic of those I will call Anti-Anglican Roman Catholic Apologists (AARCAs herein), in particular those apologists for the RCC who engage Anglican Catholics with the attitude and arguments of Cardinal Newman and take Apostolicae Curae as at least practically infallible. ...

The Diversity of ‘Classical’ Anglicanism Those who have studied Anglicanism closely know that Anglican history shows several broad strains of tradition, all of which can plausibly claim to be classically Anglican in that they have a long pedigree within the Church of England and her daughter Churches. Yet no one of these strands can claim to be Anglicanism in an exclusive sense if that claim means to imply that most Anglicans in fact historically held to that particular strand. Furthermore, these strands were and are often mutually contradictory and hostile. Nevertheless, classically the various parties within Anglicanism were united by at least two important factors. ...

Restoring Unity–First Steps Beginning in June a number of Continuing Church leaders have met three times: in Victoria, British Columbia, in West Palm Beach, Florida, and in Brockton, Massachusetts. The bishops involved include the leaders of the three Churches that are in full communion with each other and whose first bishops were consecrated in 1978 in Denver (the ACC, the Anglican Province of Christ the King [APCK], and the United Episcopal Church in North America [UECNA]), but also include three bodies with which we are not yet in full communion: the Anglican Church in America (ACA), the Anglican Province in America (APA), and the Diocese of the Holy Cross (DHC). ...

The Gospel Imperative The Church of Jesus Christ is 「One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.」 Whilst on earth its unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity are imperfect, all ecclesiastical jurisdictions within the Apostolic Tradition acknowledge the Gospel imperative towards unity which springs from our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer recorded in St. John’s Gospel, in particular: 「I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.」 (John 17:20-23). ...

Churches and Denominations A ‘Church’ is a body of Christians gathered around a bishop in the Apostolic Succession and faith in a given geographical area. A true Church requires a true bishop, Christians, and a particular territory. ‘Churches’ are simply a multiplicity of these individual, local Churches. In the course of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, almost all of the Protestants lost the Apostolic Succession. Even in Protestant bodies that have officials called ‘bishops’, such as the United Methodists and Evangelical Lutherans in the United States, there is no historic Succession of bishops but only the name or title. There is no doubt that they contain many good and devout Christians and that they believe much that is good and true. However, since they have abandoned or lost the Apostolic Succession and much else that characterizes the Catholic faith in its fullness, these bodies are not Churches in the full sense, but more properly called ‘denominations.’ ...