Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Denominations

Church of England

Christianity

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Origin 1534 to 1559

The established church of England and mother church of the Anglican Communion, formed by Henry VIII's 1534 break with Rome and given its enduring shape by Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer and the 1559 Elizabethan Settlement. The reigning monarch is its Supreme Governor and its senior bishops sit in the House of Lords; the Archbishop of Canterbury, its most senior bishop, is recognized by convention as the symbolic head of the wider Communion.

Facts
History
Separation or Divergence
The Pope's refusal to annul Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon precipitated the break with Rome 1 3
Date of Separation
from 1534 1
Status
Status Today
Living tradition, practised today 8
The established church of England, still legally and constitutionally tied to the English state
Giving
Standing Giving Expectation
General Synod has repeatedly reaffirmed a giving target for Church of England members: in 1982, debating the report "A Responding Church," Synod "reaffirmed its support for the standard of giving by Church people of 5 per cent of their income to be given to and through the Church"; in 2001, debating "First to the Lord," it "recommended 5 per cent of take-home pay as an initial target at which to aim"; and the 2009 "Giving for Life" report proposes continuing to work toward that same 5 percent target, with a further 5 percent commended for other charities. No interview, membership standing or discipline is tied to whether a member reaches it, and the same 2009 report's own data shows average member giving has never reached the target across three decades of Synod resolutions, running at roughly 3.2 percent of income at the time of writing against the repeated 5 percent recommendation. 11
Standard Rate Expected
Five percent. 11
How the Expectation Is Enforced
Preached Expectation, Not Enforced 11
Trajectory
Membership Over Time
All-age weekly attendance at Church of England churches rose to 685,000 in 2023, up 4.7 percent from 654,000 in 2022, according to the Church's own Statistics for Mission preliminary data, the third consecutive year of post-pandemic growth. 14
Membership Over Time
By the 2021 Census of England and Wales, 46.2 percent of the population (27.5 million people) self-identified as Christian generally, down from 59.3 percent (33.3 million) in 2011, according to the Office for National Statistics. The census does not isolate Anglican or Church of England identification specifically: write-in responses naming a denomination are folded into the single Christian total, so this broad figure cannot be compared directly against the electoral roll's narrower, denomination-specific count. 15
Membership Over Time
In 2016, 1,048,000 people were on Church of England parish electoral rolls nationally, according to the Church's own Statistics for Mission 2016 report, the church's own formal register of those entitled to vote in parish and diocesan elections, a narrower and more specific figure than either attendance or broad self-identification. 16
Membership Over Time
Overall in-person attendance across the week rose to just over 701,000 in 2024, up 1.2 percent, according to the Church's own Statistics for Mission 2024 preliminary snapshot, the fourth consecutive year of growth; usual Sunday attendance stood at 582,000. 17
Membership Figure As Of
2016-12-31 16
Membership Figure As Of
2021-03-21 15
Membership Figure As Of
2023-12-31 14
Membership Figure As Of
2024-12-31 17
Basis of the Membership Figure
Church-Reported Rolls 16
Basis of the Membership Figure
National Census 15
Origins
Origin Period
1534 to 1559 1
Place of Origin
England 1
Founder
Henry VIII, whose 1534 Act of Supremacy broke with Rome; its theology was chiefly shaped by Thomas Cranmer 2
Organisation
Governance
Episcopal: governed by bishops 1
The established church, with the monarch as Supreme Governor and a General Synod of bishops, clergy and laity
Ordination
Open to women and men 1 6 7
Women were ordained to the priesthood from 1994 and consecrated as bishops from 2014, changes some traditionalist parishes still decline to accept
Relation to the State
Established 8
Established in England specifically, by the Act of Supremacy (1534, restored 1559) and confirmed in subsequent legislation including the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919; the monarch is Supreme Governor and 26 diocesan bishops (the Lords Spiritual) sit in the House of Lords. The Church in Wales was disestablished in 1920 and the Church of Ireland in 1871; the Church of Scotland is a separate, non-episcopal national church recognized under its own 1921 Act rather than established in this sense.
Practice
Liturgical Language
The vernacular 2
Finances
Institutional Wealth or Finances
The Church Commissioners for England, the body that manages the Church of England's central endowment (distinct from the separate assets held by individual dioceses and parishes), reported an endowment fund valued at 11.1 billion pounds sterling at the end of 2024, following an audited 10.3 percent annual return, its sixteenth consecutive year of positive returns. The fund covers around 20 percent of the Church of England's total annual running costs. 9
Institutional Wealth or Finances
The Church Commissioners for England's own audited Annual Report 2025 records the Church of England's central endowment (investment) fund, net of bond liabilities, at 11.6 billion pounds sterling as of 31 December 2025, up from 11.1 billion pounds a year earlier, an 8.0 percent return for the year, the seventeenth consecutive year of positive returns (ten-year average return 8.6 percent). This confirms, from the primary document rather than a press announcement, the 11.1 billion pound figure already recorded on this page, and adds the fresh year-end result. The Commissioners' total net assets on the charity's own balance sheet, a different and smaller figure after deducting the pre-1998 clergy pension obligation of 1,030.5 million pounds and a new 137.3 million pound provision for the National Redress Scheme for abuse survivors, stood at 10,228.6 million pounds. As before, this is the Commissioners' own fund alone, one financial institution supporting the Church of England rather than a total for the Church of England as a whole. 10
Basis of the Wealth Figure
Audited Annual Report 10
Financial Disclosure Regime
The Church Commissioners for England are registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, charity number 1140097, and file public annual reports and audited accounts as any registered charity must. 9
Wealth Figure As Of Year
2024 9
Wealth Figure As Of Year
2025 10
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
Trinitarian: one God in three persons 2
Its own record names it the mother church of the Anglican Communion, matching Anglicanism, already carried as trinitarian.
Defining Doctrinal Position
Chalcedonian: two natures in the one person of Christ (Chalcedon, 451) 2
Its own record names it the mother church of the Anglican Communion, matching Anglicanism, already carried as chalcedonian.
Position on Sexuality
Same-sex unions may be blessed, but ordination is not extended to partnered LGBT clergy 4
Sourced to the subject's own accountSince 17 December 2023, priests may use the Prayers of Love and Faith to offer prayers of dedication, thanksgiving and God's blessing for a same-sex couple who have marked a civil marriage or civil partnership, in regular public worship. The General Synod's own 9 February 2023 motion explicitly endorsed "the decision of the College and House of Bishops not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage," so the Church itself does not perform or bless a same-sex marriage as such, and ordination is not extended on the strength of this change alone.
Sexuality Position DetailSourced to the subject's own account
On 9 February 2023, after a debate that began 8 February, the General Synod voted by house to welcome the Prayers of Love and Faith: Bishops 36 for, 4 against, 2 abstaining; Clergy 111 for, 85 against, 3 abstaining; Laity 103 for, 92 against, 5 abstaining. The motion as amended endorsed the Bishops' decision "not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage." On 12 December 2023 the House of Bishops commended the prayers and their pastoral guidance for use in regular public worship with effect from Sunday, 17 December 2023, allowing a priest to give thanks, dedicate and bless a same-sex couple's relationship following a civil marriage or civil partnership, without the Church performing a same-sex marriage itself. 5
Accountability
Documented Accused Count
390 12
England and Wales only, per IICSA's own national Anglican Church Investigation Report (2020): people who were clergy or in other positions of trust connected with the Church of England, convicted of sexual offences against children between the 1940s and 2018. Not a global Anglican Communion figure; scoped to the Church of England specifically, the established church IICSA examined.
Settlement Total
137,300,000 10
137.3 million pounds sterling, not US dollars: a new provision the Church Commissioners for England recorded on the charity's own balance sheet for the National Redress Scheme for abuse survivors, per the Commissioners' own audited Annual Report 2025 (year ended 31 December 2025). A budgeted provision rather than a confirmed total of redress already paid out; distinct from the pre-1998 clergy pension obligation of 1,030.5 million pounds recorded on the same balance sheet, and scoped to the Church Commissioners' own fund, one financial institution supporting the Church of England, rather than the whole Church of England's eventual redress liability.
Response Policy Adopted
Following the Makin Review's November 2024 findings on the Church's handling of the John Smyth allegations, the Church of England apologised for its response to disclosures in 2013 and 2017, committed to assessing individuals for disciplinary process and to commissioning further review of Smyth's conduct in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned on 12 November 2024. This sits alongside the separate reforms IICSA's two reports also prompted, including bringing religious leaders within the legal definition of positions of trust. 13
Learn More
The Act of Supremacy and the English Reformation

The Church of England's separation from Rome began as a dynastic dispute rather than a theological one. Henry VIII, seeking an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon that the Pope would not grant, secured from Parliament the 1534 Act of Supremacy, which declared the English monarch Supreme Head of the Church of England, transferring papal authority over the English church to the crown without, at that stage, mandating substantial doctrinal change. Substantial theological reform followed under his son Edward VI, driven chiefly by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and its more thoroughly Reformed 1552 revision fixed the vernacular liturgy that has shaped English speaking Christian worship ever since.

A brief and violent reversion to Roman Catholicism under Mary I, who had Cranmer and other Protestant leaders burned, was itself reversed by Elizabeth I, whose 1559 Settlement restored royal supremacy and a moderately Reformed liturgy while deliberately avoiding some of the more divisive doctrinal questions that had split continental Protestantism, establishing the enduring Anglican character of retaining substantial pre-Reformation structure and ceremony within a Reformed theological framework, a compromise that continues to generate both its distinctiveness and its internal disagreements.

An Established Church Today

The Church of England remains the established church of England, meaning it holds a formal constitutional relationship with the state that most other national churches, including other member churches of the Anglican Communion, do not share with their governments. The reigning monarch is Supreme Governor of the church, its senior bishops sit by right in the House of Lords, and its canon law carries a status in English law that no other religious body's internal rules hold, arrangements that draw periodic political debate in an increasingly religiously diverse and secular England.

The church is governed synodically, through a General Synod of bishops, clergy and laity that shares legislative authority with Parliament over the church's own affairs, a structure built up gradually since the early twentieth century to give the church more practical self-governance without formally ending establishment. Women were first ordained to the priesthood in 1994 and to the episcopate in 2014, changes that arrived after decades of internal debate and that some traditionalist parishes and clergy still decline to accept, a tension the church manages through special pastoral arrangements rather than resolution.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, as the Church of England's senior bishop, holds no formal jurisdiction over any other Anglican Communion province, but is recognized by convention as the Communion's symbolic head and the traditional convener of the Lambeth Conference.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Church of England directly: "and his successors supreme head of the Church of England in place of the Pope, and for its context in Henry's marital crisis with Catherine of Aragon after Pope Clement VII refused an annulment."

Source Act of Supremacy 1534 (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Church of England directly: "royal supremacy over the Church of England under Elizabeth I."

Source Act of Supremacy 1558 (1 Eliz 1 c 1)Parliament of England

This source names Church of England directly: "Episcopal Church independent of the Church of England and set Asbury apart as general superintendent."

This source names Church of England directly: "the monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the accompanying Act of Uniformity required a single, revised Book of Common Prayer in every parish."

Source The Study of AnglicanismStephen Sykes, John Booty and Jonathan Knight (eds.)
Benedict XVI, Figures

His 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus created personal ordinariates for groups of Anglicans entering full communion with Rome while keeping elements of their liturgical patrimony.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer remains the official standard of the Church of England.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

The Restoration settlement, the Clarendon Code and the Test Acts all fall in his reign.

His coronation in 2023 kept the Christian rite while giving other faith leaders a part, which had not been done before.

This source names Church of England directly: "of the Christian faith, including the Church of England, rather than belonging to any single one."

Source Christian Aid: Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25Christian Aid; audited by HaysMac LLP

This source names Church of England directly: "Religion News Service reporting the Church of England General Synod's approval of legislation admitting women as bishops, finally enacted 17 November 2014, and the naming of the Reverend Libby Lane..."

This source names Church of England directly: "The Church of England's own press release, published 7 November 2024, announcing the Makin Review, an independent review commissioned by the Church's National Safeguarding Team in August 2019 and..."

Clement VII, Figures

His refusal of Henry VIII's annulment, with the Emperor holding Rome, is the immediate occasion of the English church's separation.

The settlement of 1559 gave the Church of England the shape it still has.

England, Regions

The Church of England is the established church of England specifically, not of Scotland or Wales.

This source names Church of England directly: "A Church of England General Synod committee report quoting the Synod's own repeated resolutions (1982, 1996, 2001) recommending five percent of income given to and through the Church as the standard..."

This source names Church of England directly: "and his successors supreme head of the Church of England in place of the Pope."

Source Act of Supremacy 1534 (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Church of England directly: "A Church of England diocesan giving guide reporting the national General Synod's own suggested giving target, 5% of post-tax income to the church and a similar amount to other charities, together..."

This source names Church of England directly: "positions of trust connected with the Church of England were convicted of sexual offences against children between the 1940s and 2018, and concluded the Church created a culture in which deference..."

London, Cities

London holds the administrative center of the Church of England, with St Paul's as its cathedral.

This source names Church of England directly: "was a renewal movement within the Church of England, never a separate church."

This source names Church of England directly: "The Church of England's own press release on the General Synod's 8 to 9 February 2023 debate, in which Synod voted to welcome the Prayers of Love and Faith texts and called on the House of Bishops..."

Supreme Governor of the Church of England for the whole of her reign.

This source names Church of England directly: "The Order's Royal Head is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the Order is identified with the Anglican and wider Reformed tradition, though its membership has counted Roman..."

Source St John Ambulance (The Priory of England and the Islands of the Order of St John): Charity Commission Filed Accounts, Year Ended 31 December 2024The Priory of England and the Islands of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (trading as St John Ambulance)

This source names Church of England directly: "Church of England chaplains and colonial parishes had accompanied English trade and settlement since the seventeenth century, but the church itself created no bishops for the colonies for..."

Source A History of Global AnglicanismKevin Ward

This source names Church of England directly: "jointly by the Royal Household and the Church of England, 2023, is the official published text used at the 6 May 2023 coronation, including the Archbishop of Canterbury's introductory words..."

Source The Authorised Liturgy for the Coronation Rite of His Majesty King Charles IIIThe Royal Household and the Church of England

This source names Church of England directly: "severed American Methodists from the Church of England, John Wesley reluctantly agreed to let the movement in America organise as its own church, sending Thomas Coke to ordain Francis Asbury as..."

This source names Church of England directly: "The rite itself is a religious sacrament of the Church of England, centered on the anointing of the monarch with holy oil before the crowning, so the regalia function as sacred objects of state in..."

Source Liber Regalis (the Westminster coronation order)Anonymous (Westminster Abbey)

This source names Church of England directly: "of 1559 that fixed the shape of the Church of England."

Source Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700Diarmaid MacCulloch

This source names Church of England directly: "The Church of England had been the established church of several American colonies before 1776, but the Revolution stripped that status away outright: an American church could no longer pray for the..."

Source The EpiscopaliansDavid Hein and Gardiner H. Shattuck Jr.

This source names Church of England directly: "Scottish bishops at Aberdeen after the Church of England refused him for want of an oath to the crown he could not swear as an American citizen, to the 1789 General Convention that unified the..."

Source The EpiscopaliansDavid Hein and Gardiner H. Shattuck Jr.

This source names Church of England directly: "over doctrinal authority in the Church of England in South Africa exposed the Communion's lack of any structure for resolving disagreement between its national and regional churches."

This source names Church of England directly: "The established Church of England effectively ceased to exist in its prior form for a decade and a half, until the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II led to the Act of Uniformity 1662..."

Source Book Of Common Prayer 1662 (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Church of England directly: "freedom from the practices of the Church of England."

This source names Church of England directly: "freedom from the practices of the Church of England."

This source names Church of England directly: "Gregory Dix was a Church of England monk and liturgical scholar, and this Dacre Press book is his classic academic study of how the Christian Eucharistic rite historically developed, from its..."

Source The Shape of the LiturgyGregory Dix

This source names Church of England directly: "The Church of England's own Elizabethan era doctrinal articles, dating from 1571, defining the Church's position on core points of Christian doctrine at the time of the English Reformation."

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

This source names Church of England directly: "with the colony in 1607, made the Church of England Virginia's established religion for a century and a half, funded by taxes on Anglican and dissenter alike until disestablishment followed the..."

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)Encyclopaedia Britannica editors

This source names Church of England directly: "and the first African bishop of the Church of England, and this 1843 vocabulary, published by the Church Missionary Society, is his own foundational documentation of the Yoruba language, compiled..."

Source Vocabulary of the Yoruba LanguageSamuel Ajayi Crowther

This source names Church of England directly: "discipline and government of the Church of England during the English Civil War."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Belongs to Tradition

Branch Of

The mother church of the Anglican Communion, whose Archbishop of Canterbury is its symbolic head.

Source The Study of AnglicanismStephen Sykes, John Booty and Jonathan Knight (eds.)

Critiqued

Eucharistic adoration, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Article XXVIII holds that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.

None (Ninth Hour), Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. None was not carried into the Prayer Book, for the same stated reason.

Prime, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Prime was not carried into the Prayer Book. The Preface Concerning the Service of the Church says plainly that the ancient orders had become so altered and broken that they were put aside for one book with two daily services.

Seven Sacraments, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Article XXV holds that there are two sacraments ordained of Christ in the Gospel, and that the other five are not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel.

Sext, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Sext was not carried into the Prayer Book, for the same stated reason.

Terce, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Terce was not carried into the Prayer Book, for the same stated reason.

Veneration of icons, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Article XXII names the worshipping and adoration of images and of relics among the things it calls a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture.

Veneration of saints and Mary, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Article XXII names the invocation of saints in the same sentence, and the Prayer Book addresses no prayer to any saint.

Holds Element

Sung daily in the cathedrals and the collegiate chapels, which between them keep the office as a sung service.

The archdeacon has administrative oversight of part of a diocese, and in the Church of England the office carries the visitation of parishes and the care of church buildings.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Retained at the Reformation, and the continuity of the episcopate is the ground on which the Church of England claims to be the ancient church of the land reformed rather than a new church.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 remains the doctrinal standard of the Church of England, whatever a parish actually uses on a Sunday.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

The mother church of the English church and the seat of its senior bishop.

Worn with the surplice, and with the black scarf for a licensed minister and the academic hood of the wearer's degree.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

The curate in ordinary English usage is an assistant clergyman serving his title in a parish under an incumbent.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

The English church kept the medieval dioceses intact through the Reformation, and its bishops still sit over the same territories.

The cathedral holds the tombs of Cuthbert and Bede and is the seat of the bishop of Durham.

The ruined abbey has belonged to the diocese of Bath and Wells since 1907 and hosts an annual Anglican pilgrimage.

The bishops of the Church of England wear the mitre, having resumed it in the nineteenth century after a long lapse.

The English parish is a legal territory as well as a congregation, and its incumbent owes duties to every resident, not only to churchgoers.

The surplice is the vesture the Ornaments Rubric and the canons of the Church of England presuppose for a minister at the offices.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

The General Synod legislates, and its measures become law in England once approved by Parliament, a power no other church body in the country has.

Appointed at Morning Prayer, and sung at national thanksgivings in Saint Paul's.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

The statute made the sovereign supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and the church's establishment descends from it in an unbroken line.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The Church of England was among the churches that constituted the World Council at Amsterdam, and Anglican participation in it has been continuous since.

Whitby belongs to the Church of England own account of its origins rather than to its confessional standards, and it is remembered there as the point at which the Irish and Roman streams in the English church were settled in favour of Rome.

The vicar is the priest in charge of a parish whose great tithes historically went elsewhere, and the distinction from a rector is now historical rather than financial.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

The Anglican shrine church was built in the village in the nineteen thirties around a reconstruction of the holy house, and the two shrines keep separate pilgrimages a mile apart.

A royal peculiar, outside diocesan jurisdiction and answerable to the sovereign directly, and the place of coronation.

Rejected Here

Humanae Vitae, Religious Legal Instruments

The Church of England accepted contraception within marriage at Lambeth in 1930 and has taught so since, so the encyclical's central ruling is refused rather than left open.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Papacy, Religious Organization & Structure

The break with Rome in 1534 placed the monarch, not the pope, at the head of the English church, and the settlement of 1559 fixed that arrangement.

Held Differently

Raphael, Archangels

The Church of England reads Tobit among the books appointed for lessons without founding doctrine on it, which is the whole standing Raphael has in its formularies.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
1 Esdras, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
2 Esdras, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Additions to Daniel, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Additions to Esther, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Book of Baruch, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Book of Judith, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Book of Tobit, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Books of the Maccabees, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Prayer of Manasseh, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Wisdom of Sirach, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Wisdom of Solomon, Scriptures & Texts

Named in Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571, among the books the Church reads for example of life and instruction of manners but does not apply to establish any doctrine. Printed and appointed to be read, at a status deliberately short of the canon affirmed at Trent in 1546.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Objects and Practices of This Tradition

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Agnus Dei, Prayers

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The offertory sentences of the communion service are a sustained instruction on giving to the poor, and the alms are collected at that point in the rite.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Prayer Book provides for the visitation and the anointing of the sick, and the Articles decline to number it among the two sacraments of the gospel.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Baptism, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Baptism is ordinarily by pouring, and the Articles call it a sign of regeneration by which the promises of forgiveness are visibly signed and sealed.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The baptismal covenant is the framework of the catechism and of the renewal of vows at Easter.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Kept as the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin in the older Prayer Book title.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Religious orders were dissolved in the sixteenth century and refounded from 1841 onward, so that this church now has communities of monks and nuns under vows.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, commonly called the Churching of Women, is a service of the Prayer Book.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Compline, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Compline was not in the sixteenth-century books and was restored in the twentieth, and it is now in general use.

Confession, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Anglicanism keeps auricular confession available but not required, summarised in the maxim that all may, none must, some should; a general confession said by the whole congregation is the ordinary form.

Confirmation, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Confirmation is conferred by a bishop at an age of discretion, and the Prayer Book requires the candidate to renew the promises made at baptism in person.

Set within a Christian service of the Church of England, conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Fasting, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Prayer Book sets out a table of the fasts of the church: Ash Wednesday, the forty days of Lent, the ember days, the rogation days and the Fridays of the year.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Funeral Rites, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Order for the Burial of the Dead is in the Prayer Book, and the sixteenth-century books removed the prayers for the dead that the medieval rite had carried.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Gloria Patri, Prayers

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Holy Orders, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons was retained, and since the twentieth century women have been ordained to all three orders in most provinces, which is the sharpest present difference from Rome and the Orthodox churches.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source Hymns Ancient and Modern (Wikipedia and Victorian Web)Wikipedia and Victorian Web contributors
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Articles direct that the baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

Intinction, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Intinction is widely used, and the church has argued about it, since the Prayer Book directs that the cup be given to each communicant.

Supreme governor from 1603; he refused the Puritan requests at Hampton Court while granting the new translation that came out of the same conference.

Source Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700Diarmaid MacCulloch
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Roman sequence of colours was retained in use and was made explicit again in the modern service books.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The marriage service of the Prayer Book, with its vow to have and to hold, is the ancestor of the wedding words used across the English-speaking world, including by people of no religion.

Matins, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Morning Prayer is the surviving daily office, and it is Matins and Lauds combined into one service. The reduction of eight hours to two was deliberate and is the plainest liturgical difference between this church and Rome.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Monastic Vows, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Vows of poverty, chastity and obedience are made in the refounded religious communities of this church.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Nunc Dimittis, Prayers

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Sunday is kept as the Lord's Day with the duty of public worship, without the sabbatarian rigour the Reformed churches attached to it.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Kept as Whitsunday, and the Sundays of the second half of the year are counted from Trinity rather than from Pentecost.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Pilgrimage, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Pilgrimage was suppressed at the Reformation and revived from the nineteenth century onward, most visibly at Walsingham.

Prayer, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Prayer is shaped by a single authorised book rather than by a devotional culture, so that a congregation anywhere says the same words on the same day.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

The Church of England is England's legally established church, with the monarch as Supreme Governor since Elizabeth I's 1559 Act of Supremacy, a status the rest of the Anglican Communion does not share.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account
The Anaphora, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The Prayer of Consecration is the Anglican anaphora, and the arrangement of its parts differs between the English, Scottish and American books.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
The Epiclesis, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The invocation of the Spirit was in the 1549 book, removed in 1552, and restored in the Scottish and American books, from which it came back into the modern English ones.

The Fraction, Rituals

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The breaking of the bread is a distinct action of the rite and in the modern books has its own words.

The Grace, Prayers

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings
Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Anglicans call it Holy Communion, the Eucharist or the Mass according to churchmanship, and the Thirty-Nine Articles reject transubstantiation while leaving the manner of Christ's presence deliberately undefined.

Source The Thirty-Nine Articles of ReligionChurch of Englandthe holders' own account

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The words of institution stand in the Prayer of Consecration, and the Articles deny that the sacrament was ordained to be gazed upon or carried about.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. The book is Anglicanism's common thread in place of a magisterium, holding morning and evening prayer, communion, baptism, marriage and burial in one volume in the people's hands. Each province has its own version and modern-language rites are now more used, but the 1662 book remains legally established in Engl

Vespers, Practices

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Part of the Church of England's own authorized coronation liturgy specifically, the rite it performs for its own head of state and Supreme Governor.

Source Wikipedia, "Zadok the Priest"Wikipedia contributors

Studied By

Sources
1. The Study of Anglicanism
Stephen Sykes, John Booty and Jonathan Knight (eds.), SPCK / Fortress Press, 1998
2. The Book of Common Prayer
Church of England; ed. Brian Cummings, Oxford University Press (Oxford World's Classics), 2011View the Source
3. Act of Supremacy 1534 (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikipedia
4. Prayers of Love and Faith to Be Made Available for Use From Sunday (Church of England)
Church of England, 2023the stated position on sexuality's 17 December 2023 effective datethe holders' own accountView the Source
5. Prayers for God's Blessing for Same-Sex Couples Take Step Forward After Synod Debate (Church of England)
Church of England, 2023the stated position on sexuality, its detail and its record of that positionthe holders' own accountView the Source
6. 25 Years of Women as Priests in the Church of England (Religion Media Centre)
Religion Media Centre
7. Church of England Names Its First Woman Bishop (Religion News Service)
Religion News Service
8. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
9. Church Commissioners for England Endowment Fund Delivers 10.3% Return in 2024
Church Commissioners for England, The Church of England, 2025View the Source
10. The Church Commissioners for England, Annual Report 2025
The Church Commissioners for England, audited by Grant Thornton UK LLP, 2026View the Source
11. Giving for Life (GS1723)
National Stewardship Committee, Church of England General Synod, 2009View the Source
12. IICSA: The Anglican Church Investigation Report
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), 2020View the Source
13. Church of England: Independent Review Into Church's Handling of Smyth Case Published
The Church of England, 2024View the Source
14. Weekly Church Attendance Up Five Per Cent in Third Year of Consecutive Growth
The Church of England, 2024Press release body
Quote, Press release body
Overall, all-age weekly attendance at Church of England churches rose to 685,000 last year, from 654,000 in 2022, an increase of 4.7 per cent.
View the Source
15. Religion, England and Wales: Census 2021 (Office for National Statistics)
Office for National Statistics
16. Statistics for Mission 2016 (Church of England)
Church of England Research and Statistics
17. Church of England Attendance Rises for Fourth Year
The Church of England, 2025Press release body
Quote, Press release body
The overall number of regular worshippers across the Church of England's congregations grew to 1.02 million in 2024, a rise of 1.2 per cent.
View the Source
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion
Church of England, 1571the holders' own accountView the Source
The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral
The Lambeth Conference, 1888the holders' own account
The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Amsterdam 1948: Official Report
W. A. Visser 't Hooft (ed.), SCM Press, 1949
Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Bede, Clarendon Press, 731View the Source
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
James I portrait mezzotint, British Museum (1731, Cheylesmore Collection)
British MuseumObjects and Practices of This Tradition: Portrait of James I (British Museum, mezzotint, 1731), British Museum P_1902-1011-1403View the Source

Take a Related Quiz

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.