The Anglican Tradition

Anglican teaching draws on what Richard Hooker (1554-1600) articulated as the threefold authority of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. Scripture is the principal authority; Tradition (the consensus of the ancient and undivided Church) informs the reading of Scripture; Reason (the use of human intellect, formed by the Holy Spirit) applies the teaching to contemporary life. The Articles of Religion (Thirty-Nine Articles, 1571) and the Book of Common Prayer (in its various editions) are the principal Anglican doctrinal documents alongside the Creeds and the Councils of the undivided Church.

Anglican teaching accepts the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed (with the filioque clause, following Western practice), and the Athanasian Creed (the Quicunque Vult, with varying emphasis across Anglican parties). The first four Ecumenical Councils are universally accepted in Anglican teaching; the next three are accepted in varying degrees, with Anglo-Catholic Anglicans typically accepting all seven and lower-church Anglicans focusing on the first four.

Anglican teaching distinguishes the two principal sacraments, Baptism and Holy Communion (the Eucharist), as "Sacraments of the Gospel, instituted by Christ Himself" (Article XXV). The other five rites historically called sacraments (Confirmation, Penance, Holy Orders, Marriage, Anointing of the Sick) are recognized in varying degrees and forms across Anglican practice, sometimes as "sacramental rites of the Church," sometimes as full sacraments by Anglo-Catholic understanding, sometimes as ordinances. The 1979 BCP (TEC) and the 2019 ACNA BCP both include rites for all seven.

Anglican Eucharistic theology spans a substantial range. Article XXVIII rejects transubstantiation as commonly understood while affirming Christ's real presence in the Eucharist; Anglo-Catholic Anglicans hold a fully sacramental doctrine of the real presence close to Catholic teaching, while low-church and Evangelical Anglicans hold a more memorialist or spiritual-presence reading. The Anglican formula "neither denies nor defines" the mode of Christ's presence in the Eucharist allows substantial theological breadth within a shared liturgical practice.

Anglican teaching honors Mary as the Mother of God (Theotokos) and as the principal saint. Anglo-Catholic Anglicans practice substantial Marian devotion, including the Hail Mary, the rosary, and Marian feasts; broad-church and Evangelical Anglicans honor Mary as scripture witnesses but typically do not engage in devotional practices addressed to her. The veneration of saints similarly varies across Anglican parties: substantial in Anglo-Catholicism, moderate in broad-church practice, minimal in Evangelical Anglicanism. The principal Anglican saints calendar (named in the BCP as "Lesser Feasts and Fasts" or similar in the various provinces) commemorates substantial figures.

Anglican self-understanding has traditionally been articulated as a via media, a middle way between Rome (Catholic) and Geneva (Reformed Protestant). The 1559 Elizabethan Settlement under Elizabeth I produced an English Christianity that retained Catholic order (bishops, the threefold ministry, the sacraments) while accepting Reformation theological emphases (scripture's primary authority, justification by faith, vernacular liturgy). The comprehensive ecclesiology, accommodating both Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical readings of Anglican identity within one communion, is theologically and structurally distinctive.

The Book of Common Prayer is the distinctive Anglican liturgical inheritance, the prayer book that has shaped Anglican worship since 1549. Major editions: the 1549 Prayer Book of Thomas Cranmer, the 1552 revision, the 1559 Elizabethan, the 1662 (the standard for the Church of England and many Communion provinces), the 1789 American (the first independent national Anglican prayer book), the 1928 American (TEC, retained by some Continuing Anglican bodies), the 1979 American (TEC, the principal contemporary US Episcopal prayer book), and the 2019 ACNA BCP (the principal ACNA prayer book). The BCP's shape, Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer for the daily office, the Eucharist for principal services, the occasional offices (Baptism, Marriage, Burial), structures Anglican worship across the Communion.

The Anglican Eucharist is the principal Sunday service in most contemporary Anglican parishes, though Morning Prayer was the principal Sunday service in many Anglican churches well into the 20th century (and remains so in some Continuing Anglican and conservative Evangelical Anglican parishes). The Eucharistic liturgy follows the BCP shape: the Gathering, the Liturgy of the Word (Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, Gospel, sermon), the Liturgy of the Eucharist (offertory, Great Thanksgiving, Sanctus, Memorial Acclamation, Lord's Prayer, fraction, Communion), the Sending. The frequency of Communion varies (weekly in most contemporary parishes; sometimes monthly in some conservative parishes).

Anglican Baptism is normally administered to infants of Anglican parents or to adult converts, by pouring or sprinkling at the font (immersion is permitted but uncommon). The baptismal rite is the principal moment of Christian initiation. Confirmation is administered by the bishop typically in adolescence or adulthood, marking the candidate's personal profession of faith and the bishop's prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit. The 1979 BCP admits children to Communion at baptism; earlier prayer books reserved Communion to those Confirmed. The Confirmation question is one of the differences between Episcopal practice and some Continuing Anglican and ACNA practice.

Anglican Christianity preserves the threefold ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, the historic apostolic succession of bishops being a Anglican commitment. Bishops are consecrated within apostolic succession; priests are ordained by bishops with the laying on of hands; deacons are ordained to a ministry of service. Anglican holy orders are recognized by some Eastern Orthodox churches and by the Old Catholic churches; they are not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church (the 1896 Apostolicae Curae of Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican orders "absolutely null and utterly void," a judgment Anglican teaching does not accept).

Anglican Christianity follows the Western liturgical year: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, the Easter Triduum, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time (called "Time after Pentecost" or "Trinity" depending on the calendar). Anglican parishes typically observe the major feasts substantially (Christmas Eve and Day, Holy Week, Easter Day) and the seasonal disciplines (Advent and Lent observed with practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving). The Revised Common Lectionary is widely used; some Anglican provinces use their own lectionaries.

Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are the principal Anglican daily offices, recited or sung in parishes (especially cathedrals) and prayed at home by many Anglicans. The daily office is the Anglican daily prayer pattern, a structured liturgy with psalms, scripture readings, canticles, the Apostles' or Nicene Creed, and prayers. The 1979 BCP, the 2019 ACNA BCP, and the historic prayer books each provide the daily office. The Anglican rosary, the prayer of intercession, and personal devotional reading round out daily Anglican spiritual practice.

The Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC, formally the Episcopal Church) is the historic US member province of the Anglican Communion, with origins in the post-Revolutionary 1789 organization of Anglican Christianity in the new United States. TEC has approximately 1.7 million members in approximately 6,500 parishes, headquartered in New York with the Presiding Bishop as the principal national leader. TEC ordains women to all three orders (priests since 1976; bishops since 1989), blesses same-sex marriages, and uses the 1979 Book of Common Prayer as its principal liturgical text. TEC is in full communion with the broader Anglican Communion historically; its recent decisions on LGBTQ+ inclusion have produced tension with some Communion provinces.

ACNA was formed in 2009 by US and Canadian Anglicans who left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada over disputes principally regarding LGBTQ+ inclusion and the related questions of scriptural authority. ACNA has approximately 130,000 members in roughly 1,000 parishes, with the Archbishop as the principal national leader. ACNA uses the 2019 Book of Common Prayer as its principal liturgical text. ACNA is not currently recognized as a full member of the Anglican Communion by Canterbury, but is in communion with the GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) provinces and substantial parts of the Anglican Communion outside the US.

Smaller Anglican bodies that left TEC at earlier moments, principally over the 1979 BCP and the ordination of women: the Anglican Catholic Church, the Anglican Province of America, the United Episcopal Church, the Reformed Episcopal Church (now within ACNA), and others. The Continuing Anglican movement traces to the 1977 Congress of St. Louis. Most Continuing Anglican bodies use the 1928 BCP or earlier prayer books; many retain the historic Anglican formularies (Thirty-Nine Articles, the Ordinal) more strictly than TEC. Several Continuing Anglican bodies have been in unity-conversation with the Anglican Catholic Church (the principal Continuing body) over recent years.

Anglicanism is internally diverse across what historically have been called "parties" or "churchmanship" categories. Anglo-Catholic Anglicans emphasize Catholic order (the sacraments, the apostolic succession, Marian and saints devotion, full liturgical elaboration); broad-church or liberal Anglicans emphasize comprehensiveness, contemporary theological engagement, and ecumenical openness; Evangelical or low-church Anglicans emphasize scripture's primary authority, justification by faith, simpler liturgy, and continuity with broader Protestant Christianity. The three streams coexist within Anglican Communion bodies, with parishes often identifying with one or another.

GAFCON (the Global Anglican Future Conference, first held in Jerusalem in 2008) is a movement of theologically conservative Anglican provinces and bishops, principally from the Global South (Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, others) along with Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Anglicans in the West. GAFCON has organized around the Jerusalem Declaration and has substantial influence in the wider Anglican Communion. ACNA is recognized by GAFCON. The relationship between Canterbury and GAFCON is complicated; the Anglican Communion is, by some readings, in functional realignment with parallel structures emerging.

The Anglican Communion is substantially African in membership, approximately half of all global Anglicans are African, with the Church of Nigeria (~17M members), the Church of Uganda, the Church of Kenya, and other African provinces among the largest. African Anglican Christianity is generally theologically more conservative on LGBTQ+ inclusion and women's ordination than the Western Anglican provinces; the African provinces have been the principal drivers of the GAFCON realignment. The growth of African Anglicanism has shifted the global Anglican center of gravity substantially since the late 20th century.

The principal contemporary internal Anglican dispute. TEC, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales, the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, and a growing number of other Anglican provinces bless same-sex marriages and ordain LGBTQ+ persons to all orders. ACNA, GAFCON, the African and Asian provinces (with some exceptions), and conservative Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical Anglicans hold the traditional teaching on marriage and on the moral status of homosexual acts. The Lambeth Conference of 1998 articulated the traditional teaching; subsequent decisions in the Western provinces have moved in the inclusive direction. The Communion has not formally split but operates with substantial parallel structures and impaired communion in places. The site's editorial discipline (Decision 10) names the dispute and the positions accurately without taking a side.

TEC ordains women to all three orders (priests since 1976; bishops since 1989). The Anglican Church of Canada and most Western Anglican provinces have followed. ACNA permits dioceses to ordain women to the priesthood and diaconate but not to the episcopate; ACNA dioceses are individually permitted to ordain women priests or not, producing internal ACNA diversity on the question. The Church of England ordained women to the priesthood in 1994 and to the episcopate in 2014. Several African Anglican provinces and many GAFCON-aligned bodies do not ordain women. The Continuing Anglican bodies generally do not ordain women. The dispute is one of the principal markers of internal Anglican identity.

The 1979 BCP's revision of the historic Anglican liturgy was contested at the time (especially by parishes that retained the 1928 BCP). Subsequent liturgical revisions in TEC (the 2018 Holy Eucharist Rite II revision, the 2018 Marriage rite revisions, the ongoing prayer book revision processes) have been similarly contested. The 2019 ACNA BCP draws on the 1662 BCP and the 1928 American BCP for its Eucharistic shape and theological emphases, marking a deliberately different liturgical direction from contemporary TEC. The prayer book question is in part a question of how the Anglican tradition's identity is transmitted.

A historical dispute now substantially in the background but worth naming: Pope Leo XIII's 1896 Apostolicae Curae declared Anglican orders "absolutely null and utterly void" on the basis of defect of intention and form. Anglican teaching does not accept this judgment; subsequent ecumenical dialogues (ARCIC, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission) have explored the question without resolution. Some Anglican-Roman Catholic mutual recognition has occurred (notably through the Anglicanorum Coetibus 2009 establishment of Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans entering Catholicism); the broader question of Anglican order recognition remains unresolved.

TEC's relationships within the wider Anglican Communion have been contested since the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire (the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion). Several Communion provinces declared impaired communion with TEC; some withdrew from joint structures. The 2016 Primates' Meeting imposed three-year consequences on TEC over the Marriage rite revisions. The 2022 Lambeth Conference operated with substantial Communion tensions still active. The relationship is ongoing and operates differently across the various Communion structures.

A subtle but real contested question: what makes a Christian Anglican? The historic answer (a member of a church in communion with Canterbury, holding the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer as authoritative formularies) has been complicated by ACNA's formation (not in communion with Canterbury but holding the Anglican formularies), by GAFCON's parallel structures, and by liberal Anglican theological developments that have moved some Anglican provinces well away from the historic Articles. The question of what counts as Anglican is part of the ongoing internal Anglican conversation. The page treats both TEC and ACNA as Anglican (along with the Continuing bodies) without ranking, recognizing that the question is internally contested.