Henry VIII's break with Rome made the English church a national church under the crown; under Edward and Elizabeth it took a reformed doctrine with a catholic order, the settlement from which the Anglican Communion descends.
The parties
- The English crown and the reforming bishops
- The papacy and the English church's Roman obedience
What was disputed
Royal supremacy against papal jurisdiction, and the doctrine of the eucharist and the ministry.
Causes: political doctrinal jurisdictional
Key documents
- The Act of Supremacy (1534)
- The Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1662)
- The Thirty-Nine Articles (1571)
What it produced
Resolution attempts
- The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (from 1967)
How each side understands it
Anglican memory divides over its own event: one party reads a Protestant reformation, another a catholic church reformed, and the division inside the Communion today follows that reading.
It grew out of
- Protestant Reformation, 1517 and after
Sources
Primary
- The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity (1534-1559).
Secondary
- Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England (2001).