An historical comparison of the Anglican and Roman liturgies of the Reformation.

Abstract

Christendom. While the goal of the separate communions which were a result of the Reformation has since been to restore both corporate and sacramental unity , one cannot help but observe the grave misunderstandings which exist between them. Sectarian limits to reason have precluded a more objective approach to the theological differences which exist between the communions; however, the liturgical histories of the Anglican and Roman Catholic reformations reveal that both communions effected ritual as well as theological changes from the practice and philosophy of the Mass of the medieval Church. This revelation encourages both the Anglican and Roman Catholic scholar to appreciate the mutual catholicity of the eucharistic liturgies of the First Book of Common Prayer (1549), the Second Book of Common Prayer (1552), and the Roman Mass according to the Missal of Pope Pius V (1570). the sixteenth century witnessed in the corporate unity of Western Abstract approved: The first an overall crisis An investigation into this mutual catholicity further reveals the nature of doctrinal revision during the reign of Henry VIII, the true nature of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's Eucharistic theology, and the consequent validity of Anglican orders as both catholic and apostolic in origin. Again, these judgments are made on the basis of historical fact, not sectarian viewpoint. The relationship between the Church of England and the Church of Rome since the late Renaissance has been at best tenuous. While the years immediately following the Second Vatican Council ushered in a new sense of hope for unity and mutual understanding, the agenda of Rome has been clear: in order for there to be any hope of realistic reunion of any communion with the Roman Catholic Church, the submission of the reformed communion to scholastic dogma is necessary. Hopefully, an examination of such dogma using sound historical method will reduce this requirement in the eyes of all concerned to the level of the absurd. In the final analysis, the Reformation in England did not cause a doctrinal break with the ancient Catholic faith, and the attempts of the Roman Church to identify scholastic dogma with apostolic faith are in many cases un-substantiated by the early Church Fathers.