St. Luke Anglican Catholic Church,   Augusta, Georgia

A Reformed Church

Early in the 16th century northern Europe was swept by Protestant "Reformation." Widespread and intense demands arose for the correction of abuses which had crept into the Western Church during the Middle Ages.

The CHURCH OF ENGLAND was profoundly affected by the recovery of Biblical scholarship and other aspects of this movement, but nonetheless remained firmly Catholic in its Faith and Order.

At particular issue, once again, were the claims of the Bishop of Rome to universal jurisdiction over the whole Church, which had been firmly repudiated by the Eastern Orthodox Churches in 1054. In 1534 the CHURCH OF ENGLAND also repudiated Papal jurisdiction and recovered the autonomy it had enjoyed prior to the Norman Conquest.

Contrary to widespread belief, the circumstances of the annulment of the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon were merely the occasion, but not the cause, of this break with Rome. Henry founded no new Church; he merely restored rightful autonomy to an old one.

During Henry's reign there were no radical alterations in English religion. The clergy remained unchanged and the Church's principal service, the Mass, continued to be in Latin, although Henry supported the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, in ordering the use of English for the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed and the Bible Readings.