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History and role

St Botolph's Church, Boston, England ©

The Church of England is the established or state church in England. It is divided into two provinces - Canterbury in the South of England and York in the North. Each province has a head or Primate - the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.

The Church of England is part of the Anglican Communion, which is a worldwide family of churches in more than 160 different countries. On any one Sunday more than a million people attend Church of England services, making it the largest Christian denomination in the country.

The Established Church

The Church of England is the established church, meaning, amongst other things:

• the Monarch is the the Supreme Governor of the church (theologically Jesus is the head),
• the Church performs a number of official functions,
• Church and State are linked

History

The Church of England traces its roots back to the early church, but its specifically Anglican identity and its links to the State date back to the Reformation.

Henry VIII started the process of creating the Church of England after his in the 1530s. Henry was anxious to ensure a male heir after his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had borne him only a daughter. He wanted his marriage annulled in order to remarry. In 1534 after several attempts to persuade the Pope to grant an annulment, Henry passed the Act of Succession and then the Act of Supremacy. These recognised that the King was "the only supreme head of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia". Henry adopted the title given to him by the Pope in 1521, that of Defender of the Faith.

Window in St Peter's, Hockwold, Norfolk ©

Role of the Monarch

Today the Monarch retains the title Defender of the Faith and is still the Supreme Governor of the Church. He or she has to:

• approve the appointment of archbishops, bishops and deans (on the recommendation of the Prime Minister)
• formally open each new session (every five years) of the General Synod (the church's governing body)
• promise to maintain the Church in his or her coronation oath.

Legislative role

The Church of England also has a law-making role in Britain. Twenty-six bishops (including the two Archbishops) sit in the House of Lords and are known as the Lords Spiritual. They are thought to bring a religious ethos to the secular process of law.

However, in an increasingly multi-cultural society, questions are being asked as to whether that role needs to be specifically fulfilled by Church of England Bishops. Future reform of the House of Lords could see the Lords Spiritual made up of a variety of Christian denominations and other faiths to reflect the religious make-up of Britain.

Civic duties

The Church of England, as the established church, fulfils a civic responsibility too. Its bishops and priests are responsible for performing state weddings and funerals, acts of remembrances, memorial services as well as grand occasions like the coronation. After events like the Gulf War or major disasters, the country 'comes together' to mourn under the spiritual guidance of the Church of England.

In recent years, such occasions have become more ecumenical and multi-faith as the Church of England acknowledges Britain's changing religious landscape.

Hierarchy, beliefs and worship

Hierarchy

Southwark Cathedral ©

There are 43 dioceses in England covering the two provinces of Canterbury and York, plus the Diocese in Europe, with chaplaincies from the Arctic Circle to the Canaries. Each diocese has a bishop and usually at least one suffragan or assistant bishop. Each diocese is split into archdeaconries run by archdeacons. They are responsible for the administration of that part of the diocese. Each archdeaconry is split up into deaneries, which is a collection of parishes.

The parish is the heart of the Church of England. Each parish is overseen by a parish priest, usually called a vicar or rector. Sometimes they are assisted by a curate or deacon or parish worker. The latter is a lay post.

Parishes

Each parish church is run by the priest in collaboration with the PCC or Parochial Church Councils. This group is usually made up of the congregation but is open to anyone on the electoral roll. It, along with the bishop or other patron, appoints the priest. It also decides on the style of services and maintains the church buildings.

The parish structure means that the church is there for everyone. Ideally, everyone in England has a parish priest to whom they can turn. Everyone lives in a parish. This means it's an organisation for everyone, not just believers.

Cathedrals

Each diocese has a Cathedral which is the 'seat' of the bishop but is run independently of him. Deans are in charge of Cathedrals, assisted by Canons and supported by a Greater Chapter including lay appointees. A number of newer parish church Cathedrals used to be headed by Provosts until the Cathedrals Measure 1999.

Governance

The Church of England is described as being episcopally-led (there are 108 bishops in total) and synodically governed. This means it's led by bishops and its practices are decided by the General Synod.

All Saints, Horsey, Norfolk in the snow ©

The General Synod is elected from the laity and clergy of each diocese and meets in London or York at least twice a year. There are three houses: the house of bishops; the house of clergy; the house of laity. Each synod member is elected to serve for five years. Complex rules govern how church law is passed. Some has to go through Parliament and all must be given Royal assent.

Beliefs and worship

The Church of England is a broad church, representing a wide spectrum of theological thought and practice. However, as part of the Anglican Communion there are some distinctively Anglican ideas which can be identified in the Church of England. They are:

• a belief that the Bible contains the core of all Christian faith and thought
• a loyalty to a way of worship and life that was first set out in the Book of Common Prayer
• celebration of the sacraments ordained by Jesus - that of Baptism and Eucharist or Holy Communion
• a system of Church order that stems from ancient times and is focused in the ordained ministry of Bishop, Priest and Deacon
• a firm commitment to the ministry of the whole people of God, lay and ordained together
• a way of Christian thinking that involves Scripture, Tradition and Reason held together in creative tension.

Individual parishes can decide how many services they hold in the week, how often they conduct Eucharistic services and how they structure the service to include hymns/songs, readings, the Creed, a sermon and prayers. Despite this flexibility, each priest is expected to conduct a service which has been authorised by the church in the service book.

Decline, ordination of women, homosexuality

Current issues

Purleigh Church, Essex ©

As the established church, the Church of England and the comments and decisions its leaders make frequently attract media attention. These are just a few of the key issues facing the church at the beginning of the twenty-first century:

Decline in church attendance

The Church of England is responsible for more than 16,000 churches and 42 Cathedrals in England, yet the number of people attending services has been in decline in recent decades. In 2002 the average number of people attending church on Sundays declined by 4% to just over a million. If you include those who attended during the week, the number rises to approximately 1.2 million.

Many of those attending are of the older generations, with statistics showing that few 15 to 30 year olds go to church.

Despite the slow decline in average attandance, giving to parish churches continues to increase by more than inflation every year. Individual congregations themselves are responsible for the financial maintenance of the church, despite its national church status.

The Church Commissioners are responsible for managing the Church's historic assets, paying clergy pensions earned up to 1998 and helping to support parish ministry. Since 1998, parishes have been paying into a fund to provide pensions earned by clergy from that date. There are now more people claiming a clergy pension than there are ordained stipendiary (paid) clergy. This is putting even greater pressure on the parish system with more and more priests being asked to take on additional parishes.

As ever, bald statistics obscure signs of hope for the Church of England:

• the Diocese of London has an increasing churchgoing population due to the rise in immigrants from Africa and the importance of the church in African and Caribbean communities.
• many people still attend church for major festivals like Christmas. A poll carried out in 2003 revealed that nearly 40% of adults attended a church service over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 2002.
• the Church of England has had to think of new ways of "doing church". Many parishes provide services during the week so as not to compete with leisure pastimes associated with the weekend. In one diocese, Oxford, an online parish has been established for those who want to opt out of the traditional parish structure.

St Martin's in the Bullring, Birmingham ©

The ordination of women

In 1992 when General Synod passed a vote to ordain woman not everyone in the Church of England was in agreement. In 1993 it passed the Act of Synod setting up an official structure to enable parishes to refuse women's ministry.

Male priests and their congregations could accept an alternative bishop known as a Provincial Episcopal Visitor or "flying bishop", who also rejected women as priests. This system, although criticised as institutionalising discrimination against women, has been credited with avoiding a split in the Church of England over the issue.

Two other options were set up to allow male priests to reject women's ministry. Firstly, a scheme allowed men to leave the priesthood with appropriate financial support until they had resettled. Secondly, the Roman Catholic Church allowed married (and non-married) Anglican priests to join its priesthood.

In 1994 in Bristol the first women priests were ordained. Now, more than ten years on, one in five Church of England licensed priests is female. Pressure is growing to now allow women to be Bishops. A working party, set up by General Synod, has published a theological study of women in the Episcopate and the impact such a move would have both on the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion. The Synod will debate it in 2005.

Homosexuality and the Church of England

Many of the headlines regarding the Church of England since 2002 have regarded the rights of homosexual priests. The Church of England allows for the ordination of gay priests as long as they are celibate.

In 2003 Canon Jeffrey John was appointed as Bishop of Reading. Despite his pro-gay views (he's written articles and pamphlets outlining why gay couples should live in faithful, permanent, stable relationships) he made it clear that he was celibate. His appointment, and the subsequent election of an openly gay bishop in America, prompted a national and international examination on the rights of homosexual clergy. Canon Jeffrey John stood down as Bishop-elect of Reading but has subsequently been installed as Dean of St Albans.

Alongside issues of homosexual clergy, the wider Anglican Communion has been wrestling with whether to sanction same-sex blessings. Both these issues could cause divisions within the Anglican Communion with the provinces of the global south (Nigeria, South East Asia, South America among many others) threatening to split permanently from those sanctioning the blessing of same-sex relationships and the ordination of non-celibate gay clergy - mainly in North America. A commission set up by the Archbishop of Canterbury and headed by Dr Robin Eames, Primate of Ireland made recommendations on the matter in autumn 2004.

Find out more

• Rowan Williams
• John Sentamu