A learner’s guide
- Christian family
- Reformation church with catholic continuity
- Historical setting
- The Church of England in the sixteenth century; now a worldwide communion
Historical origin
Where this tradition came from
The Act of Supremacy (1534) removed the Church of England from papal jurisdiction, and the church then went through sustained Catholic and Protestant reform. Its worship and doctrine took lasting form in the Book of Common Prayer (first issued in 1549) and the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563; final English text 1571). Mission and migration produced today’s worldwide Anglican Communion.
Authority
How teaching is discerned
Scripture is the final standard and contains all things necessary to salvation. The historic creeds, church tradition, and reason guide faithful interpretation. Anglican provinces are autonomous, so synods and bishops apply this inheritance in different contexts.
Salvation
How God saves and transforms
Classical Anglican formularies stress justification by faith and the priority of grace, while baptism, Eucharist, holiness, and a life of prayer form disciples. Evangelical, catholic, and other Anglican schools express these relationships differently.
The church
Leadership and belonging
Episcopal and synodical. Bishops stand in the historic episcopate and govern with clergy and laity through provincial structures. The archbishop of Canterbury has no jurisdiction over other provinces and has traditionally been regarded as a focus of unity. That role is now contested. In February 2023 the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches said it could no longer recognise the archbishop as “first among equals”, and in October 2025 GAFCON rejected Canterbury and the other Instruments of Communion outright. At Abuja in March 2026 GAFCON formed its own Global Anglican Council, presenting itself as the Global Anglican Communion; many other provinces remain in communion with Canterbury.
Sacraments and ordinances
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
Baptism
Infants and adults are baptised with water in the Trinitarian name and incorporated into Christ’s church. Article XXV of the Thirty-Nine Articles counts baptism and the Lord’s Supper as the two sacraments of the gospel, and treats confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction as five “commonly called Sacraments”. Confirmation is a mature public affirmation of faith, with the bishop’s prayer for strengthening by the Spirit.
Communion / Eucharist
Anglicans celebrate Christ’s real gift of himself in Holy Communion and allow more than one account of how he is present. The Thirty-Nine Articles reject transubstantiation and teach that Christ’s body is “given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner” (Art. XXVIII). Views today range from Reformed to Anglo-Catholic.
Gathered life
What worship may feel like
Word and sacrament in the pattern of the Book of Common Prayer and its modern provincial descendants. Worship ranges from restrained evangelical services to elaborate Anglo-Catholic liturgy, often joined by a common rhythm of daily prayer.
Distinctive emphases
- The Book of Common Prayer
- Scripture, tradition, and reason
- Historic episcopate
- Common prayer across theological breadth
- A worldwide communion of autonomous provinces
Read with care
Internal diversity and a common misconception
Where members differ
Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, charismatic, and broad-church Anglicans can differ sharply in theology and worship. Provinces also disagree about ordination, marriage, sexuality, and the limits of provincial autonomy.
Do not assume
Anglicanism is not simply Roman Catholicism without the pope, nor is it one uniform compromise. Its identity comes from a particular combination of Reformation teaching, catholic order, common prayer, and provincial diversity.
Go to the source
Read this tradition in its own words
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