Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion He resigned on Tuesday about her handling of a high-profile harassment case.

The archbishop of Canterbury, who has deep Catholic roots, is considered “first among equals” among Anglicans worldwide and Consecration of the new British monarch during coronation ceremonies.

In recent years Pope Francis has done this: ecumenical gestures Towards the Anglican church travels with Welby and a Scottish Protestant leader to South Sudan in 2023, allowing Welby To celebrate the Anglican liturgy Earlier this year, as part of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, St. In St. Bartholomew’s Basilica.

Here’s what you need to know about the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Anglicanism.

What is the Church of England?

Simply put, the Church of England is the official church of the United Kingdom, and the British monarch serves as its supreme governor.

of King Charles III official title He is “Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England”, and every new monarch since the 16th century has sworn to support the Protestant religion.

Since the Synod of Whitby in 664, the Church of England has been divided into the two provinces of Canterbury and York, each with its own archbishop, and into numerous dioceses, each with a bishop. Canterbury is currently vacant following Welby’s resignation; The current archbishop of York, whose cathedral is York Minster, is Stephen Cottrell.

Like all Protestants, adherents of the Church of England hold the Bible in the highest regard, but a variety of styles of worship exist within the Church of England and within Anglicanism generally.

1662 Book of Common PrayerStill in use today, the church codified liturgical practices and teachings that superseded the Catholic practices of the newly founded church. The church’s website states that it remains “an enduring feature of the worship of the Church of England and an important source of its doctrine”.

How did the Church of England come into being?

Amidst the chaos created by the Protestant Reformation, the Church of England came to power in 1527, when King Henry VIII, who desired a male heir and sought a divorce from his wife Catherine of Aragon, was unable to obtain papal annulment. It broke away from the Catholic Church under Henry’s rule.

Parliament then passed laws abolishing papal authority and declaring King Henry head of the Church of England. A lawyer, writer, and high-ranking member of the king’s cabinet, St. Thomas More, He was martyred for opposing Henry’s plan, as it is Saint John Fishera Catholic cardinal for similar reasons.

This was followed by the English Reformation, a period of brutal persecution of Catholics. Although there was a brief return to papal obedience during the reign of Queen Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I reversed this situation when she became queen in 1558.

The Reformation saw the destruction of monasteries, the capture of Catholic churches including Westminster Abbey, and the testimony of martyrs such as: St. Margaret Clitherow, He was crushed to death on sharp rocks in 1586 because he refused to renounce his Catholic faith.

Following the English Civil War of 1642–1651 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the constitutional position of the Church of England since 1689 establishes for the church “a number of legal privileges and responsibilities, but increasingly religious and civil rights are also conferred” on other Christians, other to those who have faith and to those who have no faith,” Church of England website he says.

The restoration of the legal status of Catholicism was not fully achieved in Britain until the 19th century.

Why Canterbury?

St. Augustine of Canterbury, The person whom Catholics honor on May 27 founded the See of Canterbury in the last years of the sixth century. In the late sixth and early seventh centuries, under the rule of Pope Gregory I (Saint Gregory the Great), he continued to preach the Catholic faith to the Anglo-Saxon pagans in the country.

(Not to be confused with St. Augustine of Hippo(Church doctor, son of St. Monica and author of “Confessions”)

Born into a noble family in Rome at a probably unknown date, Augustine joined the newly founded Benedictine order and a society founded by the future Pope Gregory, who maintained his friendship with Augustine. Later, in 595, Pope Gregory began planning to re-evangelize England; The island’s Celtic inhabitants had converted to Christianity centuries earlier, but the country had been under the rule of Anglo-Saxon invaders since the mid-fifth century.

Pope Gregory selected a group of about 40 monks, including Augustine, to sail for England in the spring of 597. After arriving, they gained an audience with the pagan King Ethelbert of Kent; he would later convert and become a saint after Augustine’s powerful and articulate presentation. Bible message. He allowed monks to settle in Canterbury and evangelize.

Augustine was later consecrated bishop, and by Christmas 597 more than 10,000 people were actively seeking baptism from missionaries.

Augustine died in 604, and Canterbury remained the center of English Catholicism for nearly 1,000 years until the Reformation.

What is the Anglican Communion?

Founded in 1867 Anglican Communion It is a collection of churches around the world that recognize the archbishop of Canterbury as “first among equals”, a spiritual leader and unifying figure, but not a central authority like the pope.

Each church is different and autonomous, but all share a history and beliefs with the Church of England. The Anglican Communion describes itself as “a family of 42 autonomous and independent but interdependent national, pan-national and regional churches in communion with the See of Canterbury”.

These churches include the US-based Episcopal Church, which split from the Church of England after the American Revolution.

The Anglican Communion is governed by bishops who meet at various levels in regular meetings known as synods; This is a word familiar to members of the Catholic Church who have recently also convened synods. Synod on Synodality.

In the Anglican Communion, synods occur at the diocesan level, where bishops, clergy and clergy discuss local administrative and pastoral matters; and at the state or national level, where participants are divided into a kind of bicameral structure: the House of Bishops and a House of Representatives composed of clergy and clergy. Binding decisions are usually made by voting in these state or national legislatures.

Finally, the highest-level meeting is the Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade convention that offers Anglican leaders, especially bishops, an opportunity to discuss important issues facing the church and the world. This is a consultative meeting chaired by the archbishop of Canterbury, but the body convened has no legislative powers.

Collectively, the Anglican Communion represents the third largest branch of established Christianity in the world, after the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, with an estimated 110 million members worldwide.

The Anglican Communion has been on edge over LGBT issues in recent years, especially since 2003, when the Episcopal Church voted to appoint Gene V. Robinson, a gay man in a same-sex relationship, as bishop. Such moves have attracted harsh criticism from Anglican communities elsewhere, particularly in Africa.