St. John the Evangelist, Upper St Leonards-On-Sea -

What it means to be an Anglican

The Church of England logo It is sometimes said that people prefer to define themselves as "Christian" first and name their church allegiance second. There may be reasons for that, but despite what people may say it does matter which denomination you belong to - because they each have different structures, priorities, governance and ways of understanding the scriptures and authority.

It helps to know what it means to say that you are an Anglican Christian!

Again there are many different starting points to explain this.

Perhaps a rather simplistic bottom line is to say that Anglican Christians are those who look to the See of Canterbury and have the Archbishop of Canterbury as their figure head, the "first among equals".

If we start from the global perspective we can say that there are approximate 78 million Anglican Christians world wide - the fourth largest international religious group on the planet! (First are the Roman Catholics [1,050,000,000], second Sunni Musims [875,000,000], third Eastern Orthodox [225,000,000], fourth us. See www.adherents.com)

An Anglican procession There are 38 self-governing anglican churches (or "Provinces") around the globe (for example the Church of the Province of Kenya; the Episcopal Church of the United States of America, etc.) spread across 161 countries. Located on every continent, Anglicans speak many languages and come from different races and cultures. Although the churches are autonomous, they are also uniquely unified through their history, their theology, their worship and their relationship to the ancient See of Canterbury.

Anglicans share many of their beliefs and practices with Christians from other denominations, but as well as the nature of worship and theology it is the relationship to Canterbury which makes an Anglican an Anglican.

Foundations

The Scriptures and the Gospels, the Apostolic Church and the early Church Fathers, are the foundation of Anglican faith and worship.

The Church of England (the branch of the Anglican church in this country) claims to be both Catholic and Reformed. "Protestant" is a description you will not find in any official documents of the Church of England (although we are "protestant" in the sense that we are not Roman Catholic: but then according to the Church of England the Roman Catholics are technically nonconformists! So labels are not always terribly helpful in capturing the essence of a denomination...)

Whenever a worker in the Church of England (bishop, priest, deacon, lay worker etc.) takes on a new post they have to make what is called the Declaration of Assent, and the preface to this promise helps express something of what Anglicans believe:

"The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church worshipping the one true God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. In the declaration you are about to make, will you affirm your loyalty to this inheritance of faith as your inspiration and guidance under God in bringing the grace and truth of Christ to this generation and making him known to those in your care?

History

Canterbury Cathedral Although the Church of England claims that it's roots go back to the very earliest days of the Church, and of course beyond that to the historical Jesus, the Anglicans broke away from the Roman Catholic church during the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Church of England kept its Catholic tradition, practice and the ordination of its clergy, but it was also firmly rooted in the scriptures.

Today Anglicanism is well known for it’s wide divergence of practice and theology: although labels are not always helpful people have distinguished between styles of worship and approaches to theology as being "high" church; "low" church and "broad" church.

Those who worship in the High Church tradition talk of themselves as being Catholic Anglicans (or sometimes Anglo-Catholics). St John's stands in this tradition.
Those who worship in the Low Church tradition talk of themselves as being Evangelicals.
Those who worship somewhere in between might describe themselves as "broad" church, or middle of the road, or liberal.

However all are united in their looking to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and sharing the same basic principles set out in the Preface to the Declaration of Assent - they would vary according to how these are understood or the relative importance given to each aspect, but we are all Anglicans!

The organisation of the Church of England.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Rev. Dr Rowan Williams The Church of England is divided into two Provinces: the Province of Canterbury and the Province of York. Each Province has an Archbishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the Rt. Rev Dr Rowan Williams; the Archbishop of York is the Rt. Rev Dr John Sentamu.

Within the Provinces are Dioceses. Each diocese if overseen by a Bishop. There are 44 diocese in the Church of England.

The Diocese of Chichester is within the Province of Canterbury and the Bishop of Chichester is the Rt. Rev John Hind. (The boundaries cover almost exactly the counties of East & West Sussex.)

There are 21 Deaneries in the Diocese. A deanery is a smaller gathering of local anglican churches. Each Deanery is overseen by a Rural Dean.

The Archbishop of York, the Rt Rev. Dr John Sentamu The Deanery of Hastings contains 16 parishes and the (Acting) Rural Dean is Rev Chris Key (who is also the Rector of St Helen's church), and the boundaries cover almost exactly the municipal district of Hastings with St Leonard's.

One of those 16 parishes is St John the Evangelist, Upper St Leonard's!

The emblem of the Diocese of Chichester (To complicate things further the Diocese of Chichester, because it is so big, is divided into three areas and there are two Area Bishops responsible to Bishop John. Here in Hastings Deanery we fall within the Lewes & Hastings Episcopal area, and our Area Bishop of the Rt. Rev Wallace Benn. His "right hand" man is the Archdeacon, who is the Venerable Philip Jones.)

...And finally...

There is lots more to say about what it means to be an Anglican Christian, or part of the Church of England, (we've not touched on the General Synod, or Apostolic Succession, or Ecumenism etc.) and the best place to continue exploration of what it means to be Anglican is on the Church of England website...!

To be an Anglican is to be on a journey of faith to God supported by a fellowship of co-believers who are dedicated to finding Him by prayer and service.