These words from the collect appointed for today

which we prayed a few moments ago is a prayer that I hope you fervently prayed with me. That the church is built upon the foundation of the apostles, prophets, and "Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone," is not as clear as we might think it should be. Few of us are unaware that the Episcopal Church has just completed our seventy-fifth General Convention, the governing body of our church that meets every three years.

Now don't get excited. I am not about to talk about any of the issues, decisions, or consequences of the Convention. That is for your rector to do if he chooses, not me.

However, if you have been paying attention at all to the deliberations and outcome of the Convention, you know that the Episcopal Church's being a part of and current role in the worldwide Anglican Communion is of much interest to put it mildly. Thus today I would like to take you through how the Anglican Communion came into being by way of the Church of England, an explanation, if you will, of the Anglican Reformation.

Thus I would ask you to bear with me today as I tell you a bit of the history of that event instead of preaching on the propers for today.

How many of you have been told or asked, "Henry the Eighth started your church, didn't he?" How do we answer this?

The way in which the church in England, from which we are derived, separated itself from the Roman Catholic Church was unique. Because this is so, is part of why I believe we have a special heritage that is unique in Christendom.

Thus, as I said, today is going to be more of a history lesson than a sermon. Give yourself a good pinch and stay awake.

No one knows who the first Christians who came to the British Isles were or when they arrived. Whoever they were, they brought to England the Church that Jesus Christ and His apostles began. Who did I say started this early church in England? Jesus Christ and the apostles! Not Henry VIII. As I said, we don't know when the Christian faith spread to England, but we do know that British bishops were represented at the very early General Council of the church held at Nicea in Asia Minor in 325 A.D. Little is known about the church in England in the first several hundred years. There were no significant names or events passed on. As the Roman Empire collapsed, there was little or no contact between the church in England and that on the European continent which was uniting under the authority of the bishop of Rome. In fact, the church in England was driven underground. Predominant instead was the worship of the power of nature, the taint of which is still part of the origins of Halloween.

With the loss of the political power and unity of the Roman Empire, power and unity began to be established by the Christian Church, the Catholic Church, if you will, centered in Rome and more and more under the authority of the Bishop of Rome, who had come to be called the Pope.

Under Pope Leo, Augustine was sent to the British Isles in 497 A.D. to bring the Christian faith to the British people. When he arrived he found Christianity, as I've said, already there, although very weak and un-organized. Augustine's task then became one of strengthening the existing church in England and, more importantly, bringing it into conformity with the Catholic Church of Rome in its liturgy, teachings, and government. Soon, naturally, the church in England was under the authority of the Pope. However, let us not forget that the Christian faith and Church in England was built on early Celtic roots, predating becoming the Roman Catholic Church. Since the roots of the Episcopal Church in the United States go back directly to the church in England, later to become the Church of England, our roots go back to this early Celtic expression of Christianity as well.

The Roman Church continued in England over the centuries, becoming more and more intertwined with the State, as it was throughout Medieval Europe.

I want to bring you now up to the year 1485 when Henry VII became king. He is the father of Henry VIII. In addition, there was another older son, Arthur. In 1501 Henry VII arranged, for political reasons, the marriage of Arthur, who was only 15 years old, to Catherine of Spain. This allowed for an important political alliance between England and Spain. Unhappily, Arthur died five months later. Henry VII believed that marriage between the ruling families of England and Spain was essential. He demanded that his second son, Henry, who became Henry VIII, marry his brother's widow Catherine. However, there was a catch. Canon law of the church at that time forbade one marrying one's brother's widow. A special dispensation from the Pope was necessary. And this was granted.

Now stay with me…. This becomes important when Henry VIII wanted a divorce from Catherine in the future. In the meantime, Henry VII, died and Henry VIII ascended the throne. His marriage to Catherine actually didn't take place until his father's death and his coronation. Catherine of Spain was, like Henry, a strict Roman Catholic. She and Henry had five children, four of whom died at birth. Their only surviving child was Mary. Henry VIII had two concerns, concerns that preceded his falling in love with Anne Bolyn. First, his advisors told him there must be a male heir to the throne; the English people would not accept a woman as sovereign, he was told. Second, he was convinced that the deaths of four of his five children at birth was a punishment for his having married his brother's widow, Papal dispensation or not.

In 1527 Henry applied to Pope Clement VII for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, after he had fallen in love with Anne Bolyn. Catherine was deeply religious and fought the annulment, claiming that her marriage to the fifteen year old Arthur had never been consummated (perhaps fifteen year old boys were made differently then than now). Actually, the annulment from the Pope for a king normally would have been quickly granted. However, Catherine's nephew, Charles V, King of Spain, held the Pope under virtual house arrest, forbidding him to grant the annulment.
In the years between 1529 and 1534, under Henry VIII's leadership, the Christian Church in England, the Catholic Church in England, the Roman Catholic Church in England, under the authority of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, became the Church of England. It remained the Christian Church in England and the Catholic Church in England. It ceased to be the Roman Catholic Church in England. The Pope lost his authority over the Church of England. This change was not a reformation of the kind that was taking place on the European continent under the leadership of Luther and Calvin. This was not a religious reformation, but rather a political change of authority. Authority went from Pope to King. The everyday life of the church went on with no changes. The good and the bad continued.

Let me say here, that there was more involved in this change of authority than Henry's desired divorce. Henry accomplished his changes through the English Parliament, which is made up of representatives of the English people. There was a rising tide of nationalism which resented both the control the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, and his ability to impose taxes.

Henry ended up with a total of six wives. Some died of natural causes, some lost their heads for treason. Our main interest in the marriages was the children that were born. Catherine was the mother of Mary, Anne Bolyn was the mother of Elizabeth, and Jane Seymour was the mother of Edward (finally, a male heir!).

Henry VIII died in 1547. At that time the Church of England was no longer under the authority of the Pope. It was also "unreformed". Upon Henry's death, his son Edward became Edward VI. Since he was only ten years old, England was governed by a Board of Regents. On this Board three points of view were represented: 1. the "old Catholic"; 2. the moderate reformers; and 3. the radical reformers. The "old Catholics" wanted to take the church straight back to Rome. The moderates wanted religious reform, but not a complete break with the Catholic Faith of the past. The radicals wanted to change everything. The moderates prevailed. The Prayer Book was printed in English instead of Latin in 1549. Indulgences were done away with. Many positive influences of the European Reformation bore fruit, including married clergy. But the Apostolic ministry of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons remained. The Holy Eucharist remained with an understanding of the Real Presence that was rejected by the radicals. It is all too long to go into here, suffice it to say that now a religious reformation began in the Church of England, politically free of the Bishop of Rome.

Then Edward died in 1553 at the age of 16. Who came to the throne? Mary, daughter of Catherine. Catherine, you remember, was a devout Roman Catholic. She raised her daughter to be the same. In the simplest of terms, when Mary became queen, she took the whole Church of England right straight back to Rome and the Pope. Thus, if one wants to say that Henry the VIII stared our church, which I hope by now you know is not so and why, such a statement is meaningless because Mary took it all back to Roman Catholicism anyway, having many Reformation leaders burned at the stake, including Archbishop Thomas Cranmer who compiled the first Book of Common Prayer.

Mary ruled for only five years. She died in 1558. Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Bolyn, became Elizabeth I and reigned as queen for 45 years. The civil state of England when Elizabeth became queen was in chaos. When she died, England was a strong and powerful nation, a world power. Elizabeth realized that England had to be united religiously in order to come out of chaos. Under her leadership came the Elizabethan Settlement of Religion. She understood the religious problems of her country when she came to the throne. She, herself, was deeply religious. While many English favored the "old" religious practices, almost all wanted nothing to do with Papal control. Most did not favor the radical reforms of the Protestant Reformation of Europe. Thus, what emerged, peacefully, was a Reformed Catholicism under which the country was united by the required use of the English Book of Common Prayer.

By the death of Elizabeth in 1603 Anglicanism as we know it had been established. The American branch of the Church of England became the Episcopal Church in the United States after the Revolutionary War. It is this reformed, but still Catholic, Faith that we profess as Episcopalians today. Whatever history might think of Henry VIII, he gave the Christian Church in England the opportunity to undergo a strictly political break with the Roman Church, followed later by a reformation from within. The historical link with the church of the apostles and with the early Celtic church in England was maintained.

If we don't squander it, and it sometimes seems we are on the verge of doing so, we could still be God's way of bringing into unity the churches of the Protestant Reformation of the continent and the Church of Rome. Our reformation is unique. It is a gift of God. Today may we praise God for it.

Let us pray together the collect for today found on page 230 of the Book of Common Prayer, Proper 8.

Almighty God, you built your church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen.