In its communication of March 20, 2007, the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church declined to put in place the primates’ pastoral scheme for a primatial vicar, remarking that “for the first time since our separation from the papacy in the 16th century, [the pastoral scheme] replaces the local governance of the Church by its own people with the decisions of a distant and unaccountable group of prelates.” Until then, the Reformation origins of The Church of England had rarely been cited in Anglicanism’s present debates. It may be time that we consider these origins more closely.

As a caveat, this author is a moderate who continues to hope for an avenue by which Anglicans across both the Anglican Communion and the theological spectrum within The Episcopal Church can remain in communion. However, as we consider our various options for living together, there may be ecclesiastical essentials of our Anglican identity inherited from the Reformation that we cannot give up and yet remain Anglican in any distinctive sense. One such essential was first embodied in 1533 in the Act in Restraint of Appeals.

I. The Act

By the time he was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533, Thomas Cranmer was already an ardent advocate for reform in the Church of England. In Cranmer’s new role as archbishop, he determined to aid the king in freeing the Church of England from the interference of the pope. However, Cranmer’s foremost intention was not enabling Henry VIII to accomplish the questionable actions of annulling his marriage to Catherine and wedding Anne Boleyn (though these actions were surely Cranmer’s pretext). Rather, the goal behind Cranmer’s advocacy was freedom to reform the Church of England in ways that were most responsive to the tensions, hopes, and fears distinctive of the church within the realm.

The first and most important step toward this end was the passage by Parliament, with the backing of Cranmer and the king’s protestant vice-gerent, Thomas Cromwell, of the Act in Restraint of Appeals. The act determined that the Church of England had its own autonomy and independence by virtue of its identification with the realm. England, the act argued, enjoyed political autonomy and independence, and just as issues of political contention could not be appealed to authorities beyond England, neither should issues related to the church. This would protect both church and state in England “from the annoyance … of the see of Rome as from the authority of other foreign potentates attempting the diminution or violation thereof.”

Beginning with the passage of the act, “in such cases where heretofore any of the king’s subjects or residents have used to pursue, provoke, or procure any appeal to the see of Rome … they … shall from henceforth take, have, and use their appeals within this realm and not elsewhere.”

It must again be stressed that though Henry’s quest for an annulment was the precipitating event that led to the Act in Restraint of Appeals, this quest did not cause the act. Its cause was the movement toward reformation of the Church of England that had been brewing since the 1520s. The Act in Restraint of Appeals was not a mere political machination. Rather it was the political embodiment of a distinctly English theological and ecclesiastical conviction about the nature of the church and the necessity that ecclesiastical matters be adjudicated provincially by those closest to the stresses and strains experienced by the church in its context.

II. The Legacy

After the Revolutionary War, members of the Church of England in the former British colonies struggled to make new sense of their church identity. Events including the futile attempt of Samuel Seabury to seek consecration in England (being unable to declare the oath of allegiance to the crown) contributed to a changed ecclesiastical understanding and the adoption at the 1789 General Convention in Philadelphia of the name “The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” Just as the embryonic United States of America enjoyed political autonomy and independence from the realm of England, so the new church, with its 13 dioceses corresponding to the 13 states, enjoyed its own independence and autonomy from the Church of England.

In the two centuries since American independence, the Anglican churches in other nations that have gained independence from England have correspondingly asserted their autonomy and independence. Even when the bishops of the various Anglican churches began to meet in council at the Lambeth Conference in the mid-19th century, bishops took care to ensure that their gathering was not misconstrued to be an adjudicating trans-Anglican body.

Until recently, The Episcopal Church and the other churches of the Anglican Communion have lived according to the principle established in 1533 in the Act in Restraint of Appeals. This principle states that, though the church is spiritually universal, it is juridically provincial.

Archbishop Cranmer and his associates believed that “divers and sundry inconveniences and dangers” arose when foreign prelates sought to extend their reach into English ecclesial affairs of any sort. They claimed for the Church of England the prerogative to adjudicate its own affairs without interference from those outside the province. Resolution B032, adopted by the 75th General Convention, clearly intends to reassert The Episcopal Church’s autonomy and independence as the Anglican province in the United States. The text of B032 is as follows:

Resolved, That the 75th General Convention affirm that no resolution of the General Convention is intended to affect either the historic separate and independent status of the churches of the Anglican Communion or the legal identity of The Episcopal Church.

As the Anglican Communion navigates the current presenting issues that affect all Anglican provinces, The Episcopal Church should undoubtedly take counsel with other Anglicans, and very often we would do well to heed their advice. Indeed, it has been largely due to the pressure brought to bear upon us by our Anglican brothers and sisters that we have begun to tend more responsibly to the concerns of those within The Episcopal Church whose theological convictions have led them to dissent from the consent for Bishop V. Gene Robinson and other recent actions of the General Convention.

However, taking counsel differs immensely from establishing new legal arrangements within the Anglican Communion that would serve to undo the principle of autonomy and independence expressed in the Act in Restraint of Appeals. I would argue that this principle could legitimately be called the “First Principle of Anglicanism.” (The detailed discussion of autonomy in Section B of The Windsor Report arguably does not fully appreciate the intention and subsequent ramifications of autonomy as embodied in the act.)

As the Executive Council, the House of Bishops, and the General Convention consider various communiqués, potential plans of action, and ultimately the Anglican Covenant, we would do well to remember this first principle of Anglicanism that initiated our distinctive way of being church and heed the wisdom of our English reforming forbears. ❏

The Rev. Barkley Thompson is rector of the Church of the Holy Apostles, Collierville, Tenn.

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