The birth of the Anglican Church

The break away from the observance Catholic and the conflict between the monarchy and the pope had something of a paradox. The English religious policy reached a brilliant result for compromise and pragmatism: a State Church, the Anglican Church, theologically close to both the Catholic Church and to that reformed, but independent of both.

Enrico VIII It was one of the greatest kings in the history of England. Fairly cultured and very popular, he wrote in 1521 one of the most successful antiluterani rebels that the Catholic propaganda has been able to produce. The booklet, dedicated to the defense of the seven sacraments, He earned him, by Pope, the title of "Defender of the Faith". Although there were not many European sovereigns able to write a good theological treatise, the most know the king to the vicissitudes of his six marriages.

The story of the first divorce, also for its dramatic implications, highlighted by numerous theatrical and cinematographic works, come l’Enrico VIII Wiiliam di Shakespeare, it is known. Forced, for political reasons, to marry the widow of his elder brother Catherine of Aragon, the young king struggled greatly to get a special dispensation for the marriage explicitly forbidden by the Bible. Dad, conciliatory, ruled in his favor, "The birth of the Anglican Church. When the poor Queen's health did not allow more Enrico, who was a vigorous man, to hope in the long-awaited male heir, the king saw fit to request the annulment of marriage. What he asked was that the Pope Clement VII to recognize the mistake of his predecessor in granting a dispensation, in such a way to be considered free to marry the noble Anna Bolena which had in the meantime fallen in love.

Dad, who had just suffered the sack of Rome (1527) by the troops of Charles V, Emperor and grandson of the Queen of England, He could not afford to do a snub to the Germans who still occupied much of Italy. So, day face of the hesitations of the papal Curia, King Henry summoned an ecclesiastical court, led by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), who granted the annulment sought. Dad, concerned to exercise its jurisdiction in a time when all over Europe it seemed to be constantly trampled, reaffirmed the validity of the marriage between Henry and Catherine and condemned the King of England. With the Act of Supremacy of the 1534, the king declared himself supreme head of the Church of England on earth and all relations with the Roman ecclesiastical administration were truncated. A priests and officials were asked an oath of allegiance to the sovereign as head of the Church: lead, as the humanist Thomas More (1478-1535), author of the famous Utopia, there would bend, He was sentenced to death.

The schism was consummated, but England was not yet a Protestant. One of the first acts of the king in the direction of the Reformation was the proclamation of the kingdom required all parishes to have a BibIia in English that he should always be kept available to all. Small and large monasteries were abolished and their assets confiscated by the Crown who sold them to the noble and bourgeois wealthy landowners. The revolt of the northern provinces, known as the 'Pilgrimage of Grace', It was violently repressed. However, the king proclaimed even defender of Catholic doctrine.

In 1539 did vote by parliament "Six Articles" which reiterated the main tenets of Catholicism. The intermediate position of Henry was repeated until the end of his reign, when he sent death is lenient Protestants accused of heresy and Catholic leaders accused of treason. We have to wait the work of his successors, and especially that of the queen Elisabetta so as to fulfill England's passage to the Protestant faith.