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The Crown, the Church of England, and Us

The recent visit of the Prince of Wales, and his nuptials, have led to a good deal of comment about his status with respect to the Church of England - not all of it entirely accurate. Thus I am here going to take the opportunity to put the record straight!

Perhaps the first thing to note is that the established Church of England does not extend to New Zealand. Originally, of course, it did. Anglicanism in these islands was part of what was then the United Church of England and Ireland. But in 1857 the dioceses here (including Melanesia) were reconstituted to become the Church of the Province of New Zealand and thus became a completely autonomous part of the worldwide Anglican Communion like the Episcopal Church in the United States. And for American Anglicans, as for all the others around the world like the members of the Anglican Church in Mexico, or the Episcopal Church in Scotland, or the Anglican Church of Korea (to name but three of some thirty-five self-governing Churches) it is the fact that they are in full communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury which establishes their bona fides as Anglicans. Only the Church of England (the dioceses in England itself) is established, and thus has the Queen as its Supreme Governor.

In the sixteenth century the English reformation took its own unique turn because Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn. Although he had a daughter by his wife Katharine of Aragon, all their sons had died, and in the thought of the time it was easy to believe that God was punishing the king for having contracted a forbidden union, since the queen was the widow of Henry’s elder brother Arthur, and such marriages are forbidden in the book of Leviticus. True, Pope Julius II had given a dispensation to allow them to do so - but was he really entitled set aside scripture? The king decided to ask Julius’ successor Pope Clement VII to undo the dispensation, grant an annulment stating that the marriage had been invalid from the start (not a divorce) and let him marry Anne.

Normally popes were delighted to accommodate reigning princes, just as Julius II had done, but Clement had a problem - he was the prisoner of the Emperor Charles V whose aunt just happened to be Katharine of Aragon. So Henry decided to take matters into his own hands. He made himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England, a title which was later changed by Anne Boleyn’s daughter Elizabeth I to Supreme Governor - which the sovereigns of England have borne ever since - although as the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion make clear, ’we give not to our princes the ministering either of God’s Word, or of the Sacraments.’

Henry’s action was not as outrageous as it seems. He had no intention of founding a new Church like the protestants on the continent. And he had the precedent of the kings of Israel and Judah to go by, not to mention the fact that from the reign of Constantine the Great at the beginning of the fourth century the Byzantine Emperors had presided over the Eastern Churches in much the same way as the Henry’s successors were to do over the Church of England. The tsars likewise presided over the Russian Orthodox Church until the Emperor Nicholas II abdicated in 1917, while the kings of France, Spain and Portugal appointed most of the important Roman Catholic bishops and abbots in their dominions with little or no reference to the pope - a practice which I believe General Franco piously maintained until his death, and for all I know King Juan Carlos continues.

Like David and Solomon, Christian kings were God’s Anointed. They were consecrated with the oil of chrism - as the English sovereigns alone still are (with the possible exception of the king of Tonga!) and they were thus semi-sacred beings with a unique God-given duty to protect the Church. According to the historian C.V. Wedgewood, Charles I even sacrificed his throne, and eventually his life, rather than abandon the apostolic succession of the English bishops in favour of the so-called parity of ministers demanded by his puritan opponents. As Elizabeth I wrote, ’Thy Church my Care.’

Nowadays, of course, the sovereign is beholden to the elected government of the United Kingdom even where the Church of England is concerned. Not everyone has been happy to have kings and queens exercising power over the Church, and they are not likely to be any better pleased by the Prime Minister having the last word in the appointment of the bishops. Had Michael Howard succeeded Tony Blair, then a member of the St John’s Wood synagogue would then be in that position - very ecumenical perhaps, but rather odd all the same.

In New Zealand, however - and everywhere else except England - none of this applies. Here the Anglican Church has been entirely independent since the middle of the nineteenth century, and although we may be pleased that the royal family belongs (at least outside Scotland!) to the same world-wide Church as we do, here General Synod has the final word - for good or ill!