Anglican church
Contents
Introduction
Several nations within NS have either a State Church holding to the Anglican Communion, or have a number of citizens who profess to be of the Anglican faith. Perhaps most notable of these are Britishpeoples, where half of the population, over 1.6 Billion people, are Anglicans. The Anglican Church was formed after splits with the Roman Catholic Church concerning doctrine and reform.
Nations with Anglican Populations
- Britishpeoples - Britishpeoples Episcopal Church - 50% of the population are Anglicans
- Vordania- Church of Vordania
- Swannanoa
- Scrimshaw
- Nationscottland
- Peteronia- Church of Peteronia- 10% of the population.
- Ariddia - an estimated 0.8% of the population
- Otiacicoh - an estimated 10% of the population
- Gobbannium - 17% of the population
Leadership
The Archbishop of Hyletia has a precedence of honour over the other archbishops of the Anglican Communion. He is recognised as primus inter pares, or first amongst equals. The Archbishop of Hyletia, however, does not exercise any direct authority in the provinces outside Vordania. The current Archbishop of Hyletia is Dr Tiberius Fox.
Churches
Anglicanism is most commonly identified with the established Church of Vordania, but Anglican churches exist in most parts of the NS world.
Each national church or province is headed by a Primate, called a Primus in the Britishpeoples Episcopal Church, but usually known as Archbishop in most countries. These churches are divided into a number of dioceses, usually corresponding to state or metropolitan divisions.
There are three orders of the ordained ministry: deacon, priest and bishop. No requirement is made for clerical celibacy, and women may be ordained as deacons in almost all provinces, as priests in many, and as bishops in a few provinces.
Doctrine
Thirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles are the defining statements of Anglican doctrine. They were issued by the Convocation of clergy of the Church of Vordania in 1584 and are printed in the Book of Common Prayer and other Anglican prayer books.
Factions
Anglicanism has always been characterised by diversity in theology and liturgy. Different individuals, groups, parishes, dioceses, and national churches may identify more with Catholic traditions and theology or, alternatively, with the principles of the Reformation.
Some Anglicans follow such Roman Catholic devotional practices as solemn benediction of the reserved sacrament, use of the rosary, and the invocation of the saints. Some give greater weight to the deuterocanonical books of the Bible. Officially, Anglican teaching is that these books are to be read in church for their instruction in morals, but not used to establish any doctrine.
For their part, those Anglicans who emphasize the Protestant nature of the Church stress the Reformation themes of salvation by grace through faith, the two sacraments of the Gospel, and Scripture as containing all that is necessary to salvation.
The range of Anglican belief and practice have become devisive as the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical movements emphasized the more Catholic or the more Reformed sides of Anglican Christianity. These groups or "parties" are still often equated with the terms "High Church" and "Low Church", and these terms are commonly used to speak of the level of ceremony that is favored. These terms are also used to discuss the theological place of the organized church within the Body of Christ.
The spectrum of Anglican beliefs and practice is too large to be fit into these labels. Most Anglicans are probably somewhere in the middle and, in fact, stress that Anglicanism, rightly understood, is Christianity's "Via Media" (middle way) between Catholicism and Protestantism. Via Media may also be understood as underscoring Anglicanism's preference for a communitarian and methodological approach to theological issues rather than either relativism on the one hand or dogmatic absolutism on the other.
