Orthodox Britain? Part IV

 Before reading this post, please read the other three parts if you haven't. Whereas I formerly defended Anglo-Saxon England pre-1066 as a Roman Catholic kingdom in the most previous post, I have again changed my opinion on this matter. The purpose of this post is not merely for theological discussion, but to understand the context and world of Old English Poetry. 

Understanding why the Anglo-Saxon Church operated the way it did may help us understand its theology and life of worship. The Filioque was sung in Old English hymns. The Filioque had come to be recited universally through the West with the exception of Rome itself by Pope Leo III who agreed with the theology of the Filioque but chose not to push its acceptance into the Roman Creed. The procession of the Spirit from the Son had its roots in Western creeds going back so far as A. D. 447, though it was not used until 1014 in Rome at the request of the Holy Roman Emperor towards the pope.

I did formerly hold the use of the Filioque in the western creed as evidence that Anglo-Saxon England prior to 1066 had all along been a Roman Catholic kingdom. My further education of Eastern Orthodoxy's understanding of the use of the Fiilioque before 1054 has again changed my mind though.   
Some Orthodox believe that those Christians before 1054 that recited the Filioque in the creed did so in good faith. Indeed, the Filoque had been recited during Mass in some places for centuries before the great schism or even the 9th century schism that some consider an earlier or beginning of the overall great schism. Thus the acceptance of the Filioque in the Anglo-Saxon creeds may not prove the Anglo-Saxon Church to have been Roman Catholic after all.
The Latin Nicene-Constantinoplian  Creed was commonly cited in Anglo-Saxon England, though sometimes only the Creed from the 4th century Council of Nicaea, was read as well.
Elfric considered Paul's Epistle to the Laodiceans to be canonical as Anglo-Saxon England did not agree with the canon of Scripture proposed by the Africans or the Romans. 
The liturgical sources and practices though are perhaps not as trivial to our understanding of Anglo-Saxon England as is the authority the Saxons saw the church to have. For example, baptism by immersion was common in Anglo-Saxon England but Catholic Apologist can always claim this was a discipline rather than a dogma of theology. Let us now turn to the issue of authority, to see that Anglo-Saxon England before 1066 was indeed not Roman Catholic. 
As discussed in previous posts, William the Conquer was given a papal blessing by Pope Alexander II to conquer Anglo-Saxon England to depose Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury. While William actually continued to see himself as head of the English Church after the Norman Conquest he had first gained the pope's support for this Crusade against the Saxons by the pope's assumption that England would be his vassal.  But why exactly did the pope approve of William's coming to be conquest? Was it simply that the pope wanted control over England? I did formerly claim that Archbishop Stigand's support of Antipope Benedict X as evidence that Stigand was Roman Catholic. I now retract this view as I have found the gathering evidence to tie into what will later become the Investiture Controversy between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry VI of the Holy Roman Empire.
As I discussed in a previous post, Anglo-Saxon Archbishops of Canterbury had not been appointed by the pope for quite sometime before Stigand's promotion to the office. That said, the pope now intervened in this affair while having never recognized him as a legitimate heir to the bishropc of Canterbury. 
A little more background needs here to be added. First, Pope Leo IX was more and more pushing the the role of the power of the papacy that would later go to an extreme with Pope Gregory VII during the Gregorian Reforms. Pope Leo lived at the time of the so called great schism of 1054, while Pope Alexander II lived at the time of the Norman Conquest. Robert of Jumieges had been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Edward the Confessor, king of England. Edward the Confessor had desired to place Spearhafoc as the new bishop of London, a seat formerly held by Robert of Jumieges before his promoted to Canterbury. Despite the king's wish, Pope Leo IX forbid Spearhafoc to be recognized as the bishop of London. Already now, though to a much larger scale later, we see the roots of the Investiture controversy. Whereas bishops {and even some popes!} had historically been appointed by king and emperors, popes more and more since at least the time of Leo III began to see it the other way around. Here, the papacy does not recognize the authority of the king of England in placing individuals as bishops without papal permission.
As to Archbishop Stigand, he was appointed by Edward the Confessor as Archbishop of Canterbury in replacement of Robert of Jumieges.
Stigand's support of Antiope Benedict X further demonstrates the lack of Roman Catholicism in the English Church. Benedict had opposed much of the reforming papacy in the 11th century that would only heighten with the later Gregory VII.  Thus, Stigand was no puppet to the pope's power, and Alexander had, and would successfully see, both Stigand and the Anglo-Saxon Church fall to the papacy growing supremacy over the church. Stigand would be deposed in 1070 A. D. partly due to the claim that he held more than one  bishopric. What a lousy case Rome made for Stigand's downfall of the chair of Canterbury, which many have pointed out to be mostly from political reasons. Indeed, many bishops in the church at time held more than one bishopric yet were not demoted by the pope for it. 
The Roman Catholic Church will come to see the Anglo-Saxon nobility essentially all wiped out by the Norman lords. The Feudal System will set in, putting millions of Saxons at the service of their feudal lords and bishops for centuries to come. 
It seems the pre-1066 Anglo-Saxon Church was probably either an Orthodox Church or a pre-Anglican Church. I currently lean towards the latter, given England's usual profound connection towards the West. Either way though, England before 1066 was probably not Roman Catholic, at least not in the sense that Roman Catholicism would come to be known by Pope Gregory VII in the Investiture Controversy and on. On the contrary, we see evidence in Anglo-Saxon England of the monarchy have a profound authority over the English, a fact which could be used to justify either Anglican or Orthodox theology. The English's relation to the papacy over the years before 1054 doesn't seem to give any substantial evidence that England supported Papal Supremacy that I am currently aware of. England was certainly influenced by the papacy before 1054, but I don't see that as any explicit evidence that England saw itself as a vassal under one universal bishop in Rome. The autonomy of the Anglo-Saxon Church in many affairs actually further lays ground towards the eventual sixteenth century split between The Church of England the Roman Catholic Church. 

Further Sources: The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church: A Study and the Durham Hymnal {Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England}by Inge B. Millfull, The Encyclopedia Americana, A Library of Universal Knowledge Volume 11, Church in Eight Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford by Henry Soames, Preaching Apocrypha in Anglo-Saxon England pp. 99 by Brandon Hawk, An Inquiry Intp the Doctrines of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 1066: The Year of Conquest by David Howard.


http://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/852/western-saints-filioque/