Orthodox Britain Part VII

 

For my previous thoughts: https://themedievalist.blogspot.com/2020/01/orthodox-britain-some-thoughts-on.html

https://themedievalist.blogspot.com/2020/01/orthodox-britain-some-thoughts-on_25.html

https://themedievalist.blogspot.com/2020/02/orthodox-britain-part-iii.html

https://themedievalist.blogspot.com/2020/04/orthodox-britain-part-iv.html

https://themedievalist.blogspot.com/2020/04/orthodox-britain-part-v.html

https://themedievalist.blogspot.com/2020/08/orthodox-britain-part-vi.html

I did formerly address the fact in the previous posts of this series of how the Anglo-Saxons did not support the reforming papacy of the eleventh century. I used this as support for the view that the Anglo-Saxons in 1066 were not Roman Catholic. Of course, it is also widely well known that many kings in the eleventh through fifteenth centuries opposed a high view of papal supremacy when it came to interfering with their power. Henry I of England and Anselm of Canterbury came into conflict on this issue for example.   

So, to continue my discussion of whether England was an Orthodox country rather than a Roman Catholic one, let me say that I believe it was a Roman Catholic kingdom in 1066. For that matter, essentially all of Western Europe was. The belief that stands contrary to this is the recently popular view that the Anglo-Saxon Church was an Orthodox Church. However, I see little historical evidence for either of these views. The wide acceptance of the Filioque among the Anglo-Saxons is a strong indication of them not being Eastern Orthodox, for example. Furthermore, I have never read from or about any Anglo-Saxon theologians who taught a type of Palamism that would later divide the Christian Church between east and west.

Some Anglicans saw evidence that the Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Church had been a pre-Anglican Church before the eleventh century. This view was espoused by Archbishop Matthew Park of Canterbury, for example. While I believe it is a stretch to claim that the Anglican Church goes back to the apostle Paul (as some belief), there is evidence, nonetheless, to back the idea of a pre-Anglican Church. However, for historical purposes, I believe that it is fairer to describe the church before the Norman Conquest as the Celtic/Anglo-Saxon Church rather than as the Anglican Church considering the great breach in time between the Norman Conquest and the English Reformation. After all, from the eleventh century through the sixteenth, the English Church was more or less Roman Catholic. While we may be able to describe the English Church before the Norman Conquest as Roman Catholic, I don't believe this would be the most historically accurate for several reasons. Among them would be the reasons that I have already discussed. Another evidence against the English Church being Roman Catholic before the English Reformation, however, is in the writings of Archbishop Parker. A scholar of Anglo-Saxon studies, he concluded that the Anglo-Saxons had never taught Transubstantiation. 

On the other hand, I do not think it is honest for some Roman Catholic apologists to claim that the Anglo-Saxons were Roman Catholic in the sense of the church's developing teachings on papal supremacy, which as I have shown previously, the Anglo-Saxons clearly rejected. The fact that the Anglo-Saxons had a long history of debt to the Church of Rome's Christianization of Britain is not sufficient evidence to prove that the English people somehow supported papal supremacy when the evidence shows otherwise. For certain, the Anglo-Saxons are indebted not only to Rome but also, to the Eastern Christians who brought their art to the British Isles. 

With all of this said, my view now is that the Anglo-Saxon Church was a Roman Catholic one, but this does not mean that the Anglo-Saxons supported papal supremacy any more than did many of the Norman kings in the following centuries that clearly opposed this theological position. Many of the Anglo-Saxons like their later Norman Conquerors, saw the king as the head of the church in their land.  The ongoing conflict of power between kings and popes would come to heads during the Protestant Reformation. Theologically, it may be argued that the Anglo-Saxon Church was more Anglican than Roman Catholic. Nevertheless, the British Church was more or less Roman Catholic in the simple sense that the Anglican articles of the Reformation hadn't been written yet! 

In summary, I would more or less affirm that the Anglo-Saxons were Roman Catholics that resisted a high view of papal supremacy that was becoming dominant in the eleventh century. While this may sound like an oxymoron, I believe that is because most today judge Roman Catholicism as a complete acceptance of the pope's dogmatic teachings. Such, however, was not the case for all Roman Catholic monarchs and their subjects in times past. The Saxons were Roman Catholic in the sense that they held communion to Rome but I would argue, that their theology was in many ways more Anglican than Papalism.