Thirty-nine articles
The thirty-nine articles are historical statements of faith of the Anglican Creed . They are not to be understood as comprehensive and complete principles of faith of the denomination, but rather represent the position of the Church of England at that time in the dispute with the Roman Catholic Church and Calvinism .
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The thirty-nine articles were compiled in the Canterbury Provincial Synod (Convocation) in 1563 under the direction of Archbishop of Canterbury , Matthew Parker . They were processed until 1571, signed by Queen Elizabeth I that year and passed by parliament as binding.
They are based on the forty-two articles that were introduced in 1552 by Thomas Cranmer and published under Edward VI. entered into force a year later. They can be found in the Book of Common Prayer and other Anglican prayer books. Ministers and high officials of the Church of England were required to take an oath that what is said in the articles was consistent with the Word of God. This oath is no longer required by other Anglican member churches. Since 1865, a general declaration of consent by the clergy has been sufficient in the Church of England, allowing them to reject or critically examine individual articles of faith. The preparation of the Thirty-Nine Articles became necessary because at the time of their writing no agreement could be reached on the relationship of the Anglicans to Protestantism . In view of the danger of a split in the church, it was agreed to positively formulate what its members believe in.
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Articles I – V: The essence of belief. The first five articles articulate the Catholic principles of belief regarding the nature of God as represented in the Holy Trinity .
Articles VI and VII: The Basics of Faith. They deal with the Bible while Article VIII describes the essential principles of belief.
Article IX – XVIII: The life of faith. These articles elaborate on the topics of sin, justification, and the eternal disposition of the soul. A special focus is the main change theme of justification by faith . This and the rest of the articles in this section show the Anglican Church on the middle course of a movement of salvation between Catholicism and Protestantism in which good works are the result of the faith and work of the Church and for the sacraments.
Article XXIX – XXXI: The Communal Nature of Faith. These articles focus on the public appearance of the faith and the church - the church as an institution and its bodies, vocation, ministry, and sacramental theology .
Articles XXXII – XXXIX concern celibacy , dealing with the excommunicated, the traditions of the church and the relationship with the state.
Adaptation of the Thirty-Nine Articles
Opinions on the Thirty-Nine Articles differ outside of the Church of England . The Episcopal Church of the United States of America , which adopted an adapted version in 1801, regards the original version as a historical document that is not binding on its members.
Earlier, John Wesley , the founder of the Methodist Church , propagated a modified version, which is still an official Methodist document as the Articles of Religion today.
In 1771, a number of English nonconformists and reformers, such as theologians Theophilus Lindsey and Francis Blackburne , petitioned for the exemption of Church of England students and pastors from the obligation to sign the Thirty-Nine Articles, instead demanding the Bible as Protestants to be able to interpret independently. The petition was finally signed by 250 personalities, but rejected by parliament in February 1772 . As a consequence, the anti-Trinitarian Theophilus Lindsey left the Anglican Church and became the founder of English Unitarianism .
In the nineteenth century , before converting to Catholicism , John Henry Newman tried to show that the thirty-nine articles' contrast to the Catholic Creed is less than has been widely held.
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Footnotes
- ^ Arvid John Carlson: The Puritans and the Convocation of 1563 . In: Theodore K. Rabb, Jerrold E. Seigel: Action and Conviction in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of EH Harbison . Princeton University Press, Princeton 1969, pp. 133-153.
- ↑ Balz, Krause et al. a .: Theological real encyclopedia. Walter de Gruyter, 1976, ISBN 978-3-11-011613-7 , p. 347.
- ^ Text on the Church of England website , accessed January 3, 2016