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John Wesley

John Wesley

: For entries on other people named John Wesley, see John Wesley (disambiguation). John Wesley (June 17, 1703–March 2, 1791) was an 18th-century Anglican clergyman and Christian theologian who founded the Methodist movement. Methodism had three rises, the first at Oxford University with the founding of the so-called "Holy Club", the second while Wesley was parish priest in Savannah, Georgia, and the third in London after Wesley's return to England. The movement took form from its third rise in the early 1740s with Wesley, along with others, itinerant field preaching and the subsequent founding of religious societies for the formation of believers. This was the first widely successful evangelical movement in the United Kingdom. Wesley's Methodist Connection included societies throughout England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland before spreading to other parts of the English-speaking world and beyond. He divided his religious societies further into classes and bands for intensive accountability and religious instuction. United Kingdom Australia]] Methodists, under Wesley's direction, became leaders in many social justice issues of the day including prison reform and abolitionism movements. Wesley's strength as a theologian lay in his ability to combine seemingly opposing theological stances. His greatest theological achievement was his promotion of what he termed "Christian perfection", or holiness of heart and life. Wesley insisted that in this life, the Christian could come to a state where the love of God, or perfect love, reigned supreme in one's heart. His evangelical theology, especially his understanding of Christian perfection, was firmly grounded in his sacramental theology. He continually insisted on the general use of the means of grace (prayer, Scripture meditation, and Holy Communion, etc.) as the means by which God transformed the believer. Throughout his life, Wesley remained within the Church of England and insisted that his movement was well within the bounds of the Anglican Church. His maverick use of church polity put him at odds with many within the Church of England though toward the end of his life he was widely respected.

Youth

abolitionism John Wesley was born in Epworth, 23 miles (37 km) northwest of Lincoln, the son of Samuel Wesley, a graduate of Oxford, and a minister of the Church of England. In 1689 Samuel married Susannah Annesley, twenty-fifth child of Dr. Samuel Annesley. Both Samuel and Susanna had been raised in Dissenting homes before becoming members of the Established Church early in adulthood. Susannah herself became a mother of nineteen children. In 1696 Samuel Wesley was appointed rector of Epworth, where John, the fifteenth child, was born. At the age of six, John was rescued from the burning rectory. This escape made a deep impression on his mind; and he spoke of himself as a "brand plucked from the burning," and as a child of Providence. The Wesley children's early education was given by their parents in the Epworth rectory. Each child, including the girls, were taught to read, beginning at the age of five. In 1713 John was admitted to the Charterhouse School, London, where he lived the studious, methodical, and (for a while) religious life in which he had been trained at home.

In Oxford and Georgia

In 1720, Wesley entered Christ Church College, Oxford, and received his Master of Arts in 1727. He was ordained deacon in 1725 and elected fellow of Lincoln College in the following year. He was his father's curate for two years, and then returned to Oxford to fulfil his functions as fellow. During his early years, John had enjoyed a deep religious experience. His biographer, Tyerman, says that he went to Charterhouse a saint; but he became negligent of his religious duties, and left a sinner. Leading Wesley scholars point to 1725 as the date of Wesley's conversion. In the year of his ordination he read Thomas a Kempis and Jeremy Taylor, and began to seek the religious truths which underlay the great revival of the 18th century. The reading of Law's Christian Perfection and Serious Call gave him, he said, a more sublime view of the law of God; and he resolved to keep it, inwardly and outwardly, as sacredly as possible. He pursued a rigidly methodical and abstemious life, studied the Scriptures, and performed his religious duties diligently, depriving himself so that he would have alms to give. He devoted himself to a godly life. He began to seek after holiness of heart and life. Many have mis-understood this time in his life as legalistic when in fact it was during his Oxford days that Wesley began to discover the true practice of the Christian faith, an understanding, like so many others in his life, that would continue to develop both while he was in Georgia and after his subsequent return to England in 1738. The year of his return to Oxford (1729) marks the beginning of the rise of Methodism. The famous "holy club" was formed by John's younger brother, Charles Wesley, and some fellow students, derisively called "Methodists" because of their methodical habits. When, in 1735, a clergyman "inured to contempt of the ornaments and conveniences of life, to bodily austerities, and to serious thoughts," was wanted by Governor James Oglethorpe to go to the Province of Georgia, Wesley responded, accompanied by his brother and follower, Charles, and remained in the colony for two years, returning to England in 1738. While there, he began the first Sunday school. He had had an unhappy love affair and felt that his mission (to convert the Indians and deepen and regulate the religious life of the colonists) had been a failure. His high-church notions and strict enforcement of the regulations of the church, especially concerning holy communion, did not appeal to the colonists; and he left Georgia with several malicious indictments pending against him for alleged violation of church law.

The Beginning of the Revival

Wesley returned to England depressed and beaten. It was at this point that he turned to the Moravians, a group with whom he had become familiar in Georgia. His Aldersgate experience of May 24, 1738, at a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, in which he heard a reading of Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans, and penned the now famous lines "I felt my heart strangely warmed", is but one of many experiences in Wesley's journey of faith. A few weeks later he preached a remarkable sermon on the doctrine of present personal salvation by faith, which was followed by another, on God's grace "free in all, and free for all." Though his understanding of both justification and the assurance matured, He never stopped preaching the importance of faith for salvation and the witness of God's Spirit with the spirit of the believer that they were, indeed, a child of God. He allied himself with the Moravian society in Fetter Lane, and in 1738 went to Herrnhut, the Moravian headquarters in Germany. On his return to England he drew up rules for the "bands" into which the Fetter Lane Society was divided, and published a collection of hymns for them. He met frequently with this and other religious societies in London, but did not preach often in 1738, because most of the parish churches were closed to him. Wesley's Oxford friend, the evangelist George Whitefield, upon his return from America, was also excluded from the churches of Bristol; and, going to the neighbouring village of Kingswood, preached in the open air, in February 1739, to a company of miners. Wesley hesitated to accept Whitefield's earnest request to copy this bold step. Overcoming his scruples, he preached his first sermon in the open air, near Bristol, in April of that year. He was still unhappy about the idea of field preaching, and would have thought, "till very lately," such a method of saving souls as "almost a sin." These open-air services were very successful; and he never again hesitated to preach in any place where an assembly could be got together, more than once using his father's tombstone at Epworth as a pulpit. He continued for fifty years — entering churches when he was invited, and taking his stand in the fields, in halls, cottages, and chapels, when the churches would not receive him. Late in 1739 Wesley broke with the Moravians in London. Wesley had helped them organize the Fetter Lane Society; and those converted by his preaching and that of his brother and Whitefield had become members of their bands. But finding, as he said, that they had fallen into heresies, especially quietism, he decided to form his own followers into a separate society. "Thus," he wrote, "without any previous plan, began the Methodist Society in England." Similar societies were soon formed in Bristol and Kingswood, and wherever Wesley and his friends made converts.

Persecutions; lay preaching

From 1739 onward Wesley and the Methodists were persecuted by clergymen and magistrates. They were attacked in sermons and in print and at times attacked by mobs. They remained always at work among the neglected and needy. They were denounced as promulgators of strange doctrines, fomenters of religious disturbances; as blind fanatics, leading people astray, claiming miraculous gifts, attacking the clergy of the Church of England, and trying to reestablish Catholicism. Feeling, however, that the church failed in its duty to call sinners to repentance, that many of the clergymen were corrupt and that souls were perishing in their sins, he regarded himself as commissioned by God to bring about revival in the church; and no opposition, or persecution, or obstacles could prevail against the divine urgency and authority of this commission. The prejudices of his High-church training, his strict notions of the methods and proprieties of public worship, his views of the apostolic succession and the prerogatives of the priest, even his most cherished convictions, were not allowed to stand in the way. Unwilling that men should perish in their sins and unable to reach them from church pulpits, he began field-preaching. Seeing that he and the few clergymen cooperating with him could not do the work that needed to be done, he was led, as early as 1739, to approve of lay preaching; and men who were not episcopally ordained were permitted to preach and do pastoral work. Thus one of the great features of Methodism, to which it has largely owed its success, was adopted by Wesley in answer to a necessity.

Chapels and organizations

Catholic As his societies needed houses to worship in, Wesley began to provide chapels, first in Bristol, then in London and elsewhere. The Bristol chapel (1739) was at first in the hands of trustees; a large debt was contracted, and Wesley's friends urged him to keep it under his own control, so the deed was cancelled, and he became sole trustee. Following this precedent, all Methodist chapels were committed in trust to him until by a "deed of declaration" all his interests in them were transferred to a body of preachers called the "Legal Hundred." When disorder arose among some members of the societies, he adopted the plan of giving tickets to members, with their names written by his own hand. These were renewed every three months. Those deemed unworthy did not receive new tickets, and dropped out of the society without disturbance. The tickets were regarded as commendatory letters. When the debt on a chapel became a burden, it was proposed that one in twelve members should collect offerings regularly from the eleven allotted to him. Out of this, under Wesley's care, grew, in 1742, the Methodist class-meeting system. In order to keep the disorderly out of the societies, Wesley established a probationary system, and undertook to visit each society regularly: the quarterly visitation, or conference. As the societies increased, he could not keep up contact effectively; so he drew up in 1743 a set of "General Rules" for the "United Societies," which were the nucleus of the Methodist Discipline, and still exist. General Rules: It is therefore expected of all who continue therein that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation, First: By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind . . . ; Secondly: By . . . doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, to all . . . ; Thirdly: By attending upon all the ordinances of God As the number of preachers and preaching-places increased, doctrinal and administrative matters needed to be discussed; so the two Wesleys, with four other clergymen and four lay preachers, met for consultation in London in 1744. This was the first Methodist conference. Two years later, in order that the preachers might work more systematically and the societies receive their services more regularly, Wesley appointed "helpers" to definitive circuits, each of which included at least thirty appointments a month. Believing that their usefulness and efficiency were promoted by being changed from one circuit to another every year or two, he established the "itinerancy", and insisted that his preachers submit to its rules. When, in 1788, some objected to the frequent changes, he wrote, "For fifty years God has been pleased to bless the itinerant plan, the last year most of all. It must not be altered till I am removed, and I hope it will remain till our Lord comes to reign on earth."

Ordination of ministers

As his societies multiplied, and the elements of an ecclesiastical system were gradually adopted, the breach between Wesley and the Church of England widened. The question of separation from that church, urged, on the one side, by some of his preachers and societies, but most strenuously opposed by his brother Charles and others, needed to be considered, but Wesley refused to leave the Church of England. In 1745 Wesley wrote that he would make any concession which his conscience permitted, in order to live in harmony with the clergy, but could not give up the doctrine of an inward and present salvation by faith alone. He would not stop preaching or dissolve the societies or end lay preaching. As a clergymen within the Established Church, he had no plans to go further. "We dare not," he said, "administer baptism or the Lord's Supper without a commission from a bishop in the apostolic succession." But the next year he read Lord King on the Primitive Church, and Wesley was convinced by it that apostolic succession was a fiction, and that he was "a scriptural episcopos as much as any man in England." Some years later Stillingfleet's Irenicon led him to renounce the opinion that Christ or his apostles prescribed any form of church government, and to declare ordination valid when performed by a presbyter. It was not until about forty years later that he ordained by the laying on of hands, and even then only for those who would serve outside of England. When he had waited long enough, and the Bishop of London had refused to ordain a minister for the American Methodists who were without the ordinances, Wesley ordained preachers for Scotland and England and America, with power to administer the sacraments in 1784. Though already a presbyter in the Church of England, Wesley consecrated, by laying on of hands, Dr. Thomas Coke to be superintendent in America. He also ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as presbyters. He intended that Coke, and Asbury who Coke would subsequently consecrate in America, should ordain others in the newly founded Methodist Episcopal Church. This alarmed his brother Charles, who begged him to stop before he had "quite broken down the bridge," and not embitter his [Charles'] last moments on earth, nor "leave an indelible blot on our memory." Wesley replied that he had not separated from the church, nor did he intend to, but he must and would save as many souls as he could while alive, "without being careful about what may possibly be when I die." Although he rejoiced that the Methodists in America were free, he advised his English followers to remain in the established church; and he himself died within it.

Advocacy of Arminianism

Wesley was a strong controversialist. The most notable of his controversies was that on Calvinism. His father was of the Arminian school in the church; but John decided for himself while in college, and expressed himself strongly against the doctrines of election and reprobation. Whitefield inclined to Calvinism. In his first tour in America, he embraced the views of the New England School of Calvinism; and when Wesley preached a sermon on Free Grace, attacking predestination as blasphemous, representing "God as worse than the devil," Whitefield asked him (1739) not to repeat or publish the discourse, not wanting a dispute. Wesley's sermon was published, and among the many replies to it was one by Whitefield. Separation followed in 1741. Wesley wrote that those who held universal redemption did not desire separation, but "those who held particular redemption would not hear of any accommodation." Whitefield, Harris, Cennick, and others, became the founders of Calvinistic Methodism. Whitefield and Wesley, however, were soon back on friendly terms, and their friendship remained thenceforth unbroken, though they traveled different paths. Occasional publications appeared on Calvinistic doctrines, by Wesley and others; but in 1770 the controversy broke out anew with violence and bitterness. Toplady, Berridge, Rowland, Richard Hill, and others were engaged on the one side, and Wesley and Fletcher on the other. Toplady was editor of The Gospel Magazine, which was filled with the controversy. Wesley in 1778 began the publication of The Arminian Magazine, not, he said, to convince Calvinists, but to preserve Methodists and to teach the truth that "God willeth all men to be saved." A "lasting peace" could be secured in no other way.

Doctrines / theology

20th century Wesley scholar Albert Outler argued in his introduction to the 1964 collection John Wesley (ISBN 0195028104) that Wesley developed his theology by using what Outler termed the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. In this method, Wesley interpreted Scripture through the lens of Church Tradition, Reason, and Personal Experience. The doctrines which Wesley emphasized in his sermons and writings are prevenient grace, present personal salvation by faith, the witness of the Spirit, and sanctification. He defined the witness of the Spirit as: "an inward impression on the soul of believers, whereby the spirit of God directly testifies to their spirit that they are the children of God." Sanctification he spoke of (1790) as the "grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called `Methodists'." Wesley taught that sanctification was obtainable instantaneously by faith, between justification and death. It was not "sinless perfection" that he contended for; but he believed that those who are "perfect in love" feel no sin. He was anxious that this doctrine should be constantly preached for the system of Wesleyan Arminianism, the foundations of which were laid by Wesley and Fletcher (see Jacob Hermann, Arminianism). Two comparatively recent works which explain Wesley's theological positions are Randy Maddox's 1994 book Responsible Grace: John Wesley's Practical Theology (ISBN 0687003342) and Thomas Oden's 1994 book John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity: A Plain Exposition of His Teaching on Christian Doctrine (ISBN 031075321X).

Personality and activities

Wesley travelled constantly, generally on horseback, preaching twice or thrice a day. He formed societies, opened chapels, examined and commissioned preachers, administered discipline, raised funds for schools, chapels, and charities, prescribed for the sick, helped to pioneer the use of electric shock for the treatment of illness, superintended schools and orphanages, wrote commentaries and other religious literature, replied to attacks on Methodism, conducted controversies, and carried on a prodigious correspondence. He is believed to have travelled more than 250,000 miles in the course of his ministry, and to have preached more than 40,000 times. He often woke up to preach at 5 every morning. The number of works he wrote, translated, or edited, exceeds 200, including sermons, commentaries, hymns, a Christian library of fifty volumes, grammars, dictionaries, and other textbooks, as well as political tracts. He is said to have received at least £20,000 for his publications, but used little of it for himself. His charities were limited only by his means. He died poor. He rose at four in the morning, lived simply and methodically, and was never idle if he could help it. He is described as below medium height, well proportioned, strong, with a bright eye, a clear complexion, and a saintly, intellectual face. He married very unhappily, at the age of forty-eight, a widow, Mary Vazeille, and had no children; she left him fifteen years later. He died peacefully, after a short illness, leaving as the result of his life-work 135,000 members, and 541 itinerant preachers under the name "Methodist." Despite his achievements he never quite overcame profound self-doubt. At the age of 63, he wrote to his brother, (possibly speaking in metaphors) "I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed, in the Christian sense of the word." (Quoted, Tomkins John Wesley: A Biography (Eerdmans, 2003) 168.)

Literary work

Wesley was a logical thinker, and expressed himself clearly, concisely and forcefully in writing. His written sermons are characterized by spiritual earnestness and simplicity. They are doctrinal, but not dogmatic. His Notes on the New Testament (1755) are enlightening. Both the Sermons (about 140) and the Notes are doctrinal standards. Wesley was a fluent, powerful and effective preacher. He usually preached spontaneously and briefly, though occasionally at great length. As an organizer, an religious leader and a statesman, he was eminent. He knew how to lead and control men to achieve his purposes. He used his power, not to provoke rebellion, but to inspire love. His mission was to spread "Scriptural holiness"; his means and plans were such as Providence indicated. The course thus masked out for him he pursued with a determination from which nothing could distract him. Wesley's prose Works were first collected by himself (32 vols., Bristol, 1771-74, frequently reprinted in editions varying greatly in the number of volumes). His chief prose works are a standard publication in seven octavo volumes of the Methodist Book Concern, New York. The Poetical Works of John and Charles, ed. G. Osborn, appeared in 13 vols., London, 1868-72. Besides his Sermons and Notes already referred to, are his Journals (originally published in 20 parts, London, 1740-89; new ed. by N. Curnock containing notes from unpublished diaries, 6 vols., vols. i.-ii., London and New York, 1909-11); The Doctrine of Original Sin (Bristol, 1757; in reply to Dr. John Taylor of Norwich); "An Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion (originally published in three parts; 2d ed., Bristol, 1743), an elaborate defence of Methodism, describing the evils of the times in society and the church; a Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766). Wesley adapted the Book of Common Prayer for use by American Methodists. In his Watch Night service, he made use of a pietist prayer now generally known as the Wesley Covenant Prayer, perhaps his most famous contribution to Christian liturgy.

Legacy

Today, many follow Wesley's teachings. He continues to be the primary theological interpreter for Methodists the world over; the largest Wesleyan body being The United Methodist Church. The teachings of Wesley also served as a basis for the Holiness movement, from which Pentecostalism, parts of the Charismatic movement, and the Christian and Missionary Alliance are offshoots. Wesley's call to personal and social holiness continues to challenge Christians who struggle to discern what it means to participate in the Kingdom of God.

External links


- [http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data1/dg/methodist/jwol1.html An Online Exhibition]
- [http://www.raptureme.com/resource/wesley/john_wesley.html Online works]
- [http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/wesley.htm John Wesley] as a British abolitionist
- [http://www.ccel.org/w/wesley/ John Wesley] at CCEL
- [http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/ John Wesley info] from the United Methodist Church
- [http://wesley.nnu.edu/ Wesley Center Online] at Northwest Nazarene University
- [http://clik.to/johnwesley A Page on the Reverend John Wesley] Collection of over 500 quotes sorted by category, along with sermons and published writing Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John Wesley, John ja:ジョン・ウェスレー

John Wesley (disambiguation)


- John Wesley - British Christian theologian
- John Wesley - American rock singer and guitarist
- John Wesley Davis - American politician
- John Wesley - modern American painter
- John Wesley Dean III - White House Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon
- John Wesley Hardin - American gunfighter
- John Wesley Harding - British born folk/pop singer-songwriter
- John Wesley Harding - Album by Bob Dylan
- John Wesley Hyatt - American inventor
- John Wesley Jarvis - American painter
- John Wesley Jones - Former American athlete
- John Wesley Posey - American doctor and anti-slavery activist
- John Wesley Powell - American soldier, geologist, and explorer of the American West
- John Wesley Rice - American college administator, school guidance counsellor and high school teacher; father of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
- John Wesley Shipp - American actor
- John Wesley Snyder - American businessman and Cabinet Secretary
- John Wesley Work III - American composer, educator, choral director, musicologist and scholar of African American folklore and music

June 17

June 17 is the 168th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (169th in leap years), with 197 days remaining.

Events


- 1497 - Battle of Deptford Bridge - Forces under King Henry VII soundly defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.
- 1565 - Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.
- 1579 - Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England.
- 1631 - Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spent more than 20 years to build her tomb, the Taj Mahal.
- 1775 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bunker Hill - The battle actually takes place on Breed's hill by mistake. British forces take Breed's Hill outside of Boston.
- 1789 - In France, the Third Estate declares itself as a national assembly.
- 1839 - In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the Edict of Toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace is later established as a result.
- 1863 - Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War
- 1876 - Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud - 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. [http://ne.essortment.com/battlerosebud_rfks.htm]
- 1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
- 1898 - The US Navy Hospital Corps is established.
- 1928 - Aviator Amelia Earhart starts her attempt to become the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean She was a passenger; Wilmer Stutz was pilot and Lou Gordon, mechanic.
- 1930 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff into law.
  - Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans mass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.
- 1933 - Union Station Massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash were gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.
- 1939 - Last public execution in France. Eugene Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre.
- 1940 - World War II: Operation Ariel begins - Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.
  - World War II: Sinking of the RMS Lancastria by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.
  - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
- 1944 - Iceland becomes independent from Denmark and forms a republic.
- 1948 - A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Air Lines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.
- 1953 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
- 1960 - Ted Williams becomes the fourth member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1961 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.
- 1963 - The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.
- 1971 - Representatives of Japan and the United States sign the Okinawa Reversion Agreement, setting out a plan where the U.S. would return control of Okinawa.
- 1972 - Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
- 1982 - The body of "God's Banker", Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.
- 1991 - Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act, which had required all racial classification of all South Africans at birth.
- 1992 - A 'Joint Understanding' agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II).
- 1994 - Following a televised highway chase and a failed attempt at suicide, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Births

1239 to 1899


- 1239 - King Edward I of England (d. 1307)
- 1603 - Joseph of Cupertino, Italian saint (d. 1663)
- 1682 - King Charles XII of Sweden (d. 1718)
- 1691 - Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Italian painter and architect (d. 1765)
- 1693 - Johann Georg Walch, German theologian (d. 1775)
- 1703 - John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (d. 1791)
- 1704 - John Kay, English inventor (d. 1780)
- 1714 - Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, German philosopher (d. 1762)
- 1714 - César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer (d. 1784)
- 1718 - George Howard, British field marshal (d. 1796)
- 1808 - Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian author (d. 1845)
- 1810 - Ferdinand Freiligrath, German writer (d. 1876)
- 1811 - Jón Sigurðsson, Icelandic independence fighter (d. 1879)
- 1818 - Charles Gounod, French composer (d. 1893)
- 1832 - Sir William Crookes, English physicist and chemist (d. 1919)
- 1881 - Tommy Burns, Canadian boxer (d. 1955)
- 1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer (d. 1971)
- 1888 - Heinz Guderian, German General (d. 1954)
- 1898 - M. C. Escher, Dutch artist (d. 1972)
- 1898 - Carl Hermann, German physicist (d. 1961)

1900 to 1999


- 1900 - Martin Bormann, Nazi official (d. 1945)
- 1904 - Ralph Bellamy, American actor (d. 1991)
- 1907 - Charles Eames, American designer and architect (d. 1978)
- 1909 - Elmer Lee Andersen, Governor of Minnesota (d. 2004)
- 1910 - Red Foley, American musician (d. 1968)
- 1914 - John Hersey, American author (d. 1993)
- 1915 - Karl Targownik, Hungarian psychiatrist (d. 1996)
- 1915 - David "Stringbean" Akeman, American banjo player and actor (d. 1973)
- 1917 - Dean Martin, American singer (d. 1995)
- 1917 - Atle Selberg, Norwegian mathematician
- 1920 - François Jacob, French biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1923 - Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch, American football player (d. 2004)
- 1927 - Martin Böttcher, German conductor
- 1929 - Tigran Petrosian, Georgian chess player (d. 1984)
- 1930 - Brian Statham, English cricketer (d. 2000)
- 1933 - Christian Ferras, French violinist (d. 1982)
- 1940 - George Akerlof, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1942 - Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian International Atomic Energy Agency director, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1943 - Newt Gingrich, American politician
- 1943 - Barry Manilow, American musician
- 1945 - Tommy Franks, American General
- 1945 - Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London
- 1945 - Eddy Merckx, Belgian cyclist
- 1945 - Anupam Kher, Indian actor
- 1945 - Frank Ashmore, American actor
- 1946 - Peter Rosei, Austrian writer
- 1957 - Jon Gries, American actor
- 1958 - Jello Biafra, American musician and activist
- 1960 - Michael Monroe, Finnish singer (Hanoi Rocks)
- 1963 - Greg Kinnear, American actor
- 1964 - Michael Gross, German swimmer
- 1965 - Dermontti Dawson, American NFL, center
- 1966 - Jason Patric, American actor
- 1969 - Paul Tergat, Kenyan athlete
- 1975 - Chloe Jones, American actor (d. 2005)
- 1978 - Kumiko Aso, Japanese Actress
- 1979 - Nick Rimando, American soccer player
- 1980 - Venus Williams, American tennis player
- 1987 - Nozomi Tsuji, Japanese singer (W (Double You), Morning Musume, and MiniMoni)

Deaths

1091 to 1899


- 1091 - Dirk V, Count of Holland (b. 1052)
- 1463 - Princess Catherine of Portugal, writer (b. 1436)
- 1565 - Ashikaga Yoshiteru, Japanese shogun (b. 1536)
- 1694 - Philip Cardinal Howard, English Catholic Cardinal (b. 1629)
- 1696 - John III Sobieski, King of Poland (b. 1629)
- 1719 - Joseph Addison, English politician and writer (b. 1672)
- 1734 - Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars, Marshal of France (b. 1653)
- 1740 - William Wyndham, English politician (b. 1687)
- 1762 - Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, French writer (b. 1674)
- 1775 - Major John Pitcairn, British marine (killed in battle) (b. 1722)
- 1797 - Agha Muhammad Khan, Shah of Persia (b. 1742)
- 1813 - Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, English sailor and politician (b. 1726)
- 1898 - Edward Burne-Jones, English artist (b. 1833)

1900 to 1999


- 1940 - Arthur Harden, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
- 1952 - Jack Parsons, American rocket-fuel pioneer and renegade occultist (b. 1914)
- 1956 - Paul Rostock, German doctor (b. 1892)
- 1957 - Dorothy Richardson, English writer (b. 1873)
- 1961 - Jeff Chandler, American actor (b. 1918)
- 1979 - Duffy Lewis, baseball player (b. 1888)
- 1982 - Roberto Calvi, Italin banker (b. 1920)
- 1986 - Kate Smith, American singer (b. 1907)
- 1996 - Thomas Kuhn, American philosopher of science (b. 1922)

2000 onwards


- 2001 - Donald J. Cram, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1919)
- 2002 - Willie Davenport, American athlete (b. 1943)
- 2002 - Fritz Walter, German footballer (b. 1920)
- 2004 - Gerry McNeil, Canadian hockey player (b. 1926)

Holidays and observances


- 1944 - Icelandic Independence Day, from Denmark
- National holiday of West Germany until 1990, see Workers' Uprising of 1953 in East Germany

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/17 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.britannica.com/eb/dailycontent?month=6&day=17 Encyclopædia Britannica: This Day in History] ---- June 16 - June 18 - May 17 - July 17 -- listing of all days ko:6월 17일 ms:17 Jun ja:6月17日 simple:June 17 th:17 มิถุนายน

March 2

March 2 is the 61st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (62nd in leap years). There are 304 days remaining.

Events


- 986 - Louis V becomes King of the Franks.
- 1717 - The Loves of Mars and Venus becomes the first ballet performed in England.
- 1791 - Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.
- 1807 - The U.S. Congress passes an act to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States ... from any foreign kingdom, place, or country."
- 1836 - Texas Revolution: Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.
- 1855 - Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.
- 1861 - Nevada Territory and Dakota Territory are organized as political divisions of the United States.
- 1861 - Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia: Tsar Alexander II signed the emancipation reform into law.
- 1877 - U.S. presidential election, 1876: The U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876 (Reconstruction ends).
- 1888 - The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.
- 1899 - In Washington State, USA, Mount Rainier National Park is established.
- 1901 - The U.S. Congress passes the Platt amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.
- 1903 - In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.
- 1917 - The enactment of the Jones-Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
- 1917 - Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Michael.
- 1919 - The first Communist International meets in Moscow.
- 1933 - King Kong premieres in New York City.
- 1939 - Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII.
- 1943 - World War II: Battle of the Bismarck Sea - United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
- 1946 - Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.
- 1949 - Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
- 1955 - King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.
- 1956 - Morocco declares its independence from France.
- 1959 - Miles Davis holds the first recording session for Kind of Blue at Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York, NY.
- 1962 - In Hershey, Pennsylvania, Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers scores 100 points against the New York Knicks, breaking several National Basketball Association records.
- 1962 - In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup.
- 1963 - Release of Please Please Me in the United Kingdom, the first LP from The Beatles.
- 1969 - In Toulouse, France the first test flight of the Concorde is conducted.
- 1969 - Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
- 1972 - The Pioneer 10 spaceprobe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
- 1978 - Czech Vladimír Remek becomes the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he is launched aboard Soyuz 28.
- 1985- TV anime series Mobile Suit Z Gundum broadcasts its first episode in Japan.
- 1987- Chrysler acquires American Motors
- 1989 - Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.
- 1990 - Nelson Mandela elected deputy President of the African National Congress.
- 1992 - Moldova joins the UN
- 1995 - Nick Leeson is arrested for his role in the collapse of Barings Bank.
- 1995 - Yahoo! is incorporated, establishing the Internet Portal as a model.
- 1998 - Data sent from the Galileo spaceprobe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
- 2002 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins, ending on March 19) after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.
- 2003 The first International Symposium on Taiwan Sign Language Linguistics is held at Chung Cheng University.
- 2004 - Voters in the U.S. state of Georgia vote on a referendum concerning its Confederacy-derived flag.
- 2004 - Disgruntled by the state's education act (Act 60), residents of Killington, Vermont vote to become part of New Hampshire.
- 2004 - War in Iraq: Al Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
- 2004 - War in Iraq: A United Nations report from the weapons inspection teams states that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction of any significance after 1994, despite President Bush's objection to the contrary before the invasion.

Births


- 1316 - King Robert II of Scotland, (d. 1390)
- 1409 - John II of Alençon, French soldier (d. 1476)
- 1459 - Pope Adrian VI (d. 1523)
- 1545 - Thomas Bodley, English diplomat and library founder (d. 1613)
- 1578 - George Sandys, English colonist and poet (d. 1644)
- 1705 - William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, Scottish judge and politician (d. 1793)
- 1770 - Louis Gabriel Suchet, French marshal (d. 1826)
- 1779 - Joel Roberts Poinsett, American statesman and botanist (d. 1851)
- 1793 - Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas (d. 1863)
- 1800 - Evgeny Baratynsky, Russian poet (d. 1844)
- 1810 - Pope Leo XIII, (d. 1903)
- 1820 - Multatuli, Dutch writer (d. 1887)
- 1824 - Bedrich Smetana, Czech composer (d. 1884)
- 1829 - Carl Schurz, German revolutionary and American statesman (d. 1906)
- 1849 - Robert Means Thompson, U.S. naval officer (d. 1930)
- 1859 - Sholom Aleichem, Russian Yiddish novelist (d. 1916)
- 1860 - Susanna M. Salter, Mayor of Argonia, Kansas (d. 1961)
- 1876 - Pope Pius XII, (d. 1958)
- 1900 - Kurt Weill, German composer (d. 1950)
- 1902 - Moe Berg, baseball player and spy (d. 1972)
- 1904 - Dr. Seuss, American author (d. 1991)
- 1908 - Walter Bruch, German engineer (d. 1990)
- 1909 - Mel Ott, baseball player (d. 1958)
- 1914 - Martin Ritt, American director (d. 1990)
- 1917 - Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born actor, bandleader, and musician (d. 1986)
- 1919 - Jennifer Jones, American actress
- 1923 - Robert H. Michel, American politician
- 1926 - Murray Rothbard, American economist (d. 1995)
- 1930 - John Cullum, American actor and singer
- 1931 - Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1931 - Tom Wolfe, American author
- 1935 - Al Waxman, Canadian actor (d. 2001)
- 1937 - Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria
- 1940 - Tony Croatto, Italian-born singer and composer (d. 2005)
- 1942 - John Irving, American author
- 1942 - Lou Reed, American singer and guitarist
- 1943 - Peter Straub, American author
- 1944 - Uschi Glas, German actress
- 1948 - Rory Gallagher, Irish guitarist
- 1948 - Jeff Kennett, Australian politician
- 1949 - Eddie Money, New York police officer and singer
- 1949 - JPR Williams, Welsh rugby player
- 1949 - Gates McFadden, American actress
- 1950 - Karen Carpenter, American singer and drummer (d. 1983)
- 1952 - Mark Evanier, American writer
- 1952 - Laraine Newman, American actress and comedian
- 1955 - Shoko Asahara, Japanese religious leader
- 1956 - Mark Evans, Australian bassist (AC/DC)
- 1958 - Ian Woosnam, Welsh golfer
- 1962 - Morioka Hiroyuki, Japanese writer
- 1962 - Jon Bon Jovi, American singer, songwriter, and actor
- 1964 - Megan Leigh, American actress (d. 1990)
- 1973 - Trevor Sinclair, English footballer
- 1974 - Monika Niederstätter, Italian athlete
- 1977 - Chris Martin, British musician (Coldplay)
- 1977 - Heather McComb, American actress
- 1977 - Andrew Strauss, English cricketer
- 1979 - Damien Duff, Irish footballer
- 1981 - Bryce Dallas Howard, American actress
- 1982 - Kevin Kurányi, German footballer
- 1982 - Ben Roethlisberger, American football player
- 1982 - Corey Webster, American football player
- 1985 - Robert Iler, American actor
- 1985 - Reggie Bush, American football player

Deaths


- 855 - Lothar, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor (b. 795)
- 1316 - Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert I of Scotland (b. 1296)
- 1572 - Mem de Sá, Portuguese Governor-General of Brazil
- 1589 - Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, Italian cardinal (b. 1520)
- 1729 - Francesco Bianchini, Italian philosopher and scientist (b. 1662)
- 1730 - Pope Benedict XIII (b. 1649)
- 1755 - Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French writer (b. 1675)
- 1758 - Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French cardinal (b. 1679)
- 1791 - John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (b. 1703)
- 1793 - Carl Gustaf Pilo, Swedish-born artist
- 1797 - Horace Walpole, English politican and writer (b. 1717)
- 1830 - Samuel Thomas von Sömmering, German physician (b. 1755)
- 1835 - Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1768)
- 1840 - Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers, German astronomer (b. 1758)
- 1865 - Carl Sylvius Völkner, German missionary to New Zealand
- 1880 - Sir John MacNeill, Irish civil engineer (b. 1790)
- 1895 - Berthe Morisot, French painter (b. 1841)
- 1921 - King Nicholas I of Montenegro (b. 1841)
- 1930 - D. H. Lawrence, English writer (b. 1885)
- 1938 - Ben Harney, American composer and pianist (b. 1871)
- 1939 - Howard Carter, British archaeologist (b. 1874)
- 1953 - Jim Lightbody, American runner (b. 1882)
- 1960 - Stanisław Taczak, Polish general, commander-in-chief of the Greater Poland Uprising (b.1874)
- 1975 - Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, Kenyan politician (b. 1929)
- 1982 - Philip K. Dick, American author (b. 1928)
- 1987 - Randolph Scott, American actor and director (b. 1898)
- 1991 - Serge Gainsbourg, French singer (b. 1928)
- 1992 - Sandy Dennis, American actress (b. 1937)
- 1999 - Dusty Springfield, English singer (b. 1939)
- 2001 - John Diamond, British journalist (b. 1953)
- 2003 - Hank Ballard, American musician (b. 1927)
- 2003 - Malcolm Williamson, Australian composer, (b. 1931)
- 2004 - Mercedes McCambridge, American actress (b. 1916)
- 2004 - Marge Schott, baseball team owner (b. 1928)
- 2005 - Rick Mahler, baseball player (b. 1953)

Holidays and observances


- Bahá'í Faith — Feast of 'Alá (Loftiness) - First day of the 19th month of the Bahá'í Calendar.
- Bahá'í Faith — Beginning of the Fast (sunrise to sunset fast for 19 days).
- Church of England — Saint Chad's Day.

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/2 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.imdb.com/OnThisDay?day=2&month=March IMDb (Internet Movie Database): On This Day]
- [http://www.tnl.net/when/3/2 Today in History: March 2] ----- March 1 - March 3 - February 2 - April 2 -- listing of all days ko:3월 2일 ms:2 Mac ja:3月2日 simple:March 2 th:2 มีนาคม

1791

1791 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events


- Unknown date - First American ship reaches Japan
- January 25 - The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791, splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada
- March 4 - Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.
- May 3 - The Polish Sejm (Parliament) proclaims the Constitution of third May, the first modern codified constitution in Europe
- July 14 - The Priestley Riots in Birmingham, England.
- June 20 - The French Royal Family is captured when they try to flee in disguise
- August 26 - John Fitch is granted a patent for the steamboat in the United States.
- December 4 - The first issue of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.
- December 15 - Ratification by the states of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution is completed, creating the United States Bill of Rights. Two additional amendments remain pending, and one of these is finally ratified in 1992, becoming the Twenty-seventh Amendment.
- Slave rebellion in Haiti has begun
- Brandenburg Gate in Berlin finished

Ongoing events


- French Revolution (1789-1799)

Births


- January 15 - Franz Grillparzer, Austrian writer (d. 1872)
- January 28 - Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold, French composer (d. 1833)
- February 21 - Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)
- Feburary 21 - John Mercer, chemist and industrialist (d. 1866)
- April 23 - James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States (d. 1868)
- April 27 - Samuel Morse, American inventor (d. 1872)
- July 26 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer and pianist (d. 1844)
- September 22 - Michael Faraday, British scientist (d. 1867)
- September 26 - Théodore Géricault, French writer (d. 1824)
- November 11 - Josef Munzinger, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1855)
- December 26 - Charles Babbage, British mathematician and inventor (d. 1871)

Deaths


- January 11 - William Williams Pantycelyn, Welsh hymnist (b. 1717)
- March 2 - John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (b. 1703)
- March 14 - Johann Salomo Semler, German historian and Bible commentator (b. 1725)
- April 19 - Richard Price, Welsh philosopher (b. 1723)
- May 9 - Francis Hopkinson, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1737)
- June 5 - Frederick Haldimand, Swiss-born British colonial governor (b. 1718)
- June 10 - Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, French admiral (b. 1720)
- July 17 - Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian Jesuit missionary (b. 1717)
- July 25 - Isaac Low, American delegate to the Continental Congress (b. 1735)
- August 16 - Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec, French soldier and diplomat (b. 1719)
- September 25 - William Bradford, American printer (b. 1719)
- December 5 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (b. 1756) Category:1791 ko:1791년 ms:1791

Anglicanism

The term Anglican (from the "Angles" meaning English) describes the people and churches that follow the religious traditions developed by the established Church of England. The Anglican Communion codifies the Anglican relationship to the Church of England as a theologically broad and often diverging community of churches, which holds the English church as its mother institution. Adherents of Anglicanism worldwide number around 70 million. The issue of Catholic and Protestant affiliation is often confusing. Whilst many Anglicans regard themselves as being within the Protestant tradition, many other Anglicans, especially Anglo-Catholics, do not consider themselves as being Protestants. The Church of England claims explicitly that the Church "upholds the catholic faith" (however, the Athanasian Creed states "And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance." The phrase "catholic church" by definition means the universal Christian Church but also holds the sense of the "church in its fullness" ). Ultimately, the Anglican Church is both catholic (stressing its continuity with the ancient Church), and Reformed / Protestant (noting that the Church does not accept the universal infallible authority of the Pope). The conduct of eucharistically-centred worship services is in keeping with the catholic liturgical tradition and the Communion emphasises its status of full communion with the Old Catholic Church — a small community of churches which split from the Roman Catholic Church in 1870 over the doctrine of papal infallibility. On the other hand, the development of Anglicanism as a distinctive church tradition is also deeply connected with the Protestant Reformation. As with the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches (but unlike most Protestant churches), Anglicans claim authority within the church through apostolic succession from the first followers of Jesus. Anglicans traditionally date their church back to its first archbishop Saint Augustine of Canterbury in the 6th century and centuries earlier to the Roman occupation. Many other Anglicans, however, point out that Christian missionaries existed in the British lands from the 1st century and consider Celtic Christianity a prefix of their faith, since many Celtic elements remained. They also point out that bishops from the British Isles participated in the early Ecumenical Councils.

Origins

See also: History of the Church of England While Anglicans acknowledge that the schism from papal authority under Henry VIII of England led to the Church of England existing as a separate entity, they also stress its continuity with the pre-Reformation Church of England. The organisational machinery of the Church of England was in place by the time of the Synod of Hertford in 673 AD when the English bishops were for the first time able to act as one body under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Since the Elizabethan Religious Settlement the Church of England has enjoyed a heritage that is both Catholic and Protestant with the British monarch as its Supreme Governor. Contrary to much popular belief, the British monarch is not the constitutional "Head" of the Church of England and it is incorrect to refer to the monarch as such. The monarch has no constitutional role in Anglican churches in other parts of the world. Nonetheless, the English Reformation was initially driven by the dynastic goals of Henry VIII of England, who, in his quest for a queen to bear him a male heir, found it necessary and profitable to replace the Papacy with the English crown. Henry's need for a legitimate male heir was real. England's previous experience in the twelfth century of rule by a queen had been a disaster that no-one wished to see repeated. (see Empress Matilda) It was not Henry's intention to found a new church. He was well informed enough about history to know that the powers he was claiming were those which had been exercised by European monarchs over the church in their dominions since the time of Constantine and that what had changed since then had been the growth of papal power. The Act of Supremacy put Henry at the head of the church in 1534, while acts such as the Dissolution of the Monasteries put huge amounts of church land and property into the hands of the Crown and ultimately into those of the English nobility. These created vested interests which made a powerful material incentive to support a separate Christian church in England under the rule of the Monarch. The theological justification for Anglican distinctiveness was begun by the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer and continued by other thinkers such as Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes. Cranmer had studied in Europe and was influenced by the ideas of the Reformation and had also married despite being a priest. Because Cranmer and other leaders of the Church of England had been ordained by bishops in the Apostolic Succession, and passed on that ordination to their successors, Anglicans consider that they have retained the historic apostolic succession. During the short reign of Edward VI, Henry's son, Cranmer was able to move the Church of England significantly towards a more Protestant Calvinist position. The first Book of Common Prayer dates from this period. This reform was reversed abruptly in the subsequent reign of Queen Mary. Only under Queen Elizabeth I was the English church established as a reformed Catholic church. In the 16th century religious life was an important part of the cement which held society together. Differences in religion were likely to lead to civil unrest at the very least, with treason and foreign invasion possibly thrown in as well. Elizabeth's solution to the problem of minimising bloodshed over religion in her dominions was a religious settlement which prescribed a fixed form of worship in which everyone was expected to take part, i.e. common prayer, but a belief system formulated in a way that would allow people with different understandings of what the Bible taught to give assent. The Protestant principle that all things must be proved by scripture was turned upside down in article VI of the Thirty-nine Articles, so that no one could be required to believe anything unless it could be clearly proved from the Scriptures. This recognised that there were areas where the Bible did not give clear cut teaching, where differences of opinion amongst Christians were legitimate. The bulk of the population was willing to go along with Elizabeth's religious settlement, but extremists at both ends of the theological spectrum would have nothing to do with it, and cracks in the facade of religious unity in England were appearing. For the next century there were significant swings back and forth between the Puritans and those with a more Catholic understanding of Anglicanism. It must be understood that the concept of religious freedom was in those days neither understood nor accepted by many people, and that the groups involved in the struggle were aiming for control, not freedom. By continental standards the level of violence over religion was not high, but among the casualties were a king, (Charles I) and an Archbishop of Canterbury, (William Laud). The final outcome in 1660 after the Restoration of Charles II was not too far removed from the Elizabethan ideal. One difference was that the ideal of encompassing all the people of England in one religious organisation, taken for granted by the Tudors, had to be abandoned. The religious landscape of England assumed its present form, with an Anglican established church occupying the middle ground, and the two extremes, Roman Catholic and Puritan, too strong to be suppressed altogether, having to continue their existence outside the national church, rather than controlling it. The English Reformation may be said to have ended at this point. The Elizabethan settlement failed in that it was never able to gain the assent of the entire English people. Yet as the Anglican form of Christianity is now flourishing in many parts of the world far away from England it may possibly have succeeded beyond the wildest expectations of anybody alive in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Leadership

The Archbishop of Canterbury 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 Canterbury, however, does not exercise any direct authority in the provinces outside England. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, as former Archbishop of Wales, is the first primate appointed from outside the Church of England since the Reformation. Since the reign of Henry VIII ultimate authority in the Church of England has been vested in the reigning monarch. Since the time of Elizabeth I the sovereign's title has been 'Supreme Governor' rather than 'Head' of the Church of England. In practice this means that the monarch has the responsibility of seeing that the administrative machinery of the church is running smoothly, and in particular that new bishops are appointed when needed. Today this responsibility is discharged by the Prime Minister. Anglican churches outside England do not have this relationship with the British monarch, however it remains the case that the Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is appointed by the Crown of the United Kingdom (in theory; in practice by the Prime Minister).

Churches

Anglicanism is most commonly identified with the established Church of England, but Anglican churches exist in most parts of the world. In some countries (e.g., the United States, Scotland) the Anglican church is known as Episcopal, from the Latin episcopus, "bishop", which comes from a Greek word literally meaning an "overseer." Some Anglican churches are not in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury but are considered Anglican because they retain practices of the Church of England and the Book of Common Prayer. Each national church or province is headed by a Primate called a Primus in the Scottish Episcopal Church, an Archbishop in most countries, a Presiding Bishop in the Episcopal Church USA, and a Prime Bishop in the Philippine Episcopal Church. 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. Religious orders of monks, brothers, sisters and nuns were suppressed in England during the Reformation but made a reappearance in Victorian times. Those Anglican churches "in communion" with the See of Canterbury constitute the Anglican Communion, a formal organisation made up of churches at the national level. However, there are a small number of churches which call themselves Anglican that are known as the "continuing church" movement and do not acknowledge the Anglican Communion. They consider the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, as well as some other member churches of the Anglican Communion, to have departed from the historic faith by ordaining women, altering the theological emphases of the historic Book of Common Prayer, and loosening the Church's traditional regulations concerning sexual and marital matters.

Doctrine

Anglicans look for authority (in the formula of Richard Hooker) in Scripture, Tradition (the practices and writings of the historical church) and Reason. While some teach that these three are of equal value (using an image of a three-legged stool), the Anglican formularies have always pointed to the primacy of Holy Scripture. Historically, Anglicans regard the Bible, the three Creeds (Nicene Creed, Apostles' Creed, and Athanasian Creed), the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer (1662) as the principal norms of doctrine. Thus it can be said that the Anglican Church retains much of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, but it is doctrinally Reformed. This distinction is routinely a matter of debate both intra-denominationally and within the Anglican Communion members themselves. Since the Oxford Movement of the mid-19th century, many churches of the Communion have embraced and extended liturgical and pastoral practices dissimilar with most Protestant theology. This extends beyond the ceremony of High Church services to even more theologically significant territory. Anglican clergy practice all seven of the sacraments in a marked departure from the teaching of early Protestant thinkers like Martin Luther. (Even though opinions vary about the best way to understand these "sacramental rites") For example, Anglican clergy often hear private confessions from their parishioners, a practice mostly discontinued in Protestant denominations. For these reasons and many others, many Anglicans prefer to be understood as a reformed catholic church, not as another institution falling under the general umbrella of "Protestantism."

Churchmanship

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 reserv