Question

How was the formation of the Church of England founded by Henry VIII different from the formation of the Luther Church created by Martin Luther?

Luther wanted to get married to a second wife, which the Church would not allow, which is why he wrote the 95 Theses, and Henry wanted a divorce from his wife, which the Pope also denied, sparking the movement to leave the Church.


Luther did not wish to divide from the Catholic Church, merely he wanted the Catholic Church to abandon corrupt practices. While Henry had always wanted to break from the Catholic Church, having no intention of staying Catholic.


Luther did not wish to divide from the Catholic Church, merely he wanted the Catholic Church to abandon corrupt practices, but when they refused a movement was started that drove people from the Catholic Church. While Henry initially requested an annulment from the Pope so that he could leave his wife Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn, but when his request was denied he decided to break from the Church and form the Church of England.


Henry was considered one of the most devout of Catholic Kings, even offering to invade the Holy Roman Empire to find and kill Martin Luther. This is contrary to Luther who saw Henry as a hypocrite for Henry's divorce from his wife Catherine, and the Pope's approval of the divorce, in spite Catherine being a devout Catholic.

Answer 1

The formal history of the Church of England is traditionally dated by the Church to the Gregorian mission to England by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in AD 597.[1] As a result of Augustine's mission, Christianity in England, from Anglican (English) perspective, came under the authority of the Pope. However, in 1534 King Henry VIII declared himself to be supreme head of the Church of England. This resulted in a schism with the Papacy. As a result of this schism, many non-Anglicans consider that the Church of England only existed from the 16th century Protestant Reformation.

However, Christianity arrived in the British Isles around AD 47 during the Roman Empire according to Gildas's De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae. Archbishop Restitutus and others are known to have attended the Council of Arles in 314. Christianity developed roots in Sub-Roman Britain and later Ireland, Scotland, and Pictland. The Anglo-Saxons (Germanic pagans who progressively seized British territory) during the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, established a small number of kingdoms and evangelisation of the Anglo-Saxons was carried out by the successors of the Gregorian mission and by Celtic missionaries from Scotland. The church in Wales remained isolated and was only brought within the jurisdiction of English bishops several centuries later.

The Church of England became the established church by an Act of Parliament in the Act of Supremacy, beginning a series of events known as the English Reformation.[2] During the reign of Queen Mary I and King Philip, the church was fully restored under Rome in 1555. However, the pope's authority was again explicitly rejected after the accession of Queen Elizabeth I when the Act of Supremacy 1558 was passed. Catholic and Reformed factions vied for determining the doctrines and worship of the church. This ended with the 1558 Elizabethan Settlement, which developed the understanding that the church was to be "both Catholic and Reformed".[3]