The Church of England, a Christian church, is the mother church of a worldwide family – the Anglican Communion. Its roots run deep in English culture and life — parish churches dotting the countryside, cathedral evensong echoing through stone arches, centuries of poets, musicians, and scholars shaped by its prayer and worship. To step into an Anglican service is to step into living history.
A Church Rooted in History
The Church of England traces its origins to the early Christian Roman Catholic communities of Britain. Its distinct identity took shape in the 1530s as a result of King Henry VIII’s desire to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which Pope Clement VII refused. With the 1534 Act of Supremacy Henry severed papal authority and declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
What emerged was something remarkable — a church that retained the ancient structures of bishops, priests, and deacons, the rhythm of the liturgical calendar, and the sacramental life of Catholic Christianity, while embracing the reform movements sweeping through Europe. It is a church deeply comfortable with mystery, with beauty, and with the long view of history.
The Anglican Church of Canada
I studied theology at McGill with the thought of becoming an Anglican priest, and for many years I worshipped in Anglican Church of Canada churches in Montreal, Toronto, and Halifax. The tradition shaped me in ways I still carry. I offer this introduction, then, not as an outside observer but as someone who once called this home.
There is something about the Church of England and the Anglican Communion worship that stays with you. The cadence of the liturgy, the beauty of the language, the sense of being held within a tradition that stretches back centuries — these are things I know from the inside.
The Book of Common Prayer
At the heart of Anglican identity is the Book of Common Prayer. First compiled in 1549 under Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, it gathered the prayers, liturgies, and Scripture readings of the church into a single volume accessible to ordinary people. Its language is among the most beautiful ever written in English — spare, dignified, and deeply moving. Even in traditions that have moved toward contemporary language, the Prayer Book remains a touchstone, a reminder that words matter and that how we pray shapes what we believe.
The Daily Office — Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer — gives Anglicans a structure for encountering Scripture and prayer each day. The Psalms hold a central place in this rhythm, prayed through in their entirety on a regular cycle using the Anglican Psalter.
For generations of Anglicans, the Psalms have not simply been read — they have been sung, chanted, and woven into the fabric of daily life.
The Anglican Communion
From England, Anglicanism spread across the globe — carried by missionaries, settlers, and colonial expansion — taking root in cultures profoundly different from its origins. Today, the Anglican Communion is a fellowship of thirty-nine member churches in over 165 countries, with an estimated eighty-five million members worldwide. It is one of the largest Christian communities on earth.
Each member church is autonomous, shaped by its own culture and context, yet bound together by a shared inheritance — the Scriptures, the creeds, the sacraments, and the historic episcopate. The Archbishop of Canterbury serves as the symbolic head of the Communion, a focus of unity rather than a figure of central authority. It is a family, in the truest sense — diverse, sometimes disagreeing, but gathered around a common table.
The Anglican Communion includes the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Church of Canada, the Church of Nigeria, the Church of South India, and dozens more. Each brings its own voice, its own music, its own expression of a shared faith. Together they represent one of the great spiritual rivers of the Christian tradition.
Anglican Communion Office
The Anglican Communion Office (ACO) is the official secretariat to the Anglican Communion – a global network of churches in over 165 countries. Advancing mission, advocacy and Christian unity, the ACO supports Anglicans around the world.
Visit the website of the Anglican Communion Office.
An Invitation
Whether you come to Anglicanism through curiosity, through family heritage, or through a longing for liturgy and beauty in worship, you will find a tradition that takes both history and the human heart seriously. The doors of Anglican churches have always been wide open. They still are.
-Richard
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"Be practical and expect miracles when you just take the first step forward every day." -Richard Edward Ward
