In praise of the Royal Supremacy

All Ecclesiastical Persons having Cure of Souls, and all other Preachers and Readers of Divinity Lectures, shall to the utmost of their Wit, Knowledge and Learning, purely and sincerely (without any Colour or Dissimulation) teach, manifest, open and declare, four Times every Year (at the least) in their Sermons, and other Collations and Lectures, That all usurped and foreign Power, (forasmuch as the same hath no establishment nor ground by the Law of God) is for most just causes taken away and abolished: and that therefore no manner of Obedience or Subjection within his Majesty’s Realms and Dominions is due unto such Foreign Power - Canon II 'The King's Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical to be maintained', the Church of Ireland Canons of 1634.

And here we first recognise the important principle, involved indeed in the very nature of all good government, that all orders of men affected by the laws should have a voice in framing them. Accordingly, no act in our Church, not necessarily involving a point of divine institution, has the force of law, until it has received the sanction, under the forms of the constitution, of her Bishops, her Clergy, and Laity - Henry Hobart 'The Origin, The General Character, and the Present Situation of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America', 1814.

It may seem to place both quotations together.  Canon II of the Church of Ireland Canons of 1634 was a robust declaration of the Royal Supremacy.  Hobart, by contrast, affirmed the representative aspect of the governance of the infant Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.  What both share, however, is a commitment to the authority of "every particular or national Church" (Article 34), "not subject to any foreign jurisdiction" (Article 37).  In fact, we can go further - Hobart's understanding flows from and is dependent upon the experience of the Royal Supremacy in the reformed ecclesia Anglicana.  It was the Royal Supremacy which embodied the rights and liberties of the "particular or national Church", which denied "foreign jurisdiction", and which ensured - both in the person of the monarch and in the role of Parliament - the participation of the laity in the governance of the Church, alongside clergy and bishops in Convocation.

The subsequent evolution of synods and conventions in other Anglican Churches was an outworking of the Royal Supremacy in quite different constitutional contexts.  In other words, what the Royal Supremacy embodied - the rights and liberties of the "particular or national Church" - was passed to synods or conventions.  In the words of the post-disestablishment Church of Ireland's 1870 Preamble and Declaration:

The Church of Ireland, deriving its authority from Christ, Who is the Head over all things to the Church, doth declare that a General Synod of the Church of Ireland, consisting of the archbishops and bishops, and of representatives of the clergy and laity, shall have chief legislative power therein.

The significance of this for contemporary Anglicanism is at least partly because of the weakness of alternative accounts of authority within Anglicanism.  Many contemporary defences of provincial autonomy - not least in debates surrounding the Anglican Covenant - invoked secular concepts of diversity, colonialism, and democracy.  On the other hand, as John Milbank has stated, "the notion of a 'covenant' lacked any firm basis in Anglican theology".  He continued:

At very least, it surely lacked the kind of organic rooting in long term habit and lived belief that has allowed other ecclesial documents to become normative. 

A renewed theological confidence in the Anglican experience and vision of the national church would thus seem to be necessary.  This includes, as mentioned yesterday, an end to the hand-wringing embarrassment amongst many contemporary Anglicans regarding the historic role of the Royal Supremacy.

The English Reformation's affirmation of the Royal Supremacy was a restoration of the vocation of the national Church.  In rejecting the understanding of Roman primacy developed by the 11th century Gregorian reforms, the reformed ecclesia Anglicana was retrieving a deeply patristic understanding and practice of authority and communion.  In the words of Jewel's Apology:

For all the Apostles, as Cyprian saith, were of like power among themselves, and the rest were the same that Peter was, and that it said indifferently to them all, "feed ye;" indifferently to them all, "go into the whole world;" indifferently to them all, "teach ye the Gospel." And (as Hierom saith) all bishops wheresoever they be, be they at Rome, be they at Eugubium, be they at Constantinople, be they at Rhegium, be all of like pre-eminence, and of like priesthood. And, as Cyprian saith, there is but one bishopric, and a piece thereof is perfectly and wholly holden of every particular bishop. And according to the judgment of the Nicene Council, we say, that the Bishop of Rome hath no more jurisdiction over the Church of God than the rest of the patriarchs, either of Alexandria, or of Antiochia have.

Both the English Reformers and the High Church tradition routinely interpreted this as a restoration of the rights and liberties of the ancient British Church.  Now, yes, much of their account is exaggerated, at times mythical.  That said, the role of the Crown in appointing bishops, exercising princely care for the Church, and encouraging renewal and reform was a given throughout much of the history of the ecclesia Anglicana.  Even when we consider the famous Synod of Whitby and its adoption of Roman customs, the fact is that the Synod was called by the Northumbrian king Oswiu and it was he who determined its outcome.  As Bede states:

When the king spoke, all who were seated there or standing, both high and low, signified their assent (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, III.25).

What is more, it was the pattern of authority known throughout the Church, East and West, during the first millennium.  To return to Canon II of the Church of Ireland Canons of 1634, the Royal Supremacy gave the Crown "the same Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical" as had "Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church".

As John Hughes argued, this "more non-dualist, integralist ecclesiology of the first millennium, combined with a more Byzantine or Carolinian view of the priestly nature of 'secular' authority" was an expression of "integral humanism" - the conviction that all things flow "from him and to him, who is the Alpha and Omega of all things".  The Royal Supremacy was no Erastian settlement.  Rather, it proclaimed that was no such thing as the 'secular', that 'secular power' was a myth.  One key expression of this was seen in the restoration of the dignity of the laity - monarch, parliament, lay patrons of parishes.  From this emerges the representation of laity in synods and episcopal electoral colleges, their role in the appointment of parish clergy, and the role of vestries in managing the affairs of the parish.

Another expression was to be found in the characteristic relationship between Anglican Churches and culture.  Even where disestablished or never established, Anglicanism has traditionally valued a strong relationship with civic institutions - because 'there is no secular'.  Schools and colleges, hospitals, the military, legislatures, the courts: none of these can be merely 'secular', for their duties and obligations are grounded in and oriented towards the transcendent, the eternal.  Indeed, this is the basis for their very autonomy and independence from clerical rule.  If this sounds like a renewed Christendom, good.  In the words of John Milbank:

Christianity is Christendom, as the older history of the coinciding usage of these words suggests, else it is disincarnate and so not really the religion of the Incarnation at all.

And herein lies the significance and vocation of the national Church - to be a means of setting before the nation and its institutions the call and responsibility to serve authentic human flourishing, to act justly, to defend the weak, to promote the good.  Or, in other words:

that they may truly and indifferently minister justice, to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of thy true religion, and virtue.

A national Church incarnates the proclamation that the body politic, the civil realm, finds its meaning, identity, and purpose in the politics of grace and love.

Ironically, part of the inspiration for this blog post was a recent Church Life Journal article, 'A Defense of Ultramontanism contra Gallicanism':

Given that the term arose as an insult against those who challenged the claims of Gallicanism, and given that those who championed papal primacy over local kings and bishops were legitimized at Vatican I, the term ought not to be associated with heterodoxy but rather orthodoxy. 

What that article claimed for Ultramontanism within Roman Catholic theology, this blog post claims for the Royal Supremacy within Anglicanism.  Rather than being a cause for embarrassment, it ought to be associated with Anglican orthodoxy, championing the national Church over one particular church's claim to universal authority.  And in so celebrating the historic role of the Royal Supremacy, thereby recovering a confidence in the vocation to live, witness and minister as national Churches, that the civil realm may be authentically oriented towards the Good, the True, the Beautiful.