Sample Research Paper On King Henry VIII - The Anglican Church

The Roman Catholic Church preceded all the currently existing churches. For a long time since its inception, it was faced with a great deal of controversy and criticism. However, no one had had the courage to break free from neither it nor its beliefs until Martin Luther King. Mr. King and his followers boldly came out strong against the Catholic beliefs in 1517 and challenged the apparent errors in the doctrine. As a result of the 95 theses written by Luther, Protestantism was formed as an independent church of its own that had beliefs separate from the Catholic Church. As a result of this move, the Catholic Church was seen to be capable of fault, a weakness that King Henry VIII was quick to take advantage of (Hewish).
King Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) ascended to the England throne at age 18 after the demise of King Henry VII in 1509. He is famous for his marriages to 8 wives and his creation of the Anglican Church. King Henry VIII was distraught for a son which his wife, the sister to his deceased brother was not able to bear. The queen Catherine had only been able to give birth to a daughter who was quite a weakling and as per Henry’s standard not suitable to be heir. According to the catholic beliefs then, a man could marry his late brother’s wife if the two had not consummated the marriage. Under the belief that the Catherine and her late husband had not consummated their marriage, the pope had issued the dispensation of Catherine and Henry’s marriage (Testa).
Henry aware that he could only get another child through another wife had to seek annulment for his marriage to Catherine and for the annulment to be accepted by the pope it had to be for a viable reason. Henry sought the approach of claiming that his soul had been tainted by living with his deceased brother’s wife. He claimed that the marriage had put a curse on him and the pope should grant its annulment to save the King’s soul. The pope however conscious of the scrutiny that the catholic church was facing since Luther’s breakout was afraid of tainting the church’s image by admitting to an error on his part. The admission that the marriage between Henry and Catherine was an error would make the papacy look corrupt. At the declination of the pope to annul the marriage, King Henry VIII used the support from catholic critics though not Protestants to discredit the Catholic Church and the papacy (Hewis).
King Henry VIII could not join the protestant movements as his fight against them had earned him the title, “The defender of the Faith” whereby the faith at that time was catholic beliefs. He also needed a church system that would help him further his political interests and polices. He formed the Anglican Church, Anglican meaning England. The formation came up with new policies as created by King Henry. With the Help of Thomas Crowell, his Chief Minister, Henry was declared the head of the England church. He then issued orders to have all monasteries within England to be closed down. He also had the lands belonging to the Catholic Church be sold and the wealth and treasures acquired therein taken to the crown (Testa).
Since the formation of the Anglican Church till the death of King Henry VIIII and a decade after, it was mainly used as a medium to promote the King’s policies and a source of political strength. The Anglican Church never had a strong Christian basis as King Henry still followed the catholic beliefs as an Anglican. After the demise of King Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary Tudor took the thrones but were unable to restore peace to the strife stricken land due to political and religious conflicts. Queen Elizabeth I took hold of the throne in 1558. Elizabeth was daughter to Anne Boleyn one of Henry’s wives (Hewis). Queen Elizabeth on ascending to the throne sought to give meaning to the Anglican Church that was neither political nor managerial. She asserted that what binds the Church is not politics but beliefs from the Holy bible and shared traditions. As a result, the First Book of Common prayer which was written in 1549 was publicly acknowledged and acted as the first step to restoring sanity to England’s religion.
The Anglican Church has not really formed a stand between Catholic or Protestant beliefs. Its beliefs have borrowed a little from both religious sides and hence cannot be termed as a protestant church or a catholic church. The church is also referred to as Reformed Catholic as it does not adhere to most of the strict Catholic beliefs but still is more inclined to the Catholic way of fellowship. The Anglican Church since its inception was for political purposes and not religious hence its lack of a clear ground is understandable. In a bid to form a stand for itself, the church introduced the Puritanism with puritan leaders who regulated the conduct of the Anglican Church members and leaders (Anglican Church).
The Anglican faith spread to other countries in the world through the colonisation of states by Britain. At the time of the formation of the branches of the church, they were all under the Bishop of London. However with time, the churches decided to break free of monarch headship and formed their own churches and national diocese. The beliefs however remained the same. An example of an independent Anglican church that emerged was the Episcopal Church in the USA. To maintain the unity of the church and harmonisation of doctrines, the Lambeth conferences were held for the bishops. The conferences were attended by Bishops of all the Anglican churches every ten years.
The current Anglican Church is being faced with a lot of opposition and contradiction especially due to its stand on homosexuality. Some believers have been repelled by the open declarations by their bishops that they are gay. The church is also forming new rules that are against the ordination of women and watering down the Prayer book. The issues above have led to breakouts from the church (McKinnon).

Works Cited

Anglican Church. Anglican History. 2013. 9 3 2015. <http://anglican.org/church/ChurchHistory.html>.
Hewis, Lackett. Henry VIII And Anglicanism; Here I take My Stand. London, 1992.
McKinnon, Andrew M. "Bourdieu, Capital, and Conflict in a Religious Field: The Case of the ‘Homosexuality’ Conflict in the Anglican Communion." Journal of Contemporary Religion (2011): 355-370.
Testa, David W. Del. Government Leaders, Military Rulers and Political Activists. Chicago: Routledge, 2014.