Anglican Communion and ecumenism

In the nineteenth century, with the rise of the Oxford Movement, there arose greater concern for reunion of the churches of "Catholic confession".

Subsequently, Pope Pius V's excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570 and authorization of rebellion against her contributed to official suspicion of the allegiances of English Catholics.

This, combined with a desire to assert the claims of the established church, led initially to renewed persecution by the state, and to the continued enforcement of severe legal restrictions.

[1][full citation needed] Since the monarch of England cannot (even today), by law, be a Roman Catholic, and forming familial royal bonds was historically deemed necessary at times to form alliances (and prevent war) between countries, there was a natural tendency for British princes/princesses to wed Lutheran or Reformed (and therefore, not Roman Catholic) royals from the houses of Germany, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

The united churches maintain an episcopal and synodical structure and consecrate bishops in apostolic succession while incorporating distinctives from other traditions such as that of the Moderator, which comes from Presbyterianism.

The issue of apostolic succession, as well as the willingness of some North American dioceses to offer partnership blessings and priestly ordination to people in same-sex sexual relationships, have hindered dialogue between Anglicans and evangelical Protestant denominations.

He wrote: "That the orthodox theologians who have scientifically examined the question have almost unanimously come to the same conclusions and have declared themselves as accepting the validity of Anglican Orders.

[7][self-published source] In 1910, Raphael of Brooklyn, an Eastern Orthodox bishop, "sanctioned an interchange of ministrations with the Episcopalians in places where members of one or the other communion are without clergy of their own.

[9] In 1912, however, Bishop Raphael ended the intercommunion after becoming uncomfortable with the fact that the Anglican Communion contained different churchmanships within Her, e.g. High Church, Evangelical, etc.

Regarding mutual recognition of ministry, the Eastern Orthodox Churches are reluctant to even consider the question of the validity of holy orders in isolation from the rest of the Christian faith, so in practice they treat Anglican ordinations as invalid.

The Eastern Orthodox Church classifies Anglican clergymen who join it as laypeople, and, if they are to function as clergy, administers ordination to them.

Later, during the 1960s and 1970s, disagreements with certain provincial bodies – chiefly in North America and in the United Kingdom – over such issues as prayer book revision, the remarriage of divorced persons, the ordination of women, and the acceptance by a few of the bishops of homosexual relationships led to another and quite different schism.

What they have in common is a conviction that mainstream Anglicanism in North America, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere has departed from acceptable principles of belief or practice, or both.