We reach a vital point in the narrative of Anglicanism with this theme. The Christianity which had been locally shaped in the English nation and its culture is now transported overseas into many different localities and cultures. The very principle of enculturation which had created a particular form of Anglicanism in England was now to encounter totally new contexts.

HISTORIOGRAPHY

From its Celtic and English formation Anglicanism had emerged with a number of characteristics. It had developed a provincial institutional pattern, with the Archbishop of Canterbury as primate of all England, and regarded this as providing that reasonable extension of the local to sustain workable catholicity. It consolidated its long-standing relationship with other national churches on a basis of friendly conversation. Since the very earliest times it had held the Pope in honour and sought significant connection with the wider Christian world of Europe. Its rulers had regularly, though not always, rejected any notion of fealty to the Pope or any recognised jurisdictional power, especially for the reformed centralised papacy after Gregory VII.

The Reformation and the wars of religion had left European Christianity with a radically altered framework of catholicity. Effective wider fellowship and unity were hindered by the emergence of new tightly determined religiously confessional nations. These nations established high cultural and religious tariff barriers. That was precisely what the Gregory VII reforms of the papacy had done in the eleventh century on a pan-European scale.