The Big Picture: Our Anglican Roots
Consider a babushka doll – those colorfully painted sets of Russian nesting dolls of decreasing sizes, one housed within another. The universal Body of Christ, the CHURCH, can be likened to the largest of a set of these dolls; within its form, every congregation, community, and ministry that follows in the path of Jesus is housed. But, within this largest doll, are others that can be seen as representing the many different Christian denominations that have birthed one another over the ages, each one descended from the ancient communities of believers that identified themselves as followers of Christ in the decades following his ministry. Along with the various Eastern Orthodox rites, The Roman Catholic Church is one of the oldest and largest of these groups and from it have sprung the many Protestant denominations that have spread around the globe since the time of the Renaissance.
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Yasnaya Polyana, Izmailovo Flea Market
The Episcopal Church, which is the national Province of the Anglican Communion in the United States, is a bit unusual when we try to look at where it is housed in the order of our symbolic babushka dolls. In keeping with the tradition of our Anglican roots, we identify as “Protestant, yet Catholic.” In many ways, we belong to both groups. Technically, we are Protestant, in that King Henry VIII founded the Church of England to release the English Bishops from the rule of the Pope in Rome. But initially, the liturgy – the customs and traditions of public worship – didn’t change; Anglicans continued to worship just as they had before the split with the Catholic Church.
As time progressed and other Protestant groups began to break away from Rome, many of them adopted significant reforms in their manners of worship. Where Catholics continued to focus primarily on the Liturgy of the Table and the whole of the sacraments, Protestants began shifting the orientation of their public worship to focus on the Liturgy of the Word, and many began adopting creeds around which they could create unique denominational identities. The Anglican Church is unique in that it focused on both the liturgies of the table and the word, feeling that both are important and vital to Christian worship.
Let’s consider the Russian dolls once again. Where the Anglican Church is fitted into the space somewhere between Catholics and Protestants, The Episcopal Church in America is nestled snugly within it along with each of the other national churches affiliated with the Anglican Communion (some 70 million plus believers worldwide). Within this Episcopal doll, are all of the dioceses in the USA, and within each of these, are all of the individual parish churches. Finally, we come to the smallest of the dolls – the treasure buried deeply within the nest; we have named her St. Hildegard’s Community, for we are a group within the parish church of St George’s. Our relationship to the Episcopal Church and to the larger Body of Christ is a winding path, but along it are beautiful sources of inspiration that have guided Christians in public worship for millennia and continue to guide our precious community today.
