Where it came from
Christianity in England long predates the Church of England as an institution; Augustine of Canterbury arrived on a mission from Rome in 597, and Celtic Christians were at work in the north earlier still. The decisive break came in the 1530s, when Henry VIII separated the English church from the Pope's authority. Under his children the church swung between Protestant and Catholic identities, until Elizabeth I settled it on a distinctive middle path. That Elizabethan Settlement still describes the church today: reformed and catholic, holding Reformation convictions about Scripture and grace while keeping bishops, cathedrals, creeds and an ordered liturgy inherited from the ancient church.
An established church
The Church of England is the established church, meaning it has a formal place in the constitution rather than being one voluntary society among many. The monarch is its Supreme Governor and promises at the coronation to maintain it; senior appointments are made by the Crown on advice; and twenty six bishops, the Lords Spiritual, sit in the House of Lords. Establishment cuts both ways: the church enjoys a national platform, and in return it understands itself as there for everyone in England, not only for its members. The Archbishop of Canterbury is its most senior bishop and a focal point for the worldwide Anglican Communion, a family of independent churches on every continent.
The parish system
England is divided into roughly 12,500 parishes, and every square metre of the country, and therefore every person, belongs to one. This is the church's quiet genius: wherever you live, there is a parish church with a duty of care towards you, whether or not you ever attend. Your parish church is where you have certain rights: to be married there (subject to legal requirements), to have your children christened, and to a funeral taken by the clergy. Parishes are grouped into deaneries, deaneries into forty two dioceses each led by a bishop, and the dioceses into the two ancient provinces of Canterbury and York. Local ministry is led by a vicar or rector, supported by curates, readers, churchwardens and a parochial church council of ordinary members.
How it is governed
Since 1970 the church's parliament has been the General Synod, which meets twice a year and brings together three houses: bishops, clergy and laity. Synod passes church legislation, approves forms of worship and debates everything from safeguarding to climate change; some of its measures also require parliamentary approval, a mark of establishment. The same three fold pattern repeats at diocesan and deanery level, so lay people have a genuine voice at every layer. Landmark Synod decisions include the ordination of women as priests in 1992 and as bishops in 2014.
How Anglicans worship
Worship is ordered by two books. The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, one of the great works of English prose, remains the church's classic standard and is still used at Evensong and early Communion services. Common Worship, introduced in 2000, provides contemporary language services used by most parishes on a Sunday morning. Within that shared frame the range is famously wide: high church parishes with vestments, incense and sung Mass; evangelical parishes with bands and forty minute sermons; quiet rural churches with a faithful dozen at Morning Prayer. Cathedral choral worship, sung daily by choirs, is a tradition admired far beyond the church. All of it centres on Scripture, the creeds, and the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion.
More than Sundays
The Church of England educates around a million children in its schools, runs food banks and debt advice centres, keeps thousands of listed medieval buildings open to visitors, and provides chaplains to hospitals, prisons and the armed forces. At the great moments of national life, coronations, royal weddings, days of mourning and Remembrance Sunday, it is the church that hosts the nation's prayers.
Not the whole of Anglicanism
A common confusion: the Church of England covers England only. The Church in Wales, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Church of Ireland are separate, self governing Anglican churches, disestablished in Wales and Ireland long ago. In Scotland the national church is the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which is not Anglican at all.
Finding your parish church
Every address in England has a parish church, and its door is open to you: for a quiet visit, a Sunday service, a christening enquiry or simply curiosity. Use our directory to find churches near you, browse Anglican churches across the UK, or read our guide to visiting a church for the first time. Whoever you are, the parish system means there is a church that already considers you one of its own.