It is to share a common heritage with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Saint Columba of Iona, Saint Julian of Norwich, John Wycliffe, Queen Elizabeth 1, William Wilberforce, C.S. Lewis and 70,000,000 contemporaries all over the world.

The Anglican Church is rich in history. Indeed, it has been shaped by its history. And if we would understand the Anglican Church we must understand something of that history.

We do not know how the Christian Church first arrived in the British Isles, but two early letter writers tell us that there was a Church in Britain by the year 208 AD. And we know that by 314 AD the Church was important enough to send three of its Bishops to a conference of churches in France. So in 597 AD, when the Bishop of Rome sent Saint Augustine to "convert" the British people, the Church in Britain was already at least 400 years old.

Right from the beginning the Church of England had an uncomfortable relationship with the Church of Rome which often led to a conflict of interests.

This conflict came to a head during the sixteenth century when those who believed a Christian should learn faith by reading the Bible, found powerful allies in the Protestants who were rallying around the religious reformers on the continent.

There were some others, however, who wanted to keep to the old Catholic ways. They believed a Christian should learn faith, not just from the Bible, but from the clergy and traditions of the Church.

In the end the Anglican Church tried it both ways.

During the reign of King Edward V1, the Protestant Reformation took over the English Church. A few years later during the reign of Edward’s sister Mary, the Church reverted to the old ways and the authority of the Bishop of Rome was reinstated.

Then came the compromise under Queen Elizabeth 1.

She decreed that the Anglican Church would be both Catholic and Protestant, traditional and reformed. It would be Catholic in tradition, organisation, worship and ministry and Protestant in the place it gives to the Bible and in the freedom and responsibility it gives to its people.

The Anglican Communion recognises only one head, Jesus the Lord. But we do recognise the Archbishop of Canterbury as our Senior Bishop.

Every ten years all the bishops meet in conference at Lambeth on a level of absolute equality. There is no central ‘government’ in the Anglican Communion. The effective unit of government is the Diocese. This is as it was in the early Church, where the Bishop, surrounded by his clergy and advisors, was responsible for the management and care of the Church in his own area. Our unity is a freely chosen unity, a unity among equals.

There is a common perception that the Anglican Church actually consists of white upper middle class English people worshipping in ancient stone churches. In fact that is a very misleading picture. Today there are more ‘black’ Anglicans than ‘white’ Anglicans. More Anglicans live in the Third World countries than in the West, and far more worship in structures which are very different from the more traditional buildings of the English countryside.