Religion in Britain — страница 2

of responsibility. The most senior spiritual leaders of the Church of England are the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is 'Primate of All England', and the Archbishop of York, who is 'Primate of England'. They are head of the two ecclesiastical provinces of England, Canterbury and York. Both provinces are divided into dioceses, each under a bishop. Canterbury is the larger province, containing 30 dioceses, while York contains only 14. The choice of Canterbury and York is historical. Canterbury is the site of where St Augustine reestablished the Christian church in England at the end of the sixth century. The see of York was founded in the early seventh century by an envoy of St Augustine to this capital of Northumbria. (The Celtic churches which survived in Ireland and Scotland were

well established two centuries earlier.) The senior bishops are those of London, Durham and Winchester, but there is no guarantee of promotion according to seniority. George Carey, for example, the present (103rd) Archbishop, was previously Bishop of Bath and Wells, no longer considered a senior bishopric. Because of the growth in population, some bishops are assisted by deputies assigned to a geographical part of the diocese. These are 'suffragan' bishops. Each diocese is composed of parishes, the basic unit of the Church's ministry. Each parish has a vicar, or sometimes a team of vicars, if it includes more than one church. The Archbishop of Canterbury is head of the Anglican 'Communion'. This Communion is composed of the various independent churches which have grown out of the

Church of England in various parts of the world. In fact England accounts for only two of the 28 provinces of the Anglican Church. In theory, about 40 per cent of the English might say they were members of the Church of England. Far fewer ever actually attend church and only one million regularly attend, a drop of over 13 per cent since 1988. It is also a small proportion of the 70 million active Anglicans worldwide. More Nigerians, for example, than English are regular attenders of the Anglican Church. Within the worldwide Anglican Communion are some famous people, for example Desmond Tutu, head of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and once Archbishop of Cape Town. It is said that most of the 'ruling establishment' of Washington belong to the Episcopal Church,

the Anglican Church of the United States. The Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales and the Church of Ireland are members of the Anglican Communion but are not 'established' churches and have memberships of not more than about 100,000 each. Once in every 10 years the Archbishop of Canterbury invites all the bishops of the Anglican Communion to a conference at Lambeth in London to exchange views and debate issues of concern. Rather like the Commonwealth Conference, the Lambeth Conference provides an opportunity for the sister churches from every continent to meet and share their different concerns and perspectives. The Church of England is frequently considered to be a 'broad' church because it includes a wide variety of belief and practice. Traditionally there have been

two poles in membership, the Evangelicals and the Anglo-Catholics. The Evangelicals, who have become proportionately stronger in recent years, give greater emphasis to basing all faith and practice on the Bible. There are over one million British evangelicals of different Protestant churches belonging to an umbrella group, the Evangelical Alliance. The Anglo-Catholics give greater weight to Church tradition and Catholic practices, and do not feel the same level of disagreement as many Evangelicals concerning the teaching and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. There is an uneasy relationship between the two wings of the Church, which sometimes breaks into open hostility. Yet most Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics are united in their deeper dislike of the liberal theologians

within the Church of England. These have challenged the literal validity of several beliefs of the Church, and have argued that reinterpretation must constantly take place, partly as a result of recent biblical scholarship, but also because they maintain that theological understanding changes as society itself changes and develops over the years. In that sense, one can divide the Church of England in a different way, into conservatives and modernists. It is estimated that 80 per cent of the Church of England are of evangelical persuasion, and the balance is divided almost equally between Anglo-Catholics and liberals. However, a large number of church-goers either feel no particular loyalty to any of these traditions, or feel more comfortable somewhere between these poles. Since