The Anglican Catholic Church began as a restorative effort on the part of concerned Episcopal bishops, priests, and laity who were unwilling to accept the concept that the Christian faith could be amended to fit the current social agenda. The membership of the Anglican Catholic Church now includes people from a broad spectrum of church backgrounds and is found worldwide. We are...
. . .ANGLICAN because we use the Book of
Common Prayer (1928) and follow the path
taken by the Church of England in the sixteenth
century.
. . .CATHOLIC because we adhere to the faith
accepted by all Christians before the church
separated into its eastern and western branches
in the Great Schism of 1054. We confess the
truth of the faith as established by the apostles
and the Nicene Creed.
. . .CHURCH because we are a community that finds
comfort and nourishment in coming together to
worship God.
Anglicanism seeks to coalesce the best of the scriptural, instructive, individual approach of Protestantism and the sacramental, worshipful, churchly approach of Roman Catholicism avoiding the extremes of both influences. It is the moderation of our approach which distinguishes our church from others, and in our moderation we believe that we most clearly represent and validly continue the church as instituted by Christ.
In 1563 Queen Elizabeth I summed up the essence of Anglican faith:
We and our people—thanks be to God—follow
no novel and strange religions, but that very
religion which is ordained by Christ, sanctioned
by the primitive and Catholic Church and
and approved by consentient mind and voice of
the early Fathers.