THE ANGLICAN INHERITANCE AND THE CHURCH CATHOLIC

By Cheryl H. White, Ph.D.

“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”

We recite these words weekly—but what do they mean, especially amid today’s crisis?

The term catholic (from Greek kata holos, “according to the whole”) originally meant universal—as St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote in AD 107: “Wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic Church.” By the 4th century, “Roman Catholic” emerged, but catholic properly refers to the historic, universal Church founded by Christ.

The Protestant Reformation sought to recover this early catholicity—free from medieval Roman corruption (e.g., indulgences, simony, papal abuses). Yet Reformers diverged: some rejected historic liturgy, sacraments, and episcopal orders, seeing catholicity as invisible. Others—especially in England—aimed for visible continuity: retaining bishops, sacraments, creeds, Scripture, patristic orthodoxy, and liturgy.

The Church of England, therefore, did not invent a new church—but reformed the existing one, preserving its apostolic and catholic identity. This is the Anglican inheritance: we claim continuity with the ancient Church—not through Rome, but through reformed catholicity.

Thus, when the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) consecrated Gene Robinson in defiance of Scripture and global Anglican consensus, it severed its own claim to this inheritance. Our legitimacy rests not on innovation, but on fidelity to Scripture, creed, and historic practice.

Our “signposts” are fixed: Holy Scripture and the Ecumenical Creeds. To remain part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church requires clinging to this orthodox foundation—not accommodating modern ideologies.