THE
P RTAL
April 2012
Thomas
Cranmer
Page 7
Anglican
Luminary
by Keith Robinson
Everybody knows
that Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake as a heretic, in 1555. Open
to some of the movements of reform current in mainland Europe , he also had a deep loyalty to King Henry
VIII. Both of these factors led him away from the Catholic Church, and eventually to his death under another
sovereign. He was a principal architect of the King’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon, from which point
things went from bad to worse. And he was ready to conceive of that new thing, a national church independent
of Rome .
in his defence
There are however, a number of
things to be said in his defence. He
lived in exceptionally confused
and confusing times, and I can
sympathise with that! It is certain
that his views on the Eucharist
changed several times, and he
probably died as a “receptionist”
(that is, he believed that you truly
received the Body and Blood of
Christ if you were in a state of
grace and faith, not otherwise).
It is also clear that the
contemporary Papacy, struggling
to react to the Reformation,
which took varying forms in
different countries, was not always commending its
authority. Further, the implications of disagreeing
with the King were only too well known. Some were
courageous enough to stand up to him, but many were
not.
Morning and Evening Prayer
In spite of all these things, Cranmer’s impact on
the emergent Church of England (and subsequent
Anglicanism) cannot be overestimated. An academic
rather than a politician, it was the originality of his
thinking which caused the King rather suddenly to
raise him to the archiepiscopal See of Canterbury,
much to everyone’s surprise. But he is to be credited,
virtually single-handedly, with producing the entire
liturgy of the Church of England in the English
language, in a style and quality that matched that of
the King James Bible and the works of Shakespeare.
He created the Offices of Morning and Evening
Prayer out of the old monastic Offices, and these
rapidly became one of the real glories of the English
church.
Much of his liturgical work
was simply translation of earlier
material from the Latin. But
there were some originalities,
and some doctrinal revision.
Unfortunately this is most
noticeable in the Eucharist,
where his novel structure departs
eccentrically from that of the
Latin Church, and, as many
Anglicans themselves have felt, is
theologically inadequate. Even so,
it contains the Prayer of Humble
Access (an original composition)
which proclaims an objective
belief in the Real Presence.
It is probably due to Cranmer’s
retention of what is known as the “Collect for Purity”
that that much loved prayer now appears in the
New Translation of the Missal. And when the new
second Eucharistic Prayer is used, the expression “not
weighing our merits, but granting us your pardon” will
bring to mind Cranmer’s “not weighing our merits, but
pardoning our offences” (both, of course, translating
from the same source).
Anglican patrimony
So, if some may feel they can detect a hint of
“Cranmerian phrasing” in the New Translation of
the Mass, the Ordinariate liturgies, as they emerge,
are proving to be even more dependent on his work,
which is properly regarded as a valuable aspect of
Anglican patrimony.
If Thomas Cranmer, sometimes wilfully, sometimes
perhaps naively, was in part responsible for the break
with Rome , I am still inclined to regard him as a tragic
figure, of great ability and sensitivity, who has left us
with much to treasure.