The Oxford movement and the English reformation

Abstract

The article examines the attitude of the leading figures of the initial stage (1833–1845) of the Oxford (Tractarian) movement — J. H. Newman, J. Keble, R. H. Froude, E. B. Pusey, W. Ward, F. Oakeley towards English Reformation, and the estimation of their opinion by religious and secular circles of English society. The article demonstrates that tractarians have departed to a great extent from tradition of benevolent assessment of the Reformation that prevailed in the Church of England. It was the logical result of their aspirations to present the Church of England not as the Protestant Church, but as a branch of Ancient undivided Catholic Church. The controversy that started after the publication of R. H. Froude’s “Remains” (1838–1839), the first tractarian treatise in which a negative assessment of the Reformation was made clear, and of J. H. Newman’s “Tract 90” demonstrated that the position of members of the Oxford movement had no support in the Church of England as well as in the society. Rejection of the heritage of the English Reformation was perceived as a rejection of Anglican identity. After the “apostasy” of Newman, Ward and Oakeley in 1845, those tractarians, who stayed in the Church of England and their descendants, Anglo-Catholics, significantly reduced the degree of their rejection of English Reformation, or preferred not to pronounce their opinion about the subject. At last by the end of the 19th century the compulsory characterization of the Church of England as “Protestant” had gradually faded making way for a more critical look at the Reformation. In the Anglican theology of the 20th century the view, according to which the Church of England is both “Catholic” and “Reformed”, became predominant. Refs 53.