Church of England

The Church of England is a Christian church which is the established church of England.The archbishop of Canterbury is the most senior cleric, although the monarch is the supreme governor. The Church of England is also the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd-century, and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury.

The English church renounced papal authority when Henry VIII failed to secure a papal annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1534.The English Reformation accelerated under Edward VI‘s regents, before a brief restoration of papal authority under Queen Mary I and King Philip. The Act of Supremacy 1558 renewed the breach, and the Elizabethan Settlement charted a course enabling the English church to describe itself as both Catholic and Reformed