What do Anglicans believe about Mary and the saints?

What do Anglicans believe about Mary and the rest of the saints? In the Roman Catholic Church (of which I am a member), we pray for their intercessions and we venerate them and try to model our lives after theirs.

 

Article XXII, of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, unambiguously states the following: "The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the word of God."

The intercession of dead saints and the Blessed Virgin is not to be sought without extreme impiety. They are not set by God as mediators to procure blessings for us, Christ alone is. There is but "one Mediator;" and but one is necessary. Prayer offered to the saints or to the Virgin is idolatry, and at the same time removes the one great Mediator from the office which he alone holds, of making intercession with God.

 

Matthew

The Church of England (and the Anglican Communion generally) maintains quite an extensive Calendar of Saints. The Blessed Virgin Mary figures quite prominently with several feasts or memorials throughout the year. As Anglicans, we honour the memories of the Saints, we recount their virtues and try to model our lives by their holy example. In the intercession from Holy Communion in the 1662 BCP we find:

'And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom. Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.'

Writing from the Church of England's point of view, our official service books (The Book of Common Prayer 1662 and Common Worship 2000) do not contain any prayers directly petitioning the Saints for their intercession. When Archbishop Cranmer put together the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, the Collects for Saints Days were re-written so that requests for their intercession were not included.

There is doubt on whether the Saints possess the necessary information to pray for us specifically...how aware they are of our condition here on earth is really a matter for conjecture. Many Anglican theologians believe that to pray TO a Saint must mean that the Saint possesses an insight which only God can have. It rather makes that Saint into a deity. We cannot be certain that the Saints possess a particular acquaintance with our individual necessities and distresses (idiopatheia) although they may well have a general knowledge of our needs from their own past experience here on earth (sympatheia). This is why prayers to the Saints along the lines of 'ora pro nobis' - ' pray for us' and 'te rogamus audi nos' - 'we beseech thee to hear us' are not found in the official formularies of the Church of England. Such prayers are regarded as controversial. Prayers to the Saints that request things that only God can grant are regarded as downright idolatrous. (Such as praying to St Blaise to request a cure for throat condition for example).

 

MatthewOlson, thanks for posting.

With other hierarchical & authoritative Churches, we must distinguish between Anglican Doctrine and "what Anglicans believe".

As the great reformer Cranmer delved deeper into the early Fathers of the Church, he saw no need to retain many Medieval practices. In 1534, after the first separation from Rome, the Beads were retained and saint-veneration was common. There was no "Reformation" in the sense in which you might understand it today. Invocations of "God, the saints, and the evangelists" attended to every Oath. The first English Liturgy, based on the Litany of the Saints, came out in 1544 with many petitions to Mary & the saints retained.

After 1546 when Edward VI became King, the Reformation still did not hit England with full force. Only in 1552 did the "Reformed" Liturgy become concrete. All petitions to saints were removed from the Great Litany, it now being addressed to God alone. From 1552-1840, there was a general Protestant consensus that prayer to the saints or Mary were either impossible or superfluous: Christ's sacrifice was consistently believed to be the only merit by which we can petition God for any grace.

With the 1840s and Newman, Victorian sentimentalism, Medievalism, Ritualism, etc., the prayers to the saints (and especially devotion to Mary in her appearance as Our Lady of Walsingham) reappeared. The resulting split was much like the division between SSPX & FSSP traditionalists in the modern Roman Church. Evangelical High Churchmen like myself have no sympathy for Anglo-Catholicism, because we see it as a return to what was mercifully abolished in the 16th century.

So, your question needs to be answered in many ways! Just ask any Roman Catholic "what do Catholics believe about Mary and the saints?", and after Vatican II you will get many many answers. Doctrine is not always equal to broad belief.

 

Symphorian has it right -- our doctrine is a balance. We both honor the saints, and do not pray to them as we don't believe intercession is a proper godly doctrine. This allows us to remain strongly wedded to the Catholic culture of our Church, while also being Protestant and (we believe) Scriptural.

Well said. There is some unfortunate Anglo-Catholic influence, but it hasn't reached high enough to rewrite the official Church of England doctrine, and thus we stay within the apostolic pale yet still.

 

Consular raises some good points. Whilst the formularies of the Church of England do not contain prayers with direct petitions to the Saints, many Anglicans in the Anglo-Catholic tradition will use 'ora pro nobis' type prayers to the Saints. Many will also have a heightened devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Walsingham, as Consular mentioned, is a good example of this. Within the Church of England there is a Society of Mary:

http://www.societyofmary.net/gallery34.htm
http://www.societyofmary.net/gallery32.htm

The pics in the above links show the more extreme end of Anglo-Catholicism and Marian devotion.

My Anglican Diocese is on the Anglo-Catholic side of the spectrum. At our Cathedral Church (of the BVM) there are two large figures of the BVM; a Madonna & Child and a Pieta. Both have votives.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7786842@N02/8091790687/

Mark Frank, (1612-1665) one of the Caroline Divines and a 17th century Prayer Book Highchurchman sums up my personal view in a sermon on the day of the Annunciation of the BVM:

"Give we her in God's name the honour due to her. God hath styled her 'blessed' by the Angel, by Elizabeth; commanded all generations to call her so, and they hitherto have done it, and let us do it too. Indeed, some of late have overdone it; yet let us not therefore underdo it, but do it as we hear the Angel and the first Christians did it; account of her and speak of her as the most blessed among women, one 'highly favoured,' most 'highly' too. But all the while give Dominus tecum all the glory, the whole glory of all to Him; give her the honour and blessedness of the chief of the saints, Him only the glory that she is so, and that by her conceiving and bringing our Saviour into the world we are made heirs, and shall one day be partakers of the blessedness she enjoys, when the Lord shall be with us too, and we need no angel at all to tell us so."

More snippets from Mark Frank's sermons regarding the BVM here:

http://mariannedorman.homestead.com/Theotokos.html

 

Okay. Thank you all for your responses.
Do Anglicans pray for the dead (I think this ties into beliefs and doctrine about the communion of saints)?

 

Prayers for the dead were not accepted in the Communion from about 1560-1860. Some schismatics in the early 18th century called the Non-Jurors put forward the idea that we should restore such prayers for the dead. Many Anglo-Catholics have done so. Evangelicals, classicists, and "Protestant" reformed Anglicans do not.

 

Whilst the 1662 BCP makes an oblique reference to the departed in the intercession from Holy Communion, Common Worship 2000 is somewhat more explicit but the language used is perhaps still guarded and couched in terms of 'remembrance'.

An example from Common Worship 2000 (from an intercession):

Remembering...names of departed...and all who have gone before us in faith, and in communion with the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Peter and all the saints, we commit ourselves, one another, and our whole life to Christ our Lord.

another example:

Hear us as we remember those who have died in the faith of Christ ...names of departed...according to your promises, grant us with them a share in your eternal kingdom. Rejoicing in the fellowship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St Luke and of all your saints, we commend ourselves and the whole creation to your unfailing love.

Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Bishop of Winchester had this prayer in his private book of devotions (Preces Privatae):

Give to the living mercy and grace,
to the dead rest and light perpetual;
give to the Church truth and peace,
to us sinners penitence and pardon.

Whilst 17th century Anglican Divines rejected the Roman doctrine of purgatory, many defended an 'intermediate state' characterized not by purging but by waiting. Anglican Divines such as Andrewes, Taylor, Thorndike and Bramhall felt that the dead could benefit from the prayers of the living in accordance with the practice of the early church, long before the ideas of purgatory developed.

 

What do you think about the Ten Articles asserting the following? (I'm trying to understand what is essentially "binding" for Anglicans.)
7. The honoring of saints and the Virgin Mary
8. The invocation of saints
10. The doctrine of purgatory, and prayers for the dead in purgatory (made purgatory a non-essential doctrine)
(Article summaries from Wikipedia.)

 

The problem about the word "binding" is that it generally has different meanings for Rome & for Anglicans.

Rome makes the ex-cathedra declarations of one bishop to be the binding declarations about Faith & Morals, along with the decrees of Councils in union with that bishop.

Anglicanism binds all men to the Holy Scriptures in matters of salvation, and to those alone. The Six, Ten, Thirty-Nine, and Forty Articles of 1536-1560, were guidelines about things to be considered by each Christian's conscience.

The Ten Articles come from the 1530s, a time of great change. "Protestantism", per se, did not exist in the C of E until the 1550s for a brief period, then the 1560s and onward. The 10 Articles were written long before any Lutheran, Calvinist, or other Reformed theology had even been accepted by anyone in the hierarchy. From 1533-1550, the only things England had out of common with Rome, were 1. separation from the jurisdiction of the Pope, and 2. Scriptures allowed, and printed publicly, in vernacular.

A blessed Sunday to you, by the way.

 

Okay. Thank you for clearing that up for me.
A blessed Sunday to you, as well!

 

Im a Anglo-Catholic Episcopalian in the US and i fully Venerate Our Lady and Mother and Queen

 

I think there is some abiding value in Marian devotion insofar as it has had a longstanding and prominent place in everyday Christian practice. I don’t have a problem with it in theory as long as it isn’t taken too literally or made into a source (or object) of doctrine in its own right.

 

Agreed! We pray TO God the Father, THROUGH Jesus Christ our Lord, WITH the saints on earth and the saints already in heaven, who incidentally MAY agree with our requests and petition God ALONGSIDE us.
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My question will come full circle in a moment as it relates to this thread, but allow me to give some context first.

I’m new to the Anglican communion, having grown up Evangelical. I was raised to believe that not only prayers to the saints, but icons and “high church”, was idolatry. M It was even suggested that liturgy should be avoided and infant Baptism was wrong. I have experienced the concern/surprise/criticism from my evangelical friends (and family) as my husband and I, along with our children, embark on this journey. As of now, my children attend a Catholic school as it was the closest thing we could find that supported our beliefs as Anglicans. There are no Episcopal schools in our area and I don’t believe I’ve even heard of an Anglican primary school existing (at least not where we live). Some Evangelical schools would not have accepted us as you often need to sign a “statement of faith” to attend, and our theology no longer fully aligns. Even if we did sign the statement of faith, I worried about the constant comments my children would experience in the school setting as Anglicans. However, the Catholic school welcomed us despite being Anglican. My son has even been invited to share some of our differing Anglican traditions in class.

My son learns rosary and learns many stories about the Saints. I always believed that Catholics were praying TO the saints. However my new Catholic friends have clarified that they don’t pray TO the saints, but rather ask the saints to pray FOR them. Not unlike asking a friend or family member to pray for you. I would be more likely to ask someone I respected to pray for me (a devout person) rather than someone who did not display their devotion to God. So in theory, asking a Saint to pray for me, seem to represent seeking out wisdom from a devout person who is close to God as they dwell in heaven (“to be absent from this body is to be present with God”).

I mention my evangelical past because many of the same verses that an Anglican would use to challenge the idea of asking a saint to pray for you are the same verses that evangelicals often use to denounce icons, liturgy, and/or the baptism of babies. I’ve had friends appear horrified when I say my kids attend a Catholic school. They have said things like “but they are teaching them to WORSHIP Mary!!”.

When we see scripture like Hebrews 12:1 “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses”and Revelation 6:9-10 “I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne; they cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?’ - it seems like there is a fair amount of scripture that could indicate the saints are aware of us. Doesn’t scripture mention Saints appearing to people on earth after Jesus died? I suppose I don’t understand the intense reactions that non-Catholics take to this practice. I agree that if taken too far, these practices could become Saint worship. However, the same could be said if an Anglican were to become superstitious about touching holy water for salvation or gazing at a cross for good luck. These things function as reminders and to help us focus visually. But isn’t theology like this only as dangerous or good as the person who understands its true meaning and purpose? Is it wrong as an Anglican for my son to take part in Catholic rosary and have a respect and admiration for the saints? Isn’t it logical to believe Mary does hold a special place in God’s heart as she was chosen to bring forth the savior of the world? The Bible has few other examples (or maybe no examples if I’m not mistaken) of an angel so dramatically and emphatically proclaiming the special significance of a human being - “Hail Mary full of Grace, The Lord is With Thee, Blessed are you among women” - can anyone answer these questions for me? Apologies for any grammatical errors, I am typing while managing a preschooler, appreciate your time and patience…

 

I understand your questions and your concerns. I am not one to answer them for you, as I have been an Anglican but a short time myself out of my 73 years on Earth. Anglicans do pray the rosary, be it the 5-decade commonly used by the RCC or the Anglican Rosary. I, personally, use the Anglican Rosary as a tool for my prayers. You will find some on this forum that do not agree with Anglicans praying the rosary. Others will silently support it, but not wish to bring criticism onto themselves and not publicly speak of it. I am not ashamed to say I use the Anglican Rosary and have to say that asking for intervention or prayer from the saints is indirectly expressed in the confessions of faith via the Creeds. Good luck in your journey into Anglicanism. God bless.

Our small Anglican Catholic parish prays the Angelus each Sunday at the conclusion of Mass.

 

There is a slight variance between theology and theopraxis. When it comes to the saints I tend to think of praying with the saints as part fo the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I am inclined to remind my friends that the phrase which causes them so much angst "Hail Mary full of grace" is indeed entirely Biblical.

 

As we grow in the faith it is right that we should evaluate what we deem to be logical and right thinking regarding our spiritual walk as disciples of Christ. Those that would criticise you and your family's 'move' into the Anglican fold are simply not maturing in their discipleship if they are simply accepting without question what they have been told since their childhood they must believe by their denominationally biassed influencers. This 'not growing in discipleship and discernment' problem is not restricted to evangelicalism though, it exists in ALL denominations of christianity including Anglicanism in which one might be 'brought up'.

As an Anglican I was taught to pray WITH the saints, never TO the saints. Nevertheless I have on many occasions found St Anthony extremely helpful in recovering otherwise lost items. I figure he is as helpful to others 'of the household of faith' in distress, from heaven, as he was when on earth. It seems to me that liturgy is an essential way to preserve truths concerning the faith, as long as that liturgy conforms to the truths contained in scripture. Thus liturgy is mostly repetition of scripture in one translation or another. There are perfectly good reasons supported by the scriptures, for baptising infants. that is why most denominations do it. However the reasons and scriptural justification for baptising infants are different than that for adults, and the conditions required of the individual are different too. Evangelicals of the extreme kind simply have done insufficient research into the scriptures to enable them to discover why infant baptism is not only allowable for the infants of believing parents, but I believe, highly recommended by their Heavenly Father.

It would appear, from what you report, that your children may receive a good foundation in the faith from the school you have chosen. However, as their parents you have a responsibility not to leave their education entirely to their school, but to ensure they grow in the faith towards a total commitment to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, as you did yourselves, since this is the only way to their complete fulfilment as human beings within the Kingdom of God. Our aim as parents should always be to engender an expectation within them of a personal encounter with God The Holy Spirit, in which they understand who is the source of their salvation and the guardian of their spiritual and physical life.

This is a very reasonable assumption.

Even if that were so, and it might possibly happen in some Roman Catholic schools, children must learn to discern that not everything they are taught in school is beneficial or even true. The ability to discern TRUTH from ERROR is the greatest life-skill anyone can ever learn.

The danger only lies in the fact that human beings are naturally spiritually lazy and inclined to 'religion' rather than FAITH. Religion and all its accoutrements and paraphernalia are potentially killers of the soul, UNLESS they lead one to FAITH in the spirit of Jesus Christ. Only Faith in Christ enhances LIFE.

No!

Yes!

Not only an angelic endorsement but also a statement from Mary herself that 'ALL generations shall call her blessed'.
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According to scripture - John 1:14. It wasn't Mary who was full of grace though. It was Christ that was full of grace, and Mary was full of Christ.
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