Дистанційне навчання 10-A (23.01.2021)
Lesson
Saturday, the twenty third of
January
Theme: A History of Christianity in the British
Isles
The history of Christianity in Britain covers the
religious organisations, policies, theology, and popular religiosity since
ancient times.
Constantine and Augustine
In the 1st Century AD, Britain had its own set of
religious icons: Pagan gods of the earth and Roman gods of the sky. Into this
superstitious and violent world came a modern, fashionable cult from the east:
Christianity.
Christianity was just one cult amongst many, but
unlike the cults of Rome, Christianity demanded exclusive allegiance from its
followers. It was this intolerance of other gods, and its secrecy, which
rattled the Roman authorities and led to repeated persecutions of Christians.
Christians were forced to meet and worship in secret.
But a single religion with a single God appealed to
the Roman Emperor Constantine. He saw that Christianity could be harnessed to
unite his Empire and achieve military success. From 313 AD onwards, Christian
worship was tolerated within the Roman Empire.
It could be argued that it was Augustine's famous
mission in 597 AD from the Pope in Rome to King Aethelbert of Kent that really
set up the future course of Christianity in Britain, creating a strong alliance
between Christianity and Kingship. Certainly the Venerable Bede wanted to see
it this way. For Bede, a Christian England was part of God's master plan. It
was Providence that meant it was the destiny of the Anglo-Saxons to become
Christians, united in a single Christian nation.
Alfred and the Normans
Christianity rose from a minor cult to demonstrate the
potential to be a major national religion, but had yet to win the hearts and
minds of the population.
The faith had already proved that it was able to
survive invasion and attack. But just as Christianity's rise looked to be
unstoppable, the Viking invasion of Lindisfarne in 871 AD marked the start of a
series of attacks which threatened to destroy the Christian church. Monasteries
and churches were plundered, and priests fled for their lives. It looked as if
Paganism would again crush Christianity.
It was Alfred, the Christian King of Wessex, who
turned things round. Alfred saw the Viking attacks as punishment from God.
Once Alfred had secured a victory over the Viking
warrior Guthrum at the Battle of Eddington, he set about creating a new system
of Christian learning that would reach the illiterate country people. It was
Alfred's hope that this would enable Christianity to begin to capture the
imagination of the ordinary people.
It was the Norman Conquest that really cemented the
power of the church in England.
The medieval period in Britain is really a story of
how Christianity came to dominate the lives of the ordinary people, both at
home and on the long and perilous journeys of pilgrimage.
The Reformation
At the beginning of the 16th Century there was nothing
inevitable about the Reformation in England. England was not bound to turn
Protestant like its Northern neighbours.
Reform movements on the Continent were successfully influencing
their governments to bring about change. In England reformers were a tiny
minority: people who wanted changes in the medieval Catholicism that had
dominated for centuries.
Reformation really took off under Henry's Protestant
educated son, Edward VI.
He changed the ritual of the mass and abolished the
sacraments of penance and the last rites of the dead. He declared that
Purgatory no longer existed and prayers for the dead were written off as
useless; God alone decided whether you were saved or damned. Churches were
stripped of their artefacts and priests no longer had to be celibate.
By the end of Edward's reign the Reformation was much
more than political: it felt personal since it cut so deeply into people's
habits and beliefs. Dissent was punishable by death.
For those who did not want to slip back into the
Catholic fold the only road was persecution and martyrdom. Under Mary's orders
hundreds of Protestants were burned at the stake. Then after five years the
unexpected happened again. The queen died. She had no heir and her sister
Elizabeth took the throne. The nation once again became Protestant and the
Protestant simplicity of the churches was restored by force.
By the end of Elizabeth's reign a stunning
transformation had occurred.
The King James Bible defines the nation and
encapsulates its religion. The old religion had by and large been flushed out
and the new one successfully implanted. The Reformation has been sold to the
English and it looked like nothing could challenge it.
Homework
1. Watch a video
2. Write what did St. Augustine, St. Aidan, St.
Columba do for the people and for Britain in general.
