Though the Reformation in England was supposed to have been initiated by Henry VIII with his break with Rome over the question of the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, spiritually and theologically nothing changed. Under his reign, the Church of England, with him as its Supreme Head, remain essentially a Roman Catholic church without the pope. The Six Articles, passed in 1539, simply affirmed the fact; the six articles re-affirmed:
b. communion in one kind (i.e., only the bread was served to the laymen),
c. celibacy of the priest,
d) the binding character of vows of chastity,
e. private masses be continued,
f. confession to priests be encouraged.
The Six Articles were repealed in the first Parliament of Edward VI in 1547, signaling the first concrete step in the English church towards reformed theology.
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