Veneration of saints in Anglicanism

Abstract

The Anglican Communion, which unites forty-one local Anglican Churches, traditionally honors holy ascetics and heroes of the faith, among whom there are both saints glorified after the English Reformation and general Christian teachers and martyrs known to the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Some Anglicans honor the saints, turning to the One God with gratitude for certain examples of a great righteous life, and ask Christ to send down the same good deed. Other Anglicans, on the contrary, appeal to the saint directly, like Catholics and Orthodox Christians. By themselves, Anglican views are very specific and strongly dependent on a particular church movement (there are “parties” of Anglo-Catholics, Anglo-Orthodox, Anglo-Evangelicals, etc., who have their own opinions on this issue), however, among the Orthodox there is a common misconception that being a Protestant means unequivocally rejecting the cult of saints. In this article, the author reveals in detail to the Russian reader the peculiarity of the Anglican practice of veneration of saints and provides examples of the presence of prayer appeals to saints in modern Anglican practice, dispelling the popular misconception about the lack of veneration of saints and appeals to saints in the Protestant world.

Keywords:

saints, Anglicanism, prayers, heroes of faith, Anglican Catholicism, Anglican Orthodoxy