Influence of Continental Reformation Theology on Religious Formulations of the English Church of the 16th Century

In England, the Reformation began when Protestantism had already been recognized as an official religion in some regions of Germany and Switzerland; Lutheranism was later legalized in Germany by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Since England’s separation from Rome, there had been no Reformation process yet, but humanist ideas and Protestant theological ideas were popular among the most prominent English clergy. Although Henry VIII and his close conservative associates began to show a colder attitude towards church reforms, the Reformation process under Edward VI entered an active phase. Participants of the English Reformation took an active part in drafting official doctrinal texts, being also familiar with Protestantism of the European continent, so naturally, their views were influenced by the theology of the continental Reformation. As a consequence, such well-known legislative theological texts as the Forty-Two Articles (later: the Thirty-Nine Articles) and the Book of Public Worship, which are the most important subjects of the study for this article, retain influences of various Protestant movements. All the theological writings composed by prominent representatives of the English Reformation in the first half of the 16th century contain key doctrinal statements of English Protestantism, but are not exhaustive.