Roman Catholicism and the Church of England took the first dramatic steps toward separation in the 1530s, when Henry VIII broke with the papacy. Last week the Anglican communion and the Church of Rome took a significant step toward reunion. A joint international commission of the two communions issued a statement of broad agreement on the function of the Christian ministry.
Over the centuries, divisions between the two churches have been exacerbated by punitive excommunication, mutual persecution and outright religious war. The underlying theological differences have included such questions as the nature of the Eucharist (an issue covered in an important 1971...
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