Firmly I Believe

The Oxford Movement sprang into life in the 1830s in reaction to the fear of increasing Parliamentary control of the Church and in response to new freedoms for Roman Catholics in society. It was an opportunity for Anglicans who regarded themselves as loyal to the Catholic tradition, despite the interruption of the Reformation, to promote Catholic theology in the Church of England.

A high doctrine of the Church and the sacraments, insistence that Anglican clergy were priests in the Apostolic Sucession and the revival of religious life – plus remarkable social work in slum areas – all characterise what we now call Anglo-Catholicism, still alive and well and accounting for a third of the C of E today.

Here the writings of the Tractarians, and also less well-known supporters of the Oxford Movement, are introduced with a useful commentary and explanation.