Saints in Anglicanism

Saints in Christianity are a people recognized as having lived a holy life and as being an exemplar and model for other Christians. Beginning in the 10th century, the Catholic Church began to centralise and formalise the process of recognising saints through canonisation.

Saints who had been canonized when the Church of England was in communion with Rome generally continued to be recognized as saints after the English Reformation in the 16th century.^[1]

Since the split with Rome, the Church of England sometimes uses the word hero or heroine to recognise those holy people whom the church synod or an individual church praises as having had special benevolence. It considers such muted terms a reversion to a more simple and cautious doctrine which emphasises empowerment (subsidiarity) to all members and components of the church.

The provinces of the Anglican Communion therefore commemorate many of the saints in the General Roman Calendar, often on the same days.

In some cases, Anglican Calendars have kept pre-1954 celebratory days that the Roman Catholic Church has since moved or abolished.^{[citation needed]}

^ Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (13 March 1997). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press USA. pp. 1444–1445. ISBN 978-0-19-211655-0.

[1] Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (13 March 1997). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press USA. pp. 1444–1445. ISBN 978-0-19-211655-0.

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