BRANCH THEORY OF THE CHURCH

A theoretical, ecclesiological teaching devised by theologians of the 19th-century oxford movement in the Church of England that, while excluding communion with the Roman Catholic Church, attempted to explain the meaning of the unity of the church and the relation of this unity to different Christian bodies fulfilling the definition of Catholicism as understood by Anglicans. The classical formula of this teaching was set down by William Palmer of Worcester College, Oxford (1838). It became more general and popular later through the writings of Edward B. pusey (1800–82), who in 1865 wrote his famous letter to John Keble, Eirenicon: The Church of England a Portion of Christ's One Holy Catholic Church, and a Means of Restoring Visible Unity. However, one finds a sign of this teaching in the writings of the 16th-century Catholic Henrician Bp. Stephen gardiner (c. 1490–1555), aswell as in the theory of James I, distinguishing between "the Church" and "communions." This position is still held today, although with slight adjustments of categories and labels that emphasize the pragmatic nature of the theory.

Accordingly, the Catholic Church is alleged to be one through a deep unity of life and profession of the faith of the Apostles in the one, original, undivided Church, while maintaining the apostolic order and succession of its bishops, celebrating the same Sacraments, and adhering to its ecclesiastical institutions. Through schism the Church is de facto although not de jure divided as to belief and ecclesiastical communion into three great bodies separated from one another: the Eastern Church, the Roman Church, and the Anglican Church. The proponents of the branch theory do not identify their teaching with the constitution of the Church, but with the vital unity underlying its divisions in its actual state. The substantial unity of the Church is that of a family bound by a common life and a common origin. Confessional differences and breaches of ecclesiastical communion do not involve the esse of the Church and hence are normal and inevitable. The unity is not broken by this schism: the same Catholic Church is Anglican in England, Gallican in France, Roman in Italy. These particular Churches are but one Catholic Church, indeed one visible body, and although the diversum sentire creates external barriers, yet it is united by the essential principles of its oneness (salvo jure communionis; cf. Rosenthal's distinction between unity and union). This is actually the basis of the Anglican Reformation as seen in The King's Book (1543). Consult therein"The Creed, Article 9." Similarly compare The Anglican Canons of 1603, revised in 1865.

These schismatic branches, according to the theory, will eventually be united into the future "ecumenical" Church, a synthesis of all of the confessional Churches at present separated in practice but united in origin and substance with the reality of apostolic Catholicism. (See The Lambeth Appeal, pars. 4 and 9.) This ecumenical Church will be one in essentials although, in the Anglican mystique, broadly diversified as to doctrine and discipline in nonessentials all broadly conceived in relation to "fundamental doctrines." This would permit the variety of the customs and rites and dogmatic formulas as already expressed by the Roman, Greek, Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian liturgies no less than the confessions of each particular Church—e.g., the westminster confession, the Confession of augsburg, the Formula of concord. All these would be considered as valid differentiations of the one Christian revelation.

See Also: anglicanism; unicity of the church; unity of faith.

Bibliography: t. sartory, Lexicon für Theologie und Kirche (Freiburg, 1957–66) 2:643–644. w. palmer, A Treatise on the Church of Christ, 2 v. (New York 1841). e. b. pusey, An Eirenicon, 3 v. (Oxford 1865–70). j. h. newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, 8 v. (new ed. London 1877–88) 3:191–192. "The Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888–1920)," in Documents on Christian Unity, ed. g. k. a. bell, 2 v. (London 1924–30) 2:47–49, The Lambeth Appeal (1920). g. d. rosenthal, The Unity of the Church: Report of the Anglo-Catholic Congress 1930 (London 1930). h. denziger, Enchiridion symbolicorum, ed. a. schÖnmetzer (32nd ed. Freiburg 1963) 2885–88. y. m. j. congar, Chrétiens désunis (Paris 1937) 218–247, with best criticism. a. gatard, "Anglicanisme," Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (Paris 1903–50) 1.2:1298–1302.

[a. h. amadio]