Saints and Canonisation

Q: Do Anglican Churches canonise Saints or have the ability to do so? Do Anglicans recognise the Saints canonised in other catholic Churches?

A: The Anglican and English Missal traditions do recognise as a matter of course the canonisation of Saints by both the Western and Eastern Churches after the period of the Reformation, a number of post-Reformation feast days being included in the Missals. The Missals are an officially authorised worship resource in the APA by virtue of Canon Law, so as a result, the canonisation and veneration of such identified Saints is part of our theological and canonical praxis. It is entirely within the competence of any Catholic and Orthodox jurisdiction to canonise Saints, as we see in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Churches of the East canonise Saints according to the careful decision and specific proclamation of particular Holy Synods, the Synods of Bishops in any given jurisdiction. After a number of years of research, study and prayer concerning an individual considered worthy of canonisation, a particular Orthodox jurisdiction has the ability and juridical right to proclaim an individual a Saint, and this happens with some frequency. It is the general custom of Anglican Churches to recognise these Saints, and those also canonised by the Roman Communion and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The 'Branch Theory' allows us to recognise all those holy men and women who have been canonised in other parts of the Holy Catholic Church.

Theoretically, there is nothing in canonical or doctrinal precedent to prevent the Provincial Synod of the APA, or of any other orthodox Anglican Province, from canonising a new Saint, 'canonisation' meaning the commemoration of the recognised worthy at the Altar with a special feast day in the liturgical calendar and special liturgical propers for the celebration of the Mass and Offices, but to my knowledge, no Anglican body has sought so to canonise formally any Saint unique to Anglicanism since 1661, when Saint Charles was officially canonised by the English Church: 26th April 2011 marks the 350th Anniversary of the official Canonisation of Saint Charles Stuart I, King and Martyr, by the Church of England. The closest the Anglican Communion has come since that time to liturgical official canonisation has been the inclusion of various Anglican 'Worthies' in local, regional and national liturgical calendars and Prayer Books. Our Missals, for example, contain feast days for Blessed William Laud, Blessed John Keble, Blessed Edward Pusey, Blessed John Mason Neale, etc., an act tantamount to canonisation without the formal process of a Synod or Convocation authorising it. Lesser Feasts and Fasts, in the orthodox 1963 edition of the American Church, also 'canonised' a large number of Saints from the Undivided Church and the Anglican Communion by giving them proper feast days and Eucharistic propers.

Our practice, as demonstrated in the Missals, is essentially that of the ancient Church, which Church always canonised Saints on a local basis by popular acclamation - the consensus of the local Church; a local Diocese would recognise in one of her own members a person of heroic sanctity and virtue, and would thus begin the practice of invocation of the person in prayer, with the veneration of the place of burial, relics, and sites associated with the person in question: over the course of time, such local veneration, often resulting in miracles, would flower into a more formalised devotion and the most official recognition possible, the holy one then being commemorated in the Liturgy, and the place of his burial and his mortal remains becoming a shrine and place of prayer and pilgrimage. A local Church would simply be compelled to recognise a Saint through popular devotion and 'make it so.' In the Undivided Church, there was no formal or 'bureaucratic' process of canonisation; veneration of an individual was the result of the Saint's life of Christian holiness, witness and example, and the fruit of Christian devotion and the movement of the Holy Spirit in the consensus fidelium of the People of God. So we Anglicans have basically followed the same path, and have slowly and incrementally incorporated particular Saints or Worthies of our own branch of the Catholic Church into our own liturgical calendar as acclamation and recognition have warranted, sometimes with Synodical and juridical action and sometimes without.