The paper evaluates the inner state and role of the Church of England in English society at the point of Reformation during the first decades of the 16th century. Reformation studies in contemporary British historical science still continue to wage polemics between liberal and revisionist trends trying to clarify causes of Reformation in England. The liberal concept of Reformation in England explains it by the fact that protestant ideas were rather attractive for the educated part of English population and able to satisfy the spiritual quest and needs of the educated and economically active part of the English society. When explaining the causes of Reformation liberal historians emphasize the shortcomings of church life during the first decades of the 16th century, e.g., economic, administrative abuses of clerics, insufficient attention to spiritual quest of parishioners most interested in religious life. These deficiencies resulted in anti-clericalism and non-satisfaction of the policy and practices pursued by the Church of England. So, according to the liberal concept of English Reformation, when England broke its connections with the Roman church and administration in 1534 for political reasons and the will of Henry VIII (1509-1547), it fully corresponded to the existing spiritual demands in English society. The revisionist concept of Reformation in England explains it by political causes and by the royal desire to be fully independent in pursuing home and foreign policy. The Reformation is therefore considered as a political phenomenon, with the spiritual doubts and religious quests of the English churchmen and intellectuals considered to be much less a decisive factor in the origin of Reformation, but rather seen as a contribution to the establishment of Protestantism as an official religion in England.
Cerkov' Anglii, Reformaciya, prichiny Reformacii v Anglii, sovremennaya britanskaya istoriografiya, liberal'noe napravlenie, revizionistskoe napravlenie
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