Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was an English theologian who was a leader of the English Reformation and served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533 to 1555, during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He is honoured as a martyr in the Church of England.

Cranmer was ordained a Catholic priest and served on the theology faculty at the University of Cambridge. At the behest of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, he later served Henry VIII as a diplomat in Europe. Cranmer helped to build the case for the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which was one of the causes of the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, he supported the principle of royal supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm and protector of his people from the abuses of Rome. During Cranmer's tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he established the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the reformed Church of England. Under Henry's rule, Cranmer did not make many radical changes in the Church due to power struggles between religious conservatives and reformers. He published the first officially authorised vernacular (English) service, the Exhortation and Litany.

When Edward, who was devout and had been raised in the tenets of a reformed Church, came to the throne in 1547, Cranmer was able to promote faster changes. He wrote and compiled the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer, a complete liturgy for the English Church, turning to the language of the people. With the assistance of several Continental reformers to whom he gave refuge, he changed doctrine or discipline in areas such as the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, the role of images in places of worship, and the veneration of saints. Cranmer promulgated the new doctrines through the prayer book, the Homilies and other publications.