Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, shaper of the Anglican Way 

If you have ever been to a wedding service, you can thank Archbishop Thomas Cranmer for his contribution of the words: ‘to love and to cherish.’ Cranmer beautifully translated from the Latin Sarum rite these now familiar vows: “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart.” He had a liturgical gift, a poetic ability to develop English-language worship services, marriage services, and funeral services that still speak to people over five hundred years later.  

Cranmer birthed an English Reformation that was not only the via media (middle way) between Catholic and Protestant, but also the via media between Luther and Calvin.  Cranmer was not the first Archbishop of Canterbury, but rather the 67^th, he was however, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury. As of today, we have had 105 Archbishops of Canterbury. The Anglican Church was not created by Cranmer, but rather reformed and renewed. He has been described as the most mysterious person in the English Reformation.

Born in 1489 at Aslockton, Nottinghamshire, England, he was sent at age 14 to Jesus College, Cambridge after the death of his father. During his Master of Arts degree, Cranmer studied the Renaissance humanists, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and Erasmus. Shortly after receiving his degree in 1515, he was elected to a Fellowship of Jesus College. Many are unaware that Cranmer had initially been kicked out of Cambridge University in 1515 for the ‘sin’ of getting married. To support his new wife, Joan, he worked as a reader at Buckingham Hall in Cambridge. After Joan died in childbirth, all was forgiven and Cranmer was allowed to return as a lecturer at Jesus College in Cambridge. In 1520, Cranmer was ordained as an Anglican priest. Continuing his studies, he received his Doctor of Divinity in 1526. Cranmer was a brilliant scholar who read not only Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, but also French, German and Italian. As one of the most learned men of his age, he had a private library larger than the Cambridge Library, with nearly all the writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers. 

King Henry VIII, who needed a divorce in order to marry Anne Boleyn, liked Cranmer’s idea of consulting with leading European university theologians. After unsuccessfully appealing to Rome, Cranmer was appointed the resident ambassador at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.  While negotiating in 1532 with the Lutherans on behalf of King Henry VIII, Cranmer married his second wife, Margaret, the niece of the famous Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander. Unexpectedly, King Henry chose Cranmer as the new Archbishop of Canterbury, a position in which he served for 23 years.  With the implicit knowledge of King Henry, Margaret was smuggled into England. The king kept changing his mind about whether clergy could be married, so Margaret was smuggled back to Germany when it was too dangerous. Given the king’s extreme volatility, it was a miracle that Cranmer survived, especially with so many enemies seeking to take him out. In 1543, Henry VIII denounced Cranmer as ‘the greatest heretic in Kent’, alluding to his secret marriage, and allowed the opponents to charge Cranmer with heresy. Then he put Cranmer in charge of the investigation, after personally giving him his royal signet ring of protection. After Edward VI became the next King, Margaret was allowed to openly be Cranmer’s wife with their two children Margaret and Thomas.  

Cranmer wrote the English Prayer Book in two versions, 1549 and 1552, the first one more catholic, the second more protestant. He brought change slowly and cautiously. The compulsory usage of the new English Prayer Book, however, resulted in a Prayer Book rebellion in Devon and Cornwall where Cornish was spoken rather than English. 

Queen Elizabeth I, after the death of her sister Queen Mary in 1558, combined her late godfather’s two prayer books into one: “The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life (1549); Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving (1552).” Cranmer affirmed the presence of Jesus by the Holy Spirit in Holy Communion, which must be fed on in the heart by faith with thanksgiving: “Doth not God’s Word teach a true presence of Jesus Christ in the sacrament is a spiritual presence?”

In the Prayer Book, Cranmer restored the giving of both bread and wine to the congregation, not just the clergy. He also wrote a healing service in the Prayer Book, focused directly in praying to Christ, rather than to the saints. Cranmer wrote 25 of the 70 collect prayers in the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. This helped people meditate on the Word of God, ‘to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest his Word.’ Professor Simeon Zahl of Cambridge recently described Cranmer’s Prayer Book as a ‘technology of the heart’ that helps us psychologically experience the consolation of the Holy Spirit.  

Cranmer wrote the preface for the Great Bible, the first English bible ever used in English Churches, an adaptation of William Coverdale’s translation. To protect the bible, it was chained to the lectern desk.

He gave refuge to many European Protestant scholars like Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr, and Bernardino Ochino who were invited to teach at English universities. In March 1552, Cranmer invited the foremost Continental reformers, Heinrich Bullinger, John Calvin, and Philip Melanchthon to come to England and to participate in an interdenominational council. Sadly, none were able to come.

The death of 15-year-old King Edward VI from tuberculosis left a leadership vacuum. First cousin Lady Jane Gray only lasted as a Protestant Queen for nine days.  Then Mary, a Catholic, was made Queen, and she imprisoned Cranmer for over two years. He was charged by Mary with sedition, treason, and heresy.  During that time, she burned over 300 protestants at the stake, giving her the nickname ‘Bloody Mary’.  Forced to watch the burning of his two fellow bishops Latimer and Ridley, Cranmer renounced the prayer book six times before he was burned at the stake.  

Was Cranmer a weak-willed, flipflopping, compromiser, or was his real issue his strong allegiance to obey the King/Queen?  Was this what caused him to recant the Prayer Book? Was he much like the Apostle Peter who denied Jesus three times, yet turned back and helped others? (Luke 22:32)

In his final sermon, he renounced his renunciation, before being rushed off to be burnt at the stake at the same location as his fellow Protestant Bishops Ridley and Latimer. As he was being burnt, he intentionally put his right hand in the fire so that it would be burnt first: “And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, it shall first be burned…”  Cranmer’s death was immortalized in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, placed beside the Bible by Queen Elizabeth I in every English cathedral. The Anglican Communion commemorates Thomas Cranmer as a Reformation Martyr on 21 March, the anniversary of his death. 

As he was being burned at the stake, he prayed: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Cranmer finished well on a fiery stake, faithful to God at the end, despite his vacillating.  Perhaps this is a hopeful metaphor for the struggles of contemporary Anglicanism.  May the rediscovery of Cranmer help both Anglican Christians and the wider Christian community to also finish well.