British Religion

British Religion

There is complete religious freedom in Britain. Religion has always played an important

part in the national way of life and this is still true today, though changes are taking place and will

continue to do so.

The Church of England

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the Primate of all England, that is to say, he is the spiritual

leader of the Church of England. After him, the Archbishop of York is called the Primate of

England and under these two archbishops come a number of bishops. England is divided into

forty-two districts called dioceses, each with a bishop in charge and a cathedral as the central

church. A diocese is divided into smaller districts called parishes. These vary in size, a large town

having a number of parishes and a village being a single parish. Each parish is in the care of a

priest, who is called either a vicar or a rector. A vicar with a large parish may have an assistant

priest called a curate to help him.

The Church of England (or the Anglican Church) is the national church in England. The

Church of England, and the monarch's relation to it, was established through a series of

Parliamentary acts in the 1530s, which brought about the English Reformation. Henry Ⅷ broke

from the Roman Catholic Church by denying papal claims to ecclesiastical or any other

jurisdiction, and by declaring himself rather than the Pope as Supreme Head of the Church in

England. The Preface to the 39 Articles of the Church of England describes the monarch as 'being

by God's Ordinance, according to our just Title, Defender of the Faith and ... Supreme Governor of

the Church of England.' The Monarch must be in communion with the Church of England (i.e. a

full, confirmed member) and, in his or her coronation oath, the monarch promises to maintain the

Church.

There are many examples of the relationship between the established Church and the State.

Archbishops and bishops are appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister, who

considers the names selected by a Church Commission. They take an oath of allegiance to the

Queen on appointment and may not resign without royal authority. The connection between

Church and State is also symbolized by the fact that the Lords Spiritual (consisting of the

Archbishops of Canterbury and York and 24 diocesan bishops) sit in the House of Lords. Parish

priests also take an oath of allegiance to the Queen.

The General Synod (including the bishops, elected representatives from the clergy and the

laity) is the supreme authority of the Church of England. The Queen opens the Synod after the

elections in the dioceses every five years. Since 1919, the Synod (formerly called the Church

Assembly) has had the power (delegated by Parliament) to pass Measures on any matter

concerning the Church of England. Following acceptance of the Measures by both Houses of

Parliament (which cannot amend them, nor - by convention - initiate or discuss ecclesiastical

Measures, as many members of both Houses do not belong to the Church of England), the

Measures are submitted for Royal Assent and become law. In addition to legislating for the Church

by Measure, the General Synod has the power to legislate by Canon in its own domestic affairs

such as worship and doctrine, but the Queen's assent is required for the promulgation of such

Canons. Such assent is given on the Home Secretary's advice.

Many people would say that the Church of England today is both Protestant and Catholic;

there is certainly a great variety of beliefs and practices within the Church. A look at some church

notice-boards might confuse anyone unfamiliar with the differences between high church and low

church. A look inside the churches would probably add to the confusion. A visitor entering a high

church at, say, ten o'clock on a Sunday morning might find a high (sung) mass in progress and

think he had entered a Roman Catholic church (the name Anglo-Catholic is sometimes used for

this kind of church). The church would probably be highly decorated, the priests would be

wearing various kinds of robes, people would light candles to the Virgin Mary and go to the

priests for confession. By contrast, a low church service would be as simple as possible; there

would be no ceremony, no candles, no private confessions and the church would look rather bare.

It would seem to have more in common with the nonconformist churches. Between these two

extremes there are churches with more or less ceremony, depending mainly on the views of the

vicar in charge. Some Anglican priests have broken away from tradition to the extent that in some

services they introduce new religious songs, composed by young people who accompany them on

guitars in the church. They also use the church as a place where people can discuss the problems

of everyday life; in other words, these priests want the church to become a meeting place in a

wider sense, not simply for the more traditional type of religious service.

Religion宗教

1. Everyone in Britain has the right to religious freedom with out interference from the

community or the State. He may change his religion at will may manifest his faith in teaching,

worship and observance. Except that the Lord Chancellor may be a Roman Catholic, public

offices are open without distinction to members of all churches or none.

在英国，人人都有信仰宗教的权利，社会和政府不得干涉。他可以随意改变宗教信仰，可以在教职，礼拜或仪式中表明他的信仰。除了娃哈哈官不可以是罗马天主教徒外，公共职务对各种信仰或没有信仰的人一律公开。

2. Established churches

国教

There are two established church in Britain: in England the church of England and

Scotland the Church of England.

英国有两大国教，在英格兰是英格兰国教，苏格兰是苏格兰教会（长老教）。

3. Church of England is uniquely related to the Crown in that the Sovereign must be a

member of that Church and as “Defender of the Faith”. The Church is also linked with the State

through the House of loads. The church of England is not free to change its form of worship, as

laid down in the Book of Common Prayer without the consent of Parliament.

英格兰国教与君主有独特的联系。因为君主作为“国教的捍卫者”必须是此教会的一员，他在登基时必须承诺维持国教。国教还通过上议院与政府联系。没有议会同意，英格兰教会不可随意改变“国教祈祷书”中规定的礼拜仪式。

4. The government of the Church of Scotland is Presbyterian, that is, government by

ministers and elders, all of whom are ordained to office. The Monarch is normally represented at

the general assembly by the Lord High Commissioner.

英格兰教的管理时长老制，也就是由教士和长老治理。他们被授予圣职，王室高级代表通常代表君主光临会议。

5. Unestablished churches

非国教教会

There are include: the Anglican Churches(圣公会)，the Free Churches(自由教)，the

Roman Catholic Church（罗马天主教）。

IV. Festival and Public Holidays

节假日

The Christian festival of the year and Christmas, Easter, and Whit Sunday.

其主要的节日有圣诞节，复活节，圣灵降临节

Other little things

1． “Bless you!”or “God bless!”

2. Touch wood or Knock on wood make you luck

you walk under a ladder, you will have bad luck.

a girl catches the bride's bouquet after a wedding, she will be the next to marry.

5. One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for wedding, Four for birth.

you break a mirror, you will have seven year's bad luck.

you talk of the Devil, he will appear.

you see a small spider, you will get a lot of money.

a witch points at you, you will die.

10. If you scratch your left hand, you will give money away.

11. If you hear an owl singing in the night, a friend will die.

12. If a black cat crosses your path, you will have good luck.

Other beliefs

WICCA

Wicca is a Neopagan religion and a religious movement found in various countries

throughout the world. It gained popularity in 1954 by a British civil servant named Gerald

Gardner after the British Witchcraft Act was repealed. Many of Gardner's ideas regarding the

development of this modern faith, along with Margaret Murray's anthropological scholarship have

been disproven by university scholars, since the time of their writings. Gardner claimed that the

religion, of which he was an initiate, was a modern survival of an old witchcraft religion, which

had existed in secret for hundreds of years, originating in the pre-Christian paganism of Europe.

No one has been able to locate the persons from whom Gardner received his initiations, however

much of Gardner's writings and initiation procedures were lifted out of Freemasonry; Margaret

Murray's book, "The Witch Cult in Western Europe" was found to have faulty scholarship in many

areas by later anthropologists and historians. Scholars now know that while Europeans were

polytheists, each tribe honored different deities and no tribe ever appeared to merge all goddesses

into one goddess icon or iconic idea, and likewise, no gods were ever merged into a god icon or

iconic idea in antiquity - in fact different tribes around Europe were unfamiliar of one another's

deities with the exception of Odin/Woden, who seemed to be known in more than one area of

northwestern Europe. Wicca is sometimes referred to as Wiccanism ("teaching of the sages") the

Old Religion, or the New Religion of the Old Gods. The term "wicca" is from the Anglo-Saxon

language, a "dead language", and it literally means "to bend or change in conformity with will".

This loose definition was once applied to crafting and artisanship as well as spirituality, and is a

term describing generic spirituality more than anything else. It simply means "submission to

change", an idea held sacred in most major religions. In modern times, it has been popular to

equate Ancient Celtic Culture with the modern religion of Wicca, however the two are separate

entities and are not necessarily linked. To equate Bronze-Age Celtic Culture with a particular

religion would be the same as equating modern American Culture with one particular religion -

this situation simply did not exist in Ancient Europe because every tribe had their own pantheon

and ceremonies; modern archeologists know little if anything about ancient European religious

ceremonies or beliefs, and have only been able to locate the names of deities inscribed in remains

of these ancient people. For example Celtic people groups existed all over Europe and were

pushed northwest by other ancient people groups prior to the first century, losing much of what

they themselves knew of their own culture in distant antiqity. As new cultures and religions

presented themselves to remaining Celtic People groups in Ireland, Scotland, and like areas, Celtic

Peoples absorbed these religions readily and without much resistance, aligning Celtic Culture

strongly with first, Roman Paganism, and later Roman Christianity; When the Romans left, Celtic

Peoples continued to interpret the influence of Roman religion in their own terms for many

centuries, while maintaining much of their established culture and lifestyle. This merging of

European Polytheism and the newer Christianity paved the way for the Witch Trials as individuals

belonging to more formal Christian organizations began to look with suspicion upon those who

maintained a blend of the two faiths. After the persecution of alleged witches ceased, the

confusion of the era ebbed further into the darkness of the unknown. Finally, in the mid 19th

Century modern Europeans in these areas become swept away with Gardner's and Murray's

speculations and propositions about the religion of ancient Europeans. Most of what archeologists

and anthropologists know about Bronze-Age Celtic religion and culture is yet unknown.

中新网5月9日电据香港《文汇报》报道，英国一名13岁少女沉迷鼓吹自残身体和自杀讯息的“自杀”Emo，多次自残身体后，早前在肯特郡的家中睡房吊颈身亡。

自杀少女邦德年前开始迷上Emo的沉郁音乐调子，死前曾留言给父母，透露自杀的念头，希望以另外一种方式“再生”。可惜父母当时只报以一句：“别傻。”邦德生前常以黑衣服打扮，近期开始疯狂追随Emo乐队，相信受到他们2006年出版的一张名为《我的黑》的唱碟影响，萌生轻生的念头。