Was the Royal Wedding a Protestant wedding?

Answer 1

the royal family are not protestants, they are anglicons and that is more akin to the catholic religion ,there are a lot of ignorant people out there it was not a protestant wedding

Sorry, this is incorrect - the Church of England is a Protestant Church:

1. Yes, the Anglican Church is episcopal (has bishops etc - unlike most other Protestant churches), and retains, to a degree, much of the ceremonial & ritual of the Catholic Church.

However...

2. The C of E refutes totally the claim of the Pope to be overarching head of the Western Church, let alone the concept that he is the lineal descendant of St Peter! The doctrine of "Papal Infallibility" is totally rejected: the Pope is only a man, albeit one in holy orders and of high rank in his church - to Anglicans he is "The Bishop of Rome", no more.

3. Crucially, Anglicans reject the doctrine of "Transubstantiation": there are no "masses", simply services of Holy Communion - the bread and wine are just that - bread and wine. They are powerfully symbolic, but only that - there's no "miraculous transformation" of their substance to become literally the flesh and blood of Christ.

4. Anglican ministers are not "priests" with any special power or religious authority; they're men, and increasingly these days women too, in holy orders, learned in Scripture, whose job is to conduct services, and act as spiritual & pastoral guides to their "flocks". Theirs is a "godly preaching ministry", but they're not required to be celibate (celibacy is only a "charism" with which some may be imbued - their choice), and indeed are encouraged to enjoy sexual relations, procreate etc - in the context, of course, of Christian Marriage! To most Anglicans, Catholic priestly celibacy is odd, and downright unhealthy, and certainly it has no Scriptural Authority!

5. Anglicans study The Bible, and need only Biblical authority to guide them. They believe in "The Priesthood of All Believers", and do not need priests etc to interpret the Bible for them. They never pray to saints for intercession - many would regard such practices as idolatry.

6. The British Royal Family is avowedly Protestant: The Act of Settlement requires all those in line to the throne to be Protestant. The Monarch is the head of the Church of England, and, therefore, must be a confessed Anglican - as things stand, this is the Law.

7. Yes, there are minority groups within the Church of England (known generally as "High Anglicans" or "The High Church") who are very "Catholic" in their ways - eg they'll refer to "mass", and even conduct services in Latin! Ministers will call themselves "priests", "Father" etc, and often wear barettas, use incense etc, but these "Anglo-Catholics" are not mainstream, and certainly the Queen and senior members of the Royal Family would not attend such services. In recent years, many (hundreds) of Anglo-Catholics have "gone over to Rome": good luck to them if that's what they want. The very fact they've done so is an indication of how far removed from the Anglican mainstream they are!

8. The Anglican Church is very broad & inclusive: there are liberal intellectuals, evangelicals/ "Born Again Christians", "Low Church" types (very similar to the Methodists), lots of vaguely agnostic types who approve of the Church as a social & cultural institution (and who are probably "hedging their bets" where religion is concerned!), as well as Gay & Lesbian Christians, "Jews for Jesus", and a host of others.

9. As an established national church, the Church of England was delibately designed to be as inclusive as possible ("I seek no window into the souls of men!" - Elizabeth I): there was an express desire to promote a strong sense of national unity (and explicitly a rejection of Catholicism, and particularly that of Catholic Spain), and the legacy of this is a church that continually ties itself in knots over the acceptability or otherwise of contemporary mores, social trends etc.. But many of us like this - we want no "enraged and fanatical reformers", and are mindful of Jesus' comment that "In My House there are many rooms". I'm a baptised Anglican: one of my god fathers is Jewish (my father's best friend) - he believes in the same one God, rejects Satan and all his works, and was happy to affirm that he would support and guide me in a Christian life. The vicar who baptised me was happy with this, but others might not have been so flexible. But that's the beauty of the Church of England - it will try very hard, within reason, and guided by Christian precepts, to accommodate the spiritual & personal needs of each and every one of its members.

10. Yes, as part of its historic legacy as a breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church, there are many features of Anglican churches (the artefacts found therein etc), and some ritual, that may seem very "Catholic", but anyone who doubts it's a Protestant church should read The Articles of Religion of the Church of England, particularly noting the explicit rejection of Transubstantiation, Papal Authority, & many other Catholic concepts.

The Church of England is a Protestant church, but not a zealous or "fundamentalist" one. Just because Anglicans do not appear in their outward forms of worship to be like Southern Baptists, Moravians, Pentecostalists etc does not make them less Protestant than others.