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Imperial Nexus and National Anglican Identity: The Australian 1911–12 Legal Nexus Opinions Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Robert S.M. Withycombe
Robert S.M. Withycombe
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Abstract

The legal Opinion of eminent English Counsel on the legal nexus of the Australian Anglican colonial dioceses to their Mother Church in England was delivered on 20 June 1911. It provoked a decade of debate in diocesan, provincial and national synods that revealed how leading Australian Anglicans identified themselves before and after World War One. Great diversity appears among the responses of bishops, clergy and laity. Both enthusiasm for change and wariness of it were confined to no one region or diocese. Lay understandings and participation in these debates, along with churchmanship anxieties and long traditions of colonial diocesan independence, were among important factors that governed the Australian Anglicans' long march towards constitutional autonomy in 1962. Lambeth archives, printed Synod Reports, Australian secular and religious press reports are quarried to reconstruct these images of a diverse and uncertain pre-1921 Australian Anglican identity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , June 2004 , pp. 62 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) and The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2004

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References

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