Status of Church in England up to

Status of Church in England up to. Until 1054 there was only one Christian Church - the Catholic Church.

Its leadership was centered in five great Patriarchates Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople in the East and Rome in the West. After the Roman Empire became Christian some bishops increasingly became involved in political matters, and the bishops of Rome in particular began to claim power over the whole Church. This led to a tragic division in the Church, the Great Schism of 1054, when it split into the Orthodox East and the Roman Catholic West. Not directly involved in that split was the Church in England, which the Bishops of Rome were determined to claim - especially after 1061, when a rival Papacy in Lombardy claimed allegiance from the See of Canterbury.

In 1066, the Duke of Normandy William the Conqueror, with the support and formal blessing of Pope Alexander II, invaded England. After seizing the English Crown, William replaced all but one of the English bishops with Norman bishops loyal to Rome. The CHURCH OF ENGLAND was to remain under Papal jurisdiction for nearly 500 years, until the reign of King Henry 2.