Read the English Reformation.
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─ because the Church of England was made out of words.
Edward Whitchurch and his colleagues printed the English Reformation.
In 1539, Edward Whitchurch and Richard Grafton printed The Great Bible. It was the first Bible authorised to be printed in English: the Word of God for the people of God. They printed Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s first Book of Homilies in 1547 and the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549; books that have shaped the Church of England’s common life and faith for 500 years. In 1553, Grafton printed the precursor to The Thirty-Nine Articles ─ a document that definitively articulates the Church of England’s reformed-catholicity.
With the Reformation’s emphasis on the power of the Word to establish the life of the Church and preserve it in every generation, these publications retain their potency. The New Whitchurch Press exists to make the original documents of the English Reformation accessible and attractive, publishing books that retrieve the reformed-catholic heritage of the Church of England.
You can read everything we’ve edited so far in our library of digital texts. You’re welcome to print these out for yourself, or you can buy printed copies in our bookshop.