<Li> North American Anglican Conference </Li> <Tr> <Td> Anglicanism portal </Td> </Tr> <P> The Church of England (C of E) is the state church of England . The Archbishop of Canterbury (currently Justin Welby) is the most senior cleric, although the monarch is the supreme governor . The Church of England is also the mother church of the international Anglican Communion . It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the third century, and to the 6th - century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury . </P> <P> The English church renounced papal authority when Henry VIII failed to secure an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1534 . The English Reformation accelerated under Edward VI's regents, before a brief restoration of papal authority under Queen Mary I and King Philip . The Act of Supremacy 1558 renewed the breach and the Elizabethan Settlement charted a course enabling the English church to describe itself as both Catholic and Reformed: </P>

The seat of the archbishop and the head of the english church was at