While not all the members of the HCC-WR come from an Anglican background, it is the recent history of the Anglican Communion which provides the immediate historical context for our Task

From the 1950s onward the Episcopal Church in the USA became increasingly radical in its departure from traditional Anglicanism. The admission of women to all three Orders of ministry in 1976, together with the compulsory introduction of new forms of worship, provoked a powerful reaction among traditionalist-minded Anglicans. In the following year a group called the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen convened a gathering of traditionalists from the USA and Canada known as the Congress of St Louis. The Congress acclaimed a manifesto, the Affirmation of St Louis, which set out the basic principles for a separate ‘Continuing Anglican’ Church.

Following upon the Congress four dioceses were created and four men elected to be their bishops At the beginning of 1978 the four bishops-elect were consecrated at Denver, Colorado; great care being taken to ensure that these consecrations were canonically within the ancient Apostolic Succession. A further meeting was arranged for the same Autumn when a new Constitution (with extensive Canons) was adopted, together with the name the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC). The new Constitution proved divisive and issues of churchmanship and personalities provoked a series of subsequent divisions. The divisions were multiplied through further, separate, attempts to establish ‘continuing’ Churches, but until 1991 the ACC remained the most prominent among these jurisdictions.

However the ACC itself could not achieve permanent stability and a series of further splits resulted in the formation of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) in 1991-2, and the Holy Catholic Church - Anglican Rite (HCC-AR) in 1997. The latter Church divided yet again in 1999, creating the HCC-WR. In 2005 however the trend was reversed when full communion was established once more between  the HCC-WR and the HCC-AR.

This trend towards the re-establishment of full communion between Continuing Anglican Churches has continued, with other Churches finding common ground once again in the Affirmation. It is these trends toward division and reunion which are explored further as part of the Task laid upon the HCC-WR.