485 years ago, on May 25, 1533, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Kranmer, declared the marriage of Henrich VIII and Catherine of Aragon to be invalid, and recognized the January 25 secret marriage of Henry with Anna Boleyn. The English monarch demanded the recognition of a divorce from the pope, since Catherine did not bear him a son, but Climent VII for political reasons refused to satisfy his demands and in July of the same year excommunicated the king and archbishop.
Henrich VIII
The divorce of Henry VIII with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, entailed not only the excommunication of the king from the Catholic Church, but also a number of church reforms in England, when the Anglican church separated from the Roman Catholic.
Anna Boleyn
In 1534 the parliament adopted the "Supremacist Act", according to which Henry was proclaimed head of the Church of England and led the religious reformation in the country.
The first victims of the church reform were people who refused to accept the supremacy act, which were equated to state traitors. The most famous of those executed during this period were John Fisher (1469-1535, Bishop of Rochester, formerly the spiritual father of Heinrich Margaret Beaufort) and Thomas More (1478-1535, a famous humanist writer, in 1529-1532 - Lord Chancellor of England ).
During the years 1535-1539, Henry's specially created commissions were closed down by all monasteries operating in England. Their property was confiscated, the brothers expelled. In the same years, on the orders of the King, the relics of many saints were uncovered, robbed and desecrated.
