Thirty-nine fundamental beliefs of the Anglican Communion, in addition to the common Christian creeds. The Thirty-nine Articles, most of which are short paragraphs, set down differences in belief between Anglicans and other Christians.
the doctrinal statement of the Church of England. With the Book of Common Prayer, they present the liturgy and doctrine of that church. The Thirty-nine Articles developed from the Forty-two Articles, written by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1553 "for the avoiding of controversy in opinions." These had been partly derived from the Thirteen Articles of 1538, designed as the basis of an agreement between Henry VIII and the German Lutheran princes, which had been influenced by the Lutheran Augsburg Confession (1530).