eli5: antidisestablishmentarianism

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Can someone break this down for me?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

“Establish” in this case means to make a certain religion the official religion of the state. In this case, the Church of England was established as the official state religion of England from its founding by King Henry VIII in the 1500s.

Likewise, to “disestablish” means to end a religion’s status as a state religion. The act of doing so is “disestablishment.”

There was a political movement in the UK in the 19th century to disestablish the Church of England as the state church. People who advocated doing so were “disestablishmentarians” and their movement was called “disestablishmentarianism.”

Likewise, the counter-movement against this idea was “antidisestablishmentarianism,” whose supporters wanted the Church of England to remain the state religion. This is the position that ultimately won out, and the Church of England is still the national church of England to this day.

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