Second, this is combined with a commitment to participatory decision-making which is one of the defining characteristics of what it means to be Anglican. It was a term applied among early Christians to the person entrusted with the care of the house used for worship. Typically that person was also a leader of the congregation. By the end of the second century, lists of bishops going back to the Apostles were being compiled to demonstrate that the divine authority possessed by these bishops had passed from one to another in direct succession. It is on this basis that Anglicans trace the origins of their church not to Henry VIII but to the Apostles.
Episcopal ministry is the historical thread.
What the English reformers objected to were additions to the Catholic faith which did not accord with the Scriptures. Among other things these include the claims to supremacy of the papacy and those beliefs and practices by which the church assumed the role of gatekeeper between the ordinary faithful and salvation. Anglicanism puts the responsibility back on individual believers. They are to be assisted in the choices they make by church teaching and theological reflection but in the sense that these are prerequisites to informed decision-making rather than prepackaged rules and regulations whose observance alone amounts to faithfulness. Mistakes, of course, are to be expected when people are left to the own devices.