View source for Timeline of Orthodoxy in the British Isles

The early Christian writers [[Tertullian]] and [[Origen]] mention the existence of a British church in the third century AD and in the fourth century British bishops attended a number of councils, such as the [[Council of Arles of 314|Council of Arles]] in 314 and the [[Council of Rimini]] in 359. 

Saint Dorotheus of Tyre recorded that the Church at Tyre sent Saint Aristobulus to Britain as Bishop in AD 37.  Eusebius and Hippolytus both name Aristobulus as the first Bishop of Britain and there is a town named after him to this day in Wales.  So there is certainty that he came and established the Church at that date.

Tertullian mentions the British Church as operational in AD208 and Origen mentions it in AD238.  In AD314  The Primate of the British Church, Adelfius of Caerleon, Bishop Eborius of York and Bishop Restitutus of London all attended the Council of Arles.  In AD 325, Saint Athanasius specifically noted the British Church assenting to the decisions of Nicaea I.    

The British church was a [[missionary]] church with figures such as St Illtud, St Ninian and St Patrick evangelising in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but the invasions by the pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes set the Church back.  The incomers as is now known, did not drive the Britons out, but actually intermarried with them, and many Britons remained living in the newly conquered areas. The Church no doubt was muted and probably impotent at these times.  There were those outside who thought it should be more militant in returning to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons. In 597 a mission sent by St [[Gregory the Dialogist]] and led by St [[Augustine of Canterbury]] landed in Kent to begin the work of converting these pagan insurgents.

However we know that Augustine met a British Bishop where he landed in Kent and that the British Church numbered around 120 Bishops at the time of his ecclesiastical invasion of an existing Church which was in full communion with the rest of the worldwide Church.

What eventually became known as the "Church of England"<ref group="note">The "Church of England" (the Ecclesia Anglicana - or the English Church)</ref> was the result of a combination of two  traditions, that of the British Church which existed throughout Cornwall, Wales up the east coast of England and into Scotland, and that of Augustine and his successors.

These traditions came together only very slowly - it was hundreds of years before the Cornish Bishops agreed to the Whitby settlement. The result was an English Church, led by the two Archbishops of Canterbury and York, that was fully assimilated into the mainstream Church. This meant that it was influenced by the wider development of the Christian tradition in matters such as theology, liturgy, church architecture, and the development of monasticism. 

Regarding the British Isles, what is known about the state of the Church there at the time of the [[Great Schism]] is that subsequent to the Norman Invasion in 1066, church life was radically altered. Native clergy were replaced, liturgical reform enacted, and a strong emphasis on papal church control was propagated. As such, it is probably safe to say that, prior to 1066, the church of the British Isles was Orthodox, and the Normans brought the effects of the Great Schism to British soil. As such, it is probably proper to regard King [[Harold of England|Harold]] II as an Orthodox Christian.

It also meant that after King Harold II, the English church continued under the authority of the "[[Pope]]" and not with Orthodoxy and this article does not consider the historical development of the "Church of England" after this date.

Orthodoxy came back into the picture in the British Isles in 1716-1725: A considerable correspondence was conducted between the English Nonjuring bishops (usually styled in contemporary Orthodox documents as the “Catholic remnant” of the British Church), Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, and the Œcumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. It was proposed that a parish be established in London, which would be Orthodox and Western Rite. The Nonjurers’ lack of funds prevented their sending the proposed two delegates to Russia to seal the agreement. However, the Patriarch’s second letter to the “British Catholics” expressed a willingness to effect union and fix details later: “As for custom and ecclesiastical order and for the form and discipline of administering the sacraments, they will be easily settled when once a union is effected.”  Nothing actually eventuated.  Then in 1868: The Primus of Scotland visited Russia, where he held informal discussions with Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow and other Russian Church leaders about their interest in effecting the admittance of the British Church into Orthodoxy. He reported his meetings in detail to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Convocation of Canterbury.  Nothing further eventuated here either.

In 1869: the Holy Synod of Russia authorised the use of the corrected text of the Western Rite Liturgy for use in Britain.

Various forms of ethnic Orthodoxy entered Britain during the twentieth century with refugees from eastern Europe and migrant workers.

There are now a number of native British parishes through England, Wales and Scotland under various external Orthodox authorities.

The greatest contributor towards documenting the ecclesiastical and political history of England is attested to St. [[Bede]], who completed in 731 five volumes of his best known work ''[[Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum|The Ecclesiastical History of England]]''.