...among whom our dear Anglicans certainly number. The idea that the Reformers somehow broke with all tradition when they stepped their own way simply ignores their teachings wholesale.

Not a single first generation Protestant, from Martin Luther onwards, did so with the intention of leading the church. They saw human abuses of an old system and sought to reform it. Those within the system therefore drove them out, only to find that a great deal of others were more than willing to go with the new "heretics".

Even thus driven out, the second generation Protestants and onwards still had access to the complete tradition of the Church, both Eastern and Western, and that tradition informs us to this day. It is our history, as well, and we still learn from it. Even Rome eventually learned many similar lessons, with the Council of Trent and others like it eventually adopting the reforms that the early Protestants had been pushing for.

God may be unchanging, but Human Religion is not. With every generation, we learn more and more about the God we worship, and what we learn informs how we worship, how we organize. The early Hebrews were not Monothiests. The early Christians were predominantly Arian, even before Arius. Once upon a time, the primary marker of Ecclesiastical Authority was the age of the bones a Cathedral kept in its sepulcher, and early Protestants believed it was necessary to destroy all holy images in an attack on idolatry.

Human faith grows, and changes. Not all changes are good, which is why it is good to have folks protesting, every now and then. But simply because a tradition is older, does not make it better.