Apologia Pro Vita Sua (Latin: A defence of one's own life) is John Henry Newman's defence of his religious opinions, published in 1864 in response to Charles Kingsley of the Church of England after Newman quit his position as the Anglican vicar of St. Mary's, Oxford. John Henry Newman was regarded as a premier religious figure even before writing this definitive essay. The backdrop for the essay was a mid-century Anglican theological controversy in which Newman and other Anglicans were calling for a return to a former more disciplined and traditional authoritarian hierarchy.