How To Use The Anglican Book Of Common Prayer

[Stayla Casillas]

TheBook of Common Prayer (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The first prayer book, published in 1549 in the reign of King Edward VI of England, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Rome. The 1549 work was the first prayer book to include the complete forms of service for daily and Sunday worship in English. It contains Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, the Litany, Holy Communion, and occasional services in full: the orders for Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, "prayers to be said with the sick", and a funeral service. It also sets out in full the "propers" (the parts of the service that vary weekly or daily throughout the Church's Year): the introits, collects, and epistle and gospel readings for the Sunday service of Holy Communion. Old Testament and New Testament readings for daily prayer are specified in tabular format, as are the Psalms and canticles, mostly biblical, to be said or sung between the readings.[1]

The 1549 book was soon succeeded by a 1552 revision that was more Reformed but from the same editorial hand, that of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. It was used only for a few months, as after Edward VI's death in 1553, his half-sister Mary I restored Roman Catholic worship. Mary died in 1558 and, in 1559, Elizabeth I's first Parliament authorised the 1559 prayer book, which effectively reintroduced the 1552 book with modifications to make it acceptable to more traditionally minded worshippers and clergy.

In 1604, James I ordered some further changes, the most significant being the addition to the Catechism of a section on the Sacraments; this resulted in the 1604 Book of Common Prayer. Following the tumultuous events surrounding the English Civil War, when the Prayer Book was again abolished, another revision was published as the 1662 prayer book.[2] That edition remains the official prayer book of the Church of England, although throughout the later 20th century, alternative forms that were technically supplements largely displaced the Book of Common Prayer for the main Sunday worship of most English parish churches.

Various permutations of the Book of Common Prayer with local variations are used in churches within and exterior to the Anglican Communion in over 50 countries and over 150 different languages.[3] In many of these churches, the 1662 prayer book remains authoritative even if other books or patterns have replaced it in regular worship.

Traditional English-language Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian prayer books have borrowed from the Book of Common Prayer, and the marriage and burial rites have found their way into those of other denominations and into the English language. Like the King James Version of the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, many words and phrases from the Book of Common Prayer have entered common parlance.

The full name of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Church of England, Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be Sung or said in churches: And the Form and Manner of Making, ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.[4]

Only after Henry VIII's death and the accession of Edward VI in 1547 could revision of prayer books proceed faster.[10] Despite conservative opposition, Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity on 21 January 1549, and the newly authorised Book of Common Prayer (BCP) was required to be in use by Whitsunday (Pentecost), 9 June.[10] Cranmer is "credited [with] the overall job of editorship and the overarching structure of the book,"[11] though he borrowed and adapted material from other sources.[12]

The prayer book had provisions for the daily offices (Morning and Evening Prayer), scripture readings for Sundays and holy days, and services for Communion, public baptism, confirmation, matrimony, visitation of the sick, burial, purification of women upon childbirth, and Ash Wednesday. An ordinal for ordination services of bishops, priests, and deacons was added in 1550.[13][14] There was also a calendar and lectionary, which meant a Bible and a Psalter were the only other books a priest required.[14]

The BCP represented a "major theological shift" in England towards Protestantism.[14] Cranmer's doctrinal concerns can be seen in the systematic amendment of source material to remove any idea that merit contributes to salvation.[15] The doctrines of justification by faith and predestination are central to Cranmer's theology. These doctrines are implicit throughout the prayer book and had important implications for his understanding of the sacraments. Cranmer believed that someone who was not one of God's elect received only the outward form of the sacrament (washing in baptism or eating bread in Communion), not actual grace, with only the elect receiving the sacramental sign and the grace. Cranmer held the position that faith, a gift given only to the elect, united the outward sign of sacrament and its inward grace, with only the unity of the two making the sacrament effective. This position was in agreement with the Reformed churches but in opposition to Roman Catholic and Lutheran views.[16]

A priority for Protestants was to replace the Roman Catholic teaching that the Mass was a sacrifice to God ("the very same sacrifice as that of the cross") with the Protestant teaching that it was a service of thanksgiving and spiritual communion with Christ.[21][22] Cranmer's intention was to suppress Catholic notions of sacrifice and transubstantiation in the Mass.[17] To stress this, there was no elevation of the consecrated bread and wine, and eucharistic adoration was prohibited. The elevation had been the central moment of the mediaeval Mass, attached as it was to the idea of real presence.[23][24] Cranmer's eucharistic theology was close to the Calvinist spiritual presence view, and can be described as Receptionism and Virtualism: the real presence of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.[25][26] The words of administration in the 1549 rite are deliberately ambiguous; they can be understood as identifying the bread with the body of Christ or (following Cranmer's theology) as a prayer that the communicant might spiritually receive the body of Christ by faith.[27]

Many of the other services were little changed. Cranmer based his baptism service on Martin Luther's service, a simplification of the long and complex mediaeval rite. Like communion, the baptism service maintained a traditional form.[28] The confirmation and marriage services followed the Sarum rite.[29] There are also remnants of prayer for the dead and the Requiem Mass, such as the provision for celebrating holy communion at a funeral.[30] Cranmer's work of simplification and revision was also applied to the Daily Offices, which were reduced to Morning and Evening Prayer. Cranmer hoped these would also serve as a daily form of prayer to be used by the laity, thus replacing both the late mediaeval lay observation of the Latin Hours of the Virgin and its English-language equivalent primers.[31]

Many of the traditional elements of the communion service were removed in the 1552 version.[36] The name of the service was changed to "The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion", removing the word Mass. Stone altars were replaced with communion tables positioned in the chancel or nave, with the priest standing on the north side. The priest is to wear the surplice instead of traditional Mass vestments.[37] The service appears to promote a spiritual presence view of the Eucharist, meaning that Christ is spiritually but not corporally present.[38]

The burial service was removed from the church. It was to now take place at the graveside.[41] In 1549, there had been provision for a Requiem (not so called) and prayers of commendation and committal, the first addressed to the deceased. All that remained was a single reference to the deceased, giving thanks for their delivery from 'the myseryes of this sinneful world.' This new Order for the Burial of the Dead is a drastically stripped-down memorial service designed to undermine definitively the whole complex of traditional Catholic beliefs about Purgatory and intercessory prayer for the dead.[42][43]

The Orders of Morning and Evening Prayer are extended by the inclusion of a penitential section at the beginning including a corporate confession of sin and a general absolution, although the text is printed only in Morning Prayer with rubrical directions to use it in the evening as well. The general pattern of Bible reading in the 1549 edition is retained (as it was in 1559) except that distinct Old and New Testament readings are now specified for Morning and Evening Prayer on certain feast days. A revised English Primer was published in 1553, adapting the Offices, Morning and Evening Prayer, and other prayers for lay domestic piety.[44]

The 1552 book was used only for a short period, as Edward VI died in the summer of 1553 and, as soon as she could do so, Mary I restored union with Rome. The Latin Mass was reestablished, with altars, roods, and statues of saints reinstated in an attempt to restore the English Church to its Roman affiliation. Cranmer was punished for his work in the English Reformation by being burned at the stake on 21 March 1556. Nevertheless, the 1552 book survived. After Mary's death in 1558, it became the primary source for the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer, with only subtle, if significant, changes.

Hundreds of English Protestants fled into exile, establishing an English church in Frankfurt am Main. A bitter and very public dispute ensued between those, such as Edmund Grindal and Richard Cox, who wished to preserve in exile the exact form of worship of the 1552 Prayer Book, and those, such as the minister of the congregation John Knox, who saw that book as still partially tainted by compromise. In 1555, the civil authorities expelled Knox and his supporters to Geneva, where they adopted a new prayer book, The Form of Prayers, which principally derived from Calvin's French-language La Forme des Prires.[45] Consequently, when the accession of Elizabeth I reasserted the dominance of the Reformed Church of England, a significant body of more Protestant believers remained who were nevertheless hostile to the Book of Common Prayer. Knox took The Form of Prayers with him to Scotland, where it formed the basis of the Scottish Book of Common Order.

3a8082e126