Since the 1970s it has become increasingly common for Episcopalians to speak of their bishop not only as “chief pastor” (an ancient title) but also as “the [chief] Liturgical Officer” of the diocese (a new title). This is an innovation which has had, and continues to have, serious consequences for the life of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. (ECUSA), for it is one of many innovations and the cause of some.
The two titles of “chief pastor” and “liturgical officer” occur, for example, in a Resolution adopted by both Houses at the 66th General Convention of ECUSA at Denver in 1979:
This Convention declares…that the Book of Common Prayer of 1928 is a rich part of the liturgical heritage of this Church, and that liturgical texts from the 1928 Prayer Book may be used in worship, under the authority of the Bishop as chief pastor and liturgical officer…
Two questions arise from this resolution. First, does the Bishop according to Canon Law have authority as “liturgical officer”? And, secondly, from where does this title “liturgical officer” or even “chief liturgical officer” come?
The answer to the first question is “no”. For the answer to the second question, I rely upon the influential Gregory Dix, whose influence on the shape and content of the eucharistic texts in the 1979 Prayer Book of the ECUSA is immense. Writing during the Second World War, he stated:
We have heard a lot in England in late years of the bishop’s “jus liturgical”. The terms is entirely unknown to the canon law or to any writer in any country before the later nineteenth century, when it comes into use among a certain group of Anglican ecclesiologists, who invented it as a means of lifting the dead hand of parliamentary statutes off Anglican worship. (The Shape of the Liturgy, 1945, up.588)
Presuming Dix to be correct we may note the following things:
1. The term jus liturgical authority] came into use within the Church of England, which is an Established Church, where the Queen is the Head of the Church and where all major changes have to be agreed by the Parliament.
2. It was invented as a means of seeking to gain or claim freedom for the Bishops in matters concerning the revision of the public services of the Church of England.
So it appears that the American title “liturgical officer” is a development from the Latin expression jus liturgical via the debates in England in the early part of the twentieth century in relation to the proposed 1928 Prayer Book, approved by Convocation but rejected by Parliament (for which see OR.CO.DO.Jasper, The Development of the Anglican Liturgy 1662-1980, SPECK, 1989, pp.149-155).
This noted, it is one thing to say that a Bishop has liturgical authority in his diocese and yet another to say that he is the “liturgical officer,” for the latter suggests and encourages a non-pastoral role.
We may add that in the Service for the Ordination/Consecration of a Bishop in the Ordinal (1662) of the Church of England, there is nothing whatever to suggest that the Bishop is the Liturgical Officer, for the Liturgy of the Church is governed by the Canon Law and the rubrics within The Book of Common Prayer (1662). However, it is assumed everywhere that as the Chief Pastor of the diocese the Bishop is also the chief Celebrant, and normally will be celebrant when present either in his cathedral or in a parish church.
In the Church of England the lawful authority of a bishop to make decisions on liturgical matters was and remains very limited. It is to authorize special services for specific purposes only within his diocese and when there is no provision of such in the Book of Common Prayer or in the official “Book of Alternative Services” (called Common Worship from 2000) – e.g. for an ecumenical occasion or a once-off local event.
In the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A., there is no tradition at all (until very recent times – the end of the 20th century) of any suggestion or claim that the diocesan Bishop has a specific liturgical authority. For two centuries there were no bishops in the American colonies and thus rectors, with or without the approval of the vestry, decided what kind of services there would be, and when. And this tradition continued when bishops were consecrated and dioceses formed after Independence. Again, there is nothing in canon law to state that the Bishop has liturgical authority to add or take away from the official services approved by the General Convention. But he does have a limited authority to authorize services for temporary use if they are within the general scope of that which General Convention has approved. Of course, the Bishop is according to canon law and tradition the chief celebrant at every service where he is present, unless he chooses to hand this duty over to someone else; but, this role is rather different than that of introducing new services as regular liturgy or the actual changing of existing ones (e.g., by making them politically correct or to conform to a feminist theology).
Therefore, it has to be noted that those Bishops who over the last decade have approved liturgies for the blessing of same-sex couples or for any other novel purpose, and have done so claiming that they are the liturgical officers with a legal authority to innovate, have acted on a false foundation. Further, it has to be noted that the many Bishops, who have claimed to have the authority to ban the use of services from The Book of Common Prayer (1928), have claimed power that they actually do not have in law and tradition. The point about the edition of The Book of Common Prayer dated 1928 (or even dated 1892) is that it was wholly approved by the General Convention and has been used by thousands of parishes for a long time. Thus the Rector and Vestry of a parish have the right to use services from it; but, they also have a duty to inform the chief pastor of what they are doing.
The term “[chief] liturgical officer” places the bishop in the category (regrettably which many of them seem to encourage these days) of being a kind of Chief Executive Officer and such a designation takes away from and eventually denies the historic role of the Pastor -- pastor of the clergy and pastor of the whole flock. In contrast “chief celebrant” in relation to “chief pastor” points to his vocation to gather the flock together and to lead them in the worship of the Father through the Son and with the Holy Spirit.
If the ECUSA is to be saved from further self-destruction, and if the Extra-Mural Anglican jurisdictions in the USA are to become and remain authentic expressions of the Anglican Way, then both must see the renewal of the vocation and office of a bishop in their midst. Godly, learned and compassionate men who are chief pastors are what is needed not more chief executive officers and bureaucrats with no heart.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
No comments:
Post a Comment