Fifteen Years without Common Prayer in the Church of England

And Nearly Thirty Year without Common Prayer in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA.

From 1559 through to 1645, The Book of Common Prayer was used weekly, often daily, in the cathedrals, churches and chapels of England and Wales.

From 1645 to 1660 under the Long Parliament and then of the Protectorate (Oliver Cromwell) The Book of Common Prayer was a forbidden Liturgy. Thus the Prayer Book was used only in private and where clergy, having memorized its prayers, prayed those prayers as if ex tempore.

With the restoration of Charles II as King in 1660, The Book of Common Prayer was restored and thus the edition of the Prayer Book of 1662 became the standard edition that went all over the world with the British Empire and the missionaries of the Church.

Not all the clergy of the Church of England were prepared to accept the use of the Prayer Book and from 1660 to 1662 there was an exodus of nearly 2000 clergy, who formed what has been called Nonconformity and Dissent – Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyerians.

The point being made is that England in the mid 17th century provides an example of a Church that rejects the classic Book of Common Prayer; for fifteen or so years experiments with various kinds of Puritan forms of services, where there was little if any formal liturgy; and then restores the very Book (in a slightly edited form) that it had used earlier.

From the seventeenth century through to the 1970s, the Anglican or Episcopal parishes of the USA used The Book of Common Prayer – first in the 1662 edition and then, after Independence, in the American revision of 1789, 1892 and 1928 (while over the border at the north the Canadians also used the same 1662 BCP, as also did the West Indians south of Florida.)

From 1979 the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA ceased officially in General Convention, Diocesan Conventions, and most parishes to use The Book of Common Prayer, as received in the Anglican Way. Rather, they used a book of the same name but of a very different content, structure and doctrine. They had publicly forsaken and set aside The (classic) Book of Common Prayer (1662, 1789, 1892 & 1928 editions).

This absence of The Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church has now lasted for at least 26 years, nearly twice as long as the period it was absent from the Church of England. This is an immense tragedy for the Church and the nation. Happily it has been kept in use by a small number of churches inside and outside the PECUSA.

Conclusion
The majority in England in 1660-1662 wanted to see the recovery of the use of the Prayer Book. Regrettably only a minority in the Episcopal Church desire to see a recovery of the classic Prayer Book, even if only as one of several alternatives.

However, that minority within the Episcopal Church represented by The Network and related groups (e.g. American A C) desires to be accepted by and acceptable to the majority of the member churches of the Anglican Communion. Further, the churches of the Network sorely need a major unifying element in their own ranks other than opposition to the modern homosexual agenda.

The recovery of the classic Book of Common Prayer together with a carefully prepared contemporary language version of it (maintaining same structure, content and doctrine) is what is needed to be both a sign of commitment to true Anglicanism and of desire for internal unity in Rite and Doctrine. Such a standard of worship and doctrine would suffice for traditionalists and modern charismatic/evangelical types, for it would be available in two forms but have one basic content and doctrine.

Twenty-six years or more is too long for American Episcopalians to be without the use of the genuine form of the Anglican Prayer Book! Let the leaders “dig again the wells of Abraham.”

Sept 16, 2005 The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon MA., D.Phil (Oxford)