Celebrating 350 Years of The Book of Common Prayer

Forty years ago, it seemed that the Church of England’s founding liturgy would be little more than an historical note by the time of its 350th anniversary. Church modernisers, swept along by the spirit of the age, saw the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as ‘irrelevant’ both in its language and in its emphasis on man’s fallen nature and his need for grace; many believed that liturgical reform would be a cure for dwindling congregations.

At the start of the nineteen-seventies, in the wake of a Commission on Church and State, there was therefore a real possibility that the Prayer Book beloved by so many might be on the verge of abolition. At the time there were two drafts of a Church of England (Worship and Doctrine) Measure being debated: the first would render the 1662 Book of Common Prayer optional, while the second would outlaw it.

Many were dismayed by this prospect, and in 1972 a small news item appeared in the Peterborough column of the Daily Telegraph calling supporters to a meeting to discuss what could be done to turn the tide. Thus the ‘Society for the Defence of the 1662 Prayer Book and Authorised Version’ was formed, the forerunner of today’s Prayer Book Society and its sister organizations around the world.

Because of what was begun then, and has continued ever since, today the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 remains authorised for use in the Church of England, as well as being its official standard of doctrine. Happily, it continues to be widely used, daily in most of our cathedrals and weekly in many parish churches.

But although the Prayer Book was saved from extinction, there is still much work to be done. It was largely displaced from theological education in the 1970s and 80s, and has never regained its foothold, meaning that too many new clergy emerge from training with scant knowledge of its contents. The hostility of the previous generation has been replaced by unfamiliarity, which the Prayer Book Society is working to overcome. Keep reading.