BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER («Book of Common Prayer»). — After the Bible, this is the only official book of the Anglican or Church of England. It contains: the official prayer book (morning and evening prayers); the calendar (the ecclesiastical distribution of the year, with the passages of Sacred Scripture to be read on the principal feasts and on the individual Sundays of the year); the ritual (ceremonies and rites in the administration of the two Sacraments admitted by Anglicans, and certain others); the breviary (the Psalms to be read each day of the month); the missal (the prayers to be recited in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, on all Sundays and principal feasts of the year); the pontifical (the consecration of deacons, presbyters, and bishops). The “articles of religion” found at the end of the B. of C. P. are a later addition.
The first B. of C. P., under the title The Supper of the Lord and the Holy Communion commonly called the Mass, was compiled at the beginning of the reign of Edward VI (1547). Many formulas from the ancient Catholic liturgical books in use in England were collected in it, and elements drawn from the consultatio of Archbishop Hermann of Cologne, composed under the influence of Bucer and Melanchthon, were added. The injunctions, or certain decrees of King Edward VI, were also included, among them one requiring the ministers of the Church to preach four times a year against the jurisdiction of the Supreme Pontiff. The book was printed in 1549 but remained in use for only three years. In 1552, under the same king, it was deemed necessary to correct certain points, add others, and explain some that were too obscure; the final part of the original title was removed, namely the words “commonly called the Mass.” In its fundamental outlines, this book is essentially the one that has survived to the present day.
Suppressed during the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–1558), it was restored at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign in 1559, but with the omission of the famous “black rubric,” that is, the rubric printed in black at the end of the Communion liturgy, which prescribed that the consecrated bread and wine were to be received kneeling, with the explanation that this absolutely did not signify any act of adoration.
The revision of 1604, although it introduced certain changes, did not substantially alter that of 1552, and was rather a reaction by Anglicanism, and especially by King James I (1603–25), against the Puritan-Calvinist tendency. The request to incorporate the “Lambeth Articles” into the B. of C. P. was rejected, because they were openly Calvinist.
More important was the revision of 1662, made after the restoration of the monarchy and of the Anglican Church in England. Once again the Anglicans reacted against the Puritan-Calvinists. Some modifications were important; two should be mentioned: the reinsertion of the “black rubric,” and the substantial alteration of the formula for the consecration of bishops. In the Edwardian formula (1552) it was said: “Receive the Holy Spirit, and remember to stir up the grace of God which is in you through the laying on of hands, because God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power, of love, and of moderation,” in which there is absolutely nothing indicating the episcopal office. In the new formula, approved in 1662, it is said: “Receive the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a bishop in the Church of God, now conferred upon you through the laying on of our hands, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Leo XIII very appropriately pointed out in the bull Apostolicae Curae (15 Sept. 1896): “Eadem adiectio, si forte quidem legitimam significationem apponere posset, serius est introducta; elapso iam saeculo post receptum Ordinale eduardianum, quum propterea, hierarchia extincta, potestas ordinandi iam nulla esset”.
The various currents and divisions that manifested themselves in the Anglican Church during the nineteenth century introduced such differences into the practical execution of the liturgy that, after 1906, the competent ecclesiastical authority decided to revise the B. of C. P. It was not until 1927 that the so-called Deposited Book was ready; it introduced certain modifications or additions to the 1662 edition. It was approved by a majority of an Anglican ecclesiastical commission, and also by the House of Lords (14 Dec. 1927), but was rejected spectacularly in the House of Commons (15 Dec. 1927, by 238 votes against 205). Proposed again to the same House with certain variations and explanations, it was rejected once more (14–15 June 1928, by 266 against 222). The subjection of the Anglican Church even in purely ecclesiastical matters, not to the king but to a lay assembly in which many non-Anglican individuals participate, could not have been demonstrated more clearly. In some modern editions, the proposed changes, although they were rejected, have nevertheless been published and are indicated either by some sign, if they are brief, or actually proposed after the old form under the title “Alternative order of the Communion... of Public Baptism,” etc. In these alternative formulas Anglican ministers are free to use either the old B. of C. P. of 1662 or the new one. Among the additions and changes, we note the introduction into the calendar of certain new feasts, for example, St Francis of Assisi and St Bernard; the commemorative celebration of the dead on 2 Nov.; the epiclesis placed before the consecration; new rubrics concerning sacred vestments; the permission to preserve, with the bishop’s authorization, the consecrated bread and wine in order to carry them to the sick, without their becoming the object of any other ceremonies; etc.