BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER («Libro della preghiera comune»). — After the Bible, this is the only official book of the Anglican or Church of England. It contains: the official lectionary (morning and evening prayers); the calendar (the ecclesiastical distribution of the year with the passages of Holy Scripture to be read on the principal feasts and on the individual Sundays of the year); the ritual (ceremonies and rites for the administration of the two Sacraments admitted by Anglicans, and some 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, priests, 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 Order of the Lord’s Supper and Holy Communion commonly called the Mass*, was compiled at the beginning of the reign of Edward VI (1547). It gathered many formulas from the ancient Catholic liturgical books used in England, and added elements drawn from the consultation of Archbishop Hermann of Cologne, influenced by Bucer and Melanchthon. It also included the *injunctions* or certain decrees of King Edward VI, among which was one obliging 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, clarify some overly obscure passages, and remove from the original title the final words, «commonly called the Mass». In its fundamental lines, this book is essentially the same as that which has come down to the present day.
Suppressed during the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–1558), it was restored at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth 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 stated that the consecrated bread and wine were to be received kneeling, with the explanation that this did not in any way signify an act of adoration.
The revision of 1604, although it introduced some changes, did not substantially alter that of 1552, and was rather a reaction of Anglicanism, and especially of King James I (1603–1625), against the Puritan-Calvinist tendency. The request to incorporate the «Articles of Lambeth» 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 the Anglican Church in England. Once again, the Anglicans reacted against the Puritan-Calvinists. Some of the changes were significant; two may be noted: the reinsertion of the «black rubric», and the substantial change in the formula for the consecration of bishops. In the Edwardian formula (1552), it was said: «Receive the Holy Ghost and remember to stir up the grace of God which is in thee by the imposition of hands, for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sobriety», in which nothing at all is found that indicates the episcopal office. In the new formula, approved in 1662, it was said: «Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a bishop in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost». As Leo XIII appropriately noted in the bull *Apostolicae Curae* (15 September 1896): «Eadem adiectio, si forte quidem legitimam significationem apponere posset, serius est introducta; elapso iam saeculo post receptum Ordi- nale eduardianum, quum propterea, hierarchia ex- tinta, potestas ordinandi iam nulla esset».
The various currents and divisions that manifested themselves in the Anglican Church during the 19th century introduced such differences in the practical execution of the liturgy that the competent ecclesiastical authority, after 1906, decided to revise the B. of C. P. Only in 1927 was the so-called *Deposited Book* ready, which introduced some 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 December 1927), but was rejected resoundingly by the House of Commons (15 December 1927, by 238 votes to 205). Proposed again to the same House with some variations and explanations, it was again rejected (14–15 June 1928, by 266 votes to 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-Anglicans participate, could not be demonstrated more clearly. In some modern editions, the proposed changes, although rejected, have been published and are noted either with some sign if they are brief, or even proposed after the ancient form under the title of «Alternative Order of the Communion... of Public Baptism», etc. In these alternative forms, Anglican ministers are free to use either the ancient B. of C. P. of 1662 or the new one. Among the additions and changes, we may note the introduction into the calendar of some new feasts, e.g., St. Francis of Assisi and St. Bernard; the commemorative celebration of the dead on 2 November; the epiclesis placed before the consecration; new rubrics on sacred vestments; the faculty, with the bishop’s permission, to reserve consecrated bread and wine to take to the sick, though without subjecting them to other ceremonies, etc.