ANGLICAN PARISH OF COLAC

About the Book of Common Prayer: The First Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549 during the reign of King Edward VI of England. This original Prayer Book was compiled under the editorship of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1532, and who had led the Church during the early phase of the English Reformation during the latter half of the reign of King Henry VIII. The Prayer Book was revised in 1552, repudiated under Queen Mary (who restored Roman Catholicism in England), and then was brought back under Queen Elizabeth I when she acceded to the throne in 1558. The Prayer Book was again repudiated under Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, before being restored in its present form in 1662, following the Restoration of King Charles II. Because of its history, the Book of Common Prayer is inseparable from Anglican identity – it preserves much of the pre-Reformation Catholic “use” of Sarum (translated into English) while simultaneously giving expression to the Protestant doctrines of justification and salvation by faith alone. It is for this reason that Anglicanism is often referred to as being both “Catholic and Reformed” and described as the “via media” (“middle way”) between Roman Catholicism, on the one hand, and more extreme versions of Protestantism on the other. Although most Anglican churches now utilise more contemporary prayer books (like the APBA), according to the Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, together with the Thirty-nine Articles, constitute the ‘authorised standard of worship and doctrine in this Church’. While the use of contemporary prayer books is both necessary and appropriate, for many Anglicans there remains nothing more quintessentially Anglican than the dignified, reverent, and awe-inspiring language of the Book of Common Prayer.