Prayer BookSociety

JOURNAL

HRH The Prince of WalesAddresses Annual Conference

Lent 2007ISSN 1479–215X

Issue No 13 · Lent 2007

ISSN 1479–215X

THE PBS JOURNALEditorial BoardPhilip CorbettCharles CleallPrudence DaileyProfessor Roger HomanAnthony KilmisterIan RobinsonJohn Wimpress

Published on behalf of the Prayer Book Society by Nigel Lynn Publishing and Marketing LtdTelephone: 01993 832313E-mail: sales@nigellynnpublishing.com

Printed in the United Kingdom

All contributions, including articles, letters for publication, Branch news and notices of forthcoming events, should be sent to:

PBS Journal, The Studio,Copyhold Farm, Goring Heath, Reading RG8 7RT;or by e-mail to:pbs-journal@prayerbook.org.uk(Submission by e-mail is preferred wherever possible)

THE PRAYER BOOK SOCIETY

A company limited by guarantee Registered in England No. 4786973Registered in the Isle of ManNo. 4369FRegistered Charity No. 1099295Registered offi ce: The Studio, Copyhold Farm, Goring Heath, Reading RG8 7RT

Patron:HRH The Prince of Wales

Ecclesiastical Patron:The Rt Revd and Rt Hon. Richard Chartres, DD, FSA, Bishop of London

Lay Patrons:The Rt Hon. Lord Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PCThe Rt Hon. Lord Sudeley, FSA

Vice Presidents:Sir Eric Anderson, KT, FRSEThe Revd Dr Roger BeckwithThe Rt Hon. Frank Field MPProfessor Roger HomanC. A. Anthony Kilmister, OBE

Address for correspondence:PBS Administration, The Studio,Copyhold Farm, Goring Heath,Reading RG8 7RTTelephone: 01189 842582E-mail: pbs.admin@prayerbook.org.uk

Board of Trustees:

Miss Prudence Dailey Chairman

The Revd Paul Thomas Deputy Chairman; Regional Trustee – South East Region

Mrs Nikki Sales Company Secretary19 Heath Road South, Locks Heath, Southampton, Hants SO31 6SJTelephone: 01489 588517

John Wimpress Finance Director;Regional Trustee – North East Region

Philip Corbett

Cllr Stephen Evans Regional Trustee – West and Central Region

Philip Gore Regional Trustee – North West Region

The Revd Derek Hailes

Dr Chris Hall

Nicholas Hurst Regional Trustee – Eastern Region

The Revd Neil Patterson

A Corporate Act of PrayerMembers of the Society are encouraged to join together in saying the following Collect at the same time in their own homes, at 10.00 p.m. each Sunday evening.

THE COLLECT OF THE SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

O LORD, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend thy Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The deadline for contributions for the next issue isFRIDAY, 13 APRIL 2007Publication date15 June 2007

© The Prayer Book Society 2007. Individual articles are © the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the Editor, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization

The Prayer Book Society, like the Church of England, is a broad church which embraces a wide breadth of opinion and churchmanship. Views expressed in the PBS Journal are those of their individual authors, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Society or of the Editorial Board

Prayer BookSociety

JOURNAL

Cover pictures:The Annual Conference at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Photographs copyright © G. J. Hardwick

3

Not so long ago, any questioning of the merits of multiculturalism was pretty

much taboo. Now, suddenly, the ‘great and good’ from government ministers to the Archbishop of York, are starting to recognize the problem. We have become so concerned with diversity that we have lost the thread of commonality which should bind us together—hence the renewed emphasis on ‘Britishness’. Furthermore, we cannot know who we are as a nation unless we have some understanding of our collective cultural roots, of where we have come from. Not least among these factors is our identity as a Christian nation. The greatest threat to our Christian tradition comes not from the presence of minority faiths in our society (many of whose leaders have no desire to undermine our indigenous religious foundations), but from the forces of postmodernism which reject any claim to objective truth or morality, and for whom ‘choice’ is the only god. It is, therefore, somewhat ironic (though perhaps not surprising, given the age in which we live) that the Church herself is suffering from a similar crisis of rootlessness and fragmentation. Since its inception, the thing which held the Church of England together, which defi ned what it meant to be Anglican, was, of course, the Book of Common Prayer—a repository of Anglican doctrine, expressed through a common way of worshipping. Liturgical reform stripped away the recognized patterns of worship, with Prayer Book services increasingly unfamiliar to younger generations. We now have Common Worship, the ultimate postmodern liturgy with its multiplicity of options and variations. Too many of today’s clergy have little knowledge of the worship and doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer, too many theological colleges and courses give scant attention to foundations of classical Anglicanism. Collective memory has been lost, and with it our shared identity. ‘Liturgical pick and mix’ is, alas, something with which we shall have

to live for the foreseeable future, but within that context, the critical task of the PBS is to promote the growth and fl ourishing of the Prayer Book tradition. The encouragement of ordinands and young clergy is especially vital. Looking to the future, Prayer Book clergy lead to Prayer Book churches, where the laity can be fed with the spiritual vision of the BCP, and where future vocations can be nurtured. Those who predicted that the

BCP would die out with the last generation of worshippers who grew up with it were, thankfully, hopelessly wrong. A number of younger clergy (some of them members of this Society) are showing increasing interest in the Prayer Book. They are critical to the rediscovery of the Anglican way in all its fullness: please remember them in your prayers.

Prudence Dailey

ContentsANGLICAN IDENTITY IN A FRAGMENTED CHURCH 3

ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2006 4

THE POWER AND MAJESTY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER 6

BCPS FOR ORDINANDS 7

ON BEHALF OF … 8

CAROLINE CHARTRES LAUNCHES GUILDFORD BOOK FESTIVAL 9

WELCOME TO OUR NEW TRUSTEES 10

NEWS AND NOTICES 11

‘A LITURGY FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY’ 12

THE ETERNAL IN CHORAL SINGING 13

SOME PRINCIPLES OF THE PRAYER BOOK 14

THOMAS CRANMER AND THE WEST COUNTRY 17

LETTER FROM EUROPE 18

YOUNG ORGANIST RECEIVES GRANT FROM PBS 19

JUNIOR CHOIR PRAYER BOOK EXAMINATION (1897) 19

BISHOP EDWARD KING 20

BOOK REVIEW 22

NEWS AND NOTICES 23

FORTHCOMING EVENTS 25

LETTERS 26

NEWS FROM THE BRANCHES 27

FORTHCOMING EVENTS 30

BRANCH CONTACTS 31

Anglican Identity in a Fragmented Church

44

The 2006 Annual Conference was held from 15 to 17 September at Lady Margaret Hall (LMH), Oxford.

LMH started life as a women’s college, and the portraits of alumnae lining the walls are striking—from the bluestocking to the elegant, all apparently formidable. Like almost all the colleges, LMH nowadays has fellows and students of both sexes, and we were welcomed very warmly by the Vice-Principal, Dr Nicholas Shrimpton. 2006 being, of course, the 450th anniversary of Thomas Cranmer’s martyrdom, we were honoured that our Conference was opened by our Patron, HRH The Prince of Wales. In his rousing address, Prince Charles paid tribute to Cranmer’s achievement in composing the Book of Common Prayer, and to the ability of the Prayer Book to convey ‘a sense of the sacred through the power and majesty of the language’. (The full text of the Prince’s speech is reprinted on page 6.)

It is, perhaps, no coincidence that Conference achieved its highest attendance for quite some years, including PBS members from all parts of the country, both Conference regulars and a gratifying number of new faces. During the reception preceding his address, The

Prince of Wales circulated amongst those present and spoke to every person in the room. We were pleased to welcome a number of guests, including the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, the Bishop of Buckingham

and the Archdeacon of Berkshire (representing the Diocese of Oxford), and Bonnie Yule-Kuehne, National Development Manager of Alpha. After dinner, Conference attenders proceeded to the college chapel for the late evening service of Compline, and eventually to bed. Following Morning Prayer and breakfast, Saturday’s fi rst session was an address by the Rt Revd Anthony Burton, Bishop of Saskatchewan, Canada. One member commented that he looked too young to be a bishop, and was very surprised to learn that he had already been a bishop for thirteen years, having been at the time of his consecration, aged thirty-three, the youngest bishop in the Anglican Communion. Bishop Burton, who is Vice-Chairman of the Prayer Book Society of Canada and had made the trip to England especially for our Conference, won enthusiastic applause when he declared that the majority of parishes in his diocese use the Book of Common Prayer exclusively. He defended the character of Prayer Book worship in

Annual Conference 2006

Left to right: John Dearing; The Revd Lorne Denny; The Revd George Westhaver; Roger Evans; HRH The Prince of Wales;

The Ven. Norman Russell, Archdeacon of Berkshire

The Prince of Wales emphasizes his point …

… to the evident appreciation of his audience!

55

its own right, commenting that many comparisons between the Prayer Book and modern liturgies are not legitimate because the Prayer Book is based on fundamentally different principles. (It is hoped to reprint Bishop Burton’s talks in a future issue of Faith & Worship.) Then, after coffee, there was a Question Time session. The panellists were Bishop Burton; the Revd Canon Dr Anders Bergquist, a member of the Liturgical Commission; Prudence Dailey, then Vice-Chairman of the PBS; and Stephen Evans, a member of the Board of Trustees. Unsurprisingly, many of the questions were directed primarily to Canon Bergquist, who noted the current ethos is very much one of liturgical diversity of which the Prayer Book is seen as an important component, and the Liturgical Commission regards the PBS as a partner in its current task of promoting well-conducted liturgy. Other panellists commented that, while the PBS did not concur with the Liturgical Commission’s essential vision of the Prayer Book as simply part of a series of options, the current attitude of openness provided a good basis for working together. In the afternoon, Conference attenders were given the chance to see the sights of Oxford, including optional tours of some of the historic college chapels, the Ashmolean Museum or the Bodleian Library. Immediately prior to Evensong, a short play about Thomas Cranmer was performed by children from the Archbishop Cranmer School in Aslockton, Nottingham, birthplace of Thomas Cranmer. The children, who had written the play themselves, were clearly knowledgeable about Cranmer, and it was evident that the school takes seriously its

historical connection with him. Evensong was conducted by the Revd Reginald Walton, Vicar of Aslockton and Whatton, who preached a wide-ranging sermon about Cranmer’s life. The musical accompaniment was provided to a very high standard by the Cranmer Company of Singers from Nottinghamshire. Members were understandably disappointed that the Baroness James of Holland Park (the novelist P. D. James), who had originally intended to address us after dinner on the Saturday, was sadly prevented by a family illness from being with us. The gap was, however, manfully fi lled by the Worshipful June Rodgers, Chancellor of the Diocese of Gloucester (and wife of the then PBS Chairman, Roger Evans). She encouraged members to take a stand to support the Prayer Book in their own parishes, reminding us that its continued use depends on the endeavours of all of us. The evening ended with Compline. Sunday began with Morning Prayer and then, after breakfast, a second address by Bishop Anthony Burton. The Bishop spoke about the need to promote ‘Prayer Book centres of excellence’, which would also be centres of learning and spiritual formation, and would be critical in nurturing future generations in an appreciation of the BCP. The Conference was rounded off by a service of Holy Communion, celebrated by Bishop Burton. The Revd Professor Leslie Francis, Professor of Practical Theology at the University of Wales, Bangor and vicar of a Prayer Book parish, drew on his academic expertise in a sermon about the relationship between psychological type and Christian faith. The Diocese of Saskatchewan includes a large proportion of Cree Indians who use the Book of Common Prayer in Old Cree, and by popular request the Bishop gave the fi nal blessing in Cree! After lunch, it was time to part company for another year, with many members commenting that the weekend had been a great success, and they were already looking forward to the 2007 Conference. The 2007 Conference will be held at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford from 7 to 9 September, one week earlier than in previous years.

The Rt Revd Anthony Burton

Prudence Dailey holds forth during the Question Time session, fl anked by Canon Anders Bergquist (left) and

Stephen Evans (right)

66

The Power and Majesty of the Book of Common PrayerA speech given by HRH The Prince of Wales at the Prayer Book Society’s Annual Conference in Oxford on 15 September 2006

I am so delighted that you manage to get together on these occasions to share something that you’re enthusiastic about and really mind about.

There’s nothing, I think, like safety in numbers and I only hope, as far as the numbers are concerned, that you can work at raising the awareness amongst people in this country of the sheer joy and glory of the Prayer Book. And how, as I was saying to some of you whilst going round, it has this remarkable ability to link generations. It does seem to me that one of the great tragedies of our modern existence is that all the signposts, all those marvellous ‘little country lanes’ that people used to know and walk down, have all been destroyed, so that there are so few things that anybody can share with their grandparents if you are younger, which I think is a real and tragic loss. How you knit back again some of these lost aspects of life, how you join the roots again which have been severed, is something, for what it’s worth, that I’ve been trying to do for the past thirty years. It does gives me enormous pleasure as your Patron to join you at your Annual Conference. It is particularly appropriate that you have chosen to meet in Oxford to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the martyrdom in this city of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. If I may say so, I am also delighted that you have managed to secure such comfortable lodgings here at Lady Margaret Hall, which was, of course, founded by Elizabeth Wordsworth, daughter of that loyal Prayer Book bishop, Christopher Wordsworth, of Lincoln. The motto of Lady Margaret Hall, as you will have noticed, is ‘souvent me souviens’—‘remember me often’—and all lovers of the Book of Common Prayer, and I must say I very much count myself among them, will want to recall with great thankfulness the man to whom, above all, we owe such a huge debt of gratitude for the Prayer Book, Thomas Cranmer.

Our knowledge of him has been greatly enriched by the researches of one of the professors in this university, Diarmaid MacCulloch. In his biography he paints a picture of a relatively conservative academic living quietly in his thirties in my old university, which is I think referred to in Oxford as ‘the other place’, and showing little sign of the great role he was to play. Then after being selected as a junior member of an embassy to Spain in 1527, he had his fi rst fateful meeting with King Henry VIII and the quiet academic became a leading actor in the affairs which preoccupied the whole of Europe. So I think this anniversary is a marvellous opportunity to tell Cranmer’s story and the story of the Book of Common Prayer, if we possibly can, to a new generation, which is not always well served by how history is taught in our schools—that’s another question, of course. There

77

has never been a generation better informed about ‘now’, but perhaps with so little sense of how we actually came to be here. Every young person in this country ought really to have the opportunity to fi nd out about Cranmer and to consider his legacy—but that, of course, is mere wishful thinking! Members of the Church of England are not Cranmerians in the sense that Lutherans and Calvinists look to some master theologian for their inspiration. Much that we cherish, including the choral Evensong and the sung Holy Communion which, I understand, you will be celebrating, would not necessarily have had Cranmer’s approval; but we honour him and celebrate his contribution to the spiritual life of this and every nation which worships in English. It is sometimes forgotten that the Prayer Book largely created and spread standard English across the country in the sixteenth century, as a result of Sunday worship in the parish church when, week after week, millions would assemble to hear the power and majesty of the Book of Common Prayer. And, ladies and gentlemen, how lucky they were, and we are, that the Prayer Book was composed by Thomas Cranmer who had such an ear for formal prose: for its sonorities and structure. To some of his contemporaries it must have seemed too conservative; to others too radical—but it has survived changes in Church and state that would have destroyed a liturgy less sensitive to the profound human need for continuity and permanence. It also needs to be remembered, I think, that standard English could have developed in other ways. For example, the pompous and convoluted style favoured by some humanist scholars with an excessive dependence on the classical languages, or the path favoured by men like Sir John Cheke, Cranmer’s friend, which would have seen a consistent preference for Anglo-Saxon derivations over Latin and Greek. He proposed, for instance, that instead of ‘resurrection’ we should speak of ‘gainrising’; ‘crucifi ed’ would have been ‘crossed’ and proselyte, ‘freshman’. And the infl uence of the Prayer Book upon many generations has, I believe, gone beyond its language and has played a major role in instilling in English culture the essential virtues of restraint and balance. It has reminded us—but perhaps not enough—that if we encourage the use of mean, trite and ordinary language, we encourage a mean, trite and ordinary view of the world we inhabit. The genius of Cranmer’s Prayer Book—in my

humble opinion—lies in the conveyance of a sense of the sacred through the power and majesty of the language so that, in the words of the Collect ‘Among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fi xed where true joys are to be found’. The Prayer Book also offers a simple and moderate system for a whole life, from baptism to last rites, and seeks, I think, in its rubrics and ceremonies to embrace the whole person and not merely the intellect. It is for these reasons that I congratulate the Prayer Book Society for all its work in fostering the traditions of the Prayer Book and for telling its story as a system which transforms lives and translates doctrines and ethics into a living ethos. Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be the Patron of your endeavours and wish you a joyful and fruitful conference.

BCPs for OrdinandsReaders of this Journal may be aware of the Society’s national scheme to supply Prayer Books to ordinands. We were grateful to receive a copy of this letter sent by the Rt Revd Graham James, Bishop of Norwich and Chairman of the Church of England Ministry Division, to Principals of theological colleges and courses:

Dear Colleague

Gift of copies of the Book of Common Prayer to ordinands

The Prayer Book continues to be an historic and living part of the heritage and life of the Church of England. From time to time the House of Bishops has reaffi rmed its importance as part of the formularies of the Church and as a central liturgical resource for the Church’s worship. The House has underlined its importance, both as a key text in Anglican theological self-understanding and for Anglican worship, and has stated that ordinands should be fully familiar with it by the time of ordination. In the light of this, I am pleased to be able to tell you that the Prayer Book Society has generously offered to give each ordinand a copy of the Prayer Book as they enter training. These will be made available shortly.

Once again, I am grateful to the Prayer Book Society for this continuing and generous commitment. We would ask you to encourage a full understanding of and use of the Prayer Book in your preparation of candidates for ordination.

8

On Behalf of …A sermon delivered by Bishop Michael Ball to the Bath & Wells Branch

It is very good to be back with you, amongst the ‘prayerfully blest society’ if that is what PBS stands for. Forgive me if, as last year, I say something

about what excites me in the Book of Common Prayer, rather than preaching on the reading for the day. In my training days, we were warned against preaching more than one sermon at a time, as so many preachers do, often without realising it. So I had better make an apology at once, for this is in reality two sermons—two personal excitements. And my fi rst one is this. The BCP in its offi ces, Morning and Evening Prayer in particular, but also in the Communion Service is meant to be an ‘on behalf of’ book, not an ‘instead of’ book. You might not leap out of your seats as I say so, but I fi nd that very exciting indeed. Let me illustrate. The priest in his parish is meant to say Matins and Evensong every day and toll the bell before he does so. He says those offi ces whether anyone joins him or not. He (it was ‘he’ in those days)—and here is the excitement—is saying them on behalf of his parishioners and the world beyond his patch. He is not, and it is a big not, saying the offi ces instead of them. For reasons of their jobs, because they are sick, or because of their families, they are what the Prayer Book might call ‘let or hindered’, they cannot be there in person, but in a strange way their parish priest is there for them, on behalf of them. Like the company of heaven their presence is around and the priest is ‘behalfi ng’ for them, just as many of them are doing jobs on behalf of him. I say Matins each day, early in the morning and do so on behalf of Sandra, Ben, David, Judy and dozens of others in the village and elsewhere, offering up their needs and desires as I do so. What a joyful privilege. And the cheerful corollary of that is that the ‘behalf of’ principle will make us much less worried and steamed up about the fact that our churches are not full. We might like them all to be there, but we are responsible for them nevertheless and they are there in a different way. The Prayer Book with its ‘on behalf of’ theology, fi lls our churches with those invisible people we are doing our prayerful work for. And here is my second sermon and very different it is too. There seems to be a habit these days of people joining in as many prayers as possible in the liturgy. Yes, we say the Creed and Gloria and the Sanctus and the Confessions together, but now we are encouraged to say all sorts of other prayers together,

including, in one church I know, most of the Prayer of Consecration in the Communion Service. Joining in at times is, of course, right and proper, but the point I want to make is that you can still be fully involved in worship, whether you are verbally participating or not and that is particularly true of the Book of Common Prayer. As the prayers rise up, whether you say them as well or not, you are deeply involved and the music and cadences of the words take you and all those on whose behalf you are worshipping, to the heavenly places. You are a prayer transport system, a heavenly Virgin Rail. The Prayer Book teaches us that involvement does not depend on verbal participation and that is a very exciting and important principle. A principle that needs proclaiming more and more in these days of compulsory congregational chatter. Our silent involvement often batters the doors of heaven more loudly, I suspect, than unison noises. Take heart and be thrilled by those two things. That we are this morning and every time we worship doing a gloriously godly job on behalf of those near to us and those far away, transporting them by our peaceful involvement in these wonderful liturgies.

The Rt Revd Michael Ball is Ecclesiastical Patron of the Bath & Wells Branch of the PBS and was Bishop of Truro until his retirement in 1997

A Statement from the Chelmsford BranchThe following statement has been adopted by the Chelmsford Branch Committee, and is commended to the whole Society.

As believers valuing the Book of Common Prayer, we stand:

FOR the Prayer Book, in declaration of doctrine

BY the Prayer Book, in defence of its worship

IN the Prayer Book, in delight for its beauty

Moreover, because it is solidly based on God’s Word, and being mindful of the sacred work it has done for countless souls over hundreds of years, we stand:

BEFORE the Prayer Book, according to it a certain attitude of REVERENCE and THANKSGIVING.

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9

Caroline Chartres Launches Guildford Book Festival

Guildford Book Festival got off to a resounding start at a packed service of Matins in St Mary’s Church, Quarry Street, Guildford on Sunday

15 October 2006 when Caroline Chartres, a writer who is also the wife of the Bishop of London, spoke about a recent book she has edited entitled Why I am Still an Anglican and its relevance to the Book of Common Prayer. Mrs Sarah Goad, the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, Councillor and Mrs M. Nevins, the Deputy Mayor and Mayoress of Guildford and Mrs Pat Grayburn, Chairman of the Book Festival were among those who heard Caroline describe the fi fteen contributors to her book as a diverse cross section of Anglicans whose ages ranged ‘from thirty to eighty’ and all with different ideas about churchmanship. Among the common threads of the essays was a list of dislikes—for instance, none of them liked being ‘stereotyped’, Ann Atkins (the agony aunt) claiming that she was ‘primarily a Christian, rather than an Anglican or an evangelical, or any other label’. However, what they all liked about Anglicanism was there was room for ‘uncertainty’—‘I’ve tried atheism and I can’t stick it: I keep having doubts’, says former Private Eye editor, Ian Hislop and many of the contributors saw the Church of England as ‘suiting the British character’ in an understated sort of way. And quoting Robert Runcie, Ian Hislop said ‘ The Church of England remains the focus of vague religious expectations on the part of the great majority of English people.’ Caroline said she was struck by how overwhelmingly the Book of Common Prayer infl uenced many of them—Ann Atkins had said that the Prayer Book was intended as a great equalizer—‘the lasting language of Cranmer deliberately grafted from Saxon and Latin roots for ploughman and peer alike’. Whilst P. D. James found that as a child ‘it was possible to attend different churches—on holiday for example—and immediately feel at home, fi nding in the pew, not a service sheet with a series number, but the familiar and unifying Book of Common Prayer’. She ‘regretted’ its ’neglect’ and saw ‘the church of my childhood’ as ‘the national church in a very special sense; the visible symbol of the nation’s moral and religious aspirations in a country which—despite great differences of class, wealth and privilege—was unifi ed by generally accepted values and by a common

tradition, history and culture, just as the Church was unifi ed by Cranmer’s magnifi cent liturgy.’ Caroline warned that to lose the use of the Book of Common Prayer or King James Bible entirely would be like ‘Ataturk changing the Turkish alphabet overnight—which had had the effect of cutting off the younger generation (of Turks) from their historical roots—as had Soviet Russia in its rewriting of Russian history.’ The Anglican tradition, she said, gives its adherents ‘freedom to make choices’ and does not require ‘ticking boxes’—it just says ‘here is the Bible, here is the Book of Common Prayer, come and worship with us’. So, our cultural heritage is as important today as it always has been. By having an understanding of what has gone before and what previous generations have said in the past, individuals are better equipped to make informed and rational choices in their everyday lives. She quoted another contributor, Frank Field MP who had said that ‘The traditional Anglican mindset is based on the understanding that truth can be many sided, that it’s sensible to look at Scripture and to adhere to tradition, but above all to use our conscience in matters of interpreting our faith so we form some kind of a daily highway code.’ Finally Caroline said that ‘if we celebrate the breadth of tradition and focus on what unites us as Anglicans we won’t just make a difference – we will have the power to change the world’.

St Mary’s Church in Quarry Street habitually uses the Book of Common Prayer at all its Sunday Services at 8 am and 11.15 am. Everyone is welcome

Mrs Pat Grayburn, Chairman of the Guildford Book Festival;Mrs Sarah Goad, Lord Lieutenant; Caroline Chartres (seated)

signing her book; The Deputy Mayor and Mayoress of Guildford, Councillor and Mrs Nevins

1010

Welcome to our New Trustees

Since our last issue, two new Trustees have been co-opted to the Board.

The Revd Neil Patterson, 27, found his faith amidst the music and words of Evensong as an undergraduate at Brasenose College, Oxford, and trained for the ministry at Cuddesdon, where he found particular interest in Hebrew and the Anglo-Saxon church. He is currently pursuing a BD on the interpretation of the Old Testament in that era, and teaches Doctrine for the West of England Ministerial Training Course (WEMTC) at Ludlow.

He is curate of Cleobury Mortimer and surrounding villages in South East Shropshire, where he fi nds great contentment in ministry to a friendly traditional community, and rejoices in all aspects of country life, following the hunt and fi nding time to act as Secretary to the local cricket club.

Previously a journalist and public relations consultant, the Revd Derek Hailes was ordained in 1982 after training at the College of the Resurrection at Mirfi eld. Most of his ministry was in the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, with the last 9 years in the Diocese of Manchester where he was Priest-in-Charge of Holy Trinity, Bury. He retired in 2003 and now lives in Carlton, Nottingham, with his wife, Dolores, not far from their children and grandchildren. A member of the Prayer Book Society for many years, Derek was Chairman of the Manchester branch while in that Diocese and is now Chairman of the Southwell and Nottingham branch.

Could You Become a Trustee?We are looking for volunteers to fi ll casual vacancies on our Board of Trustees. The Board meets face-to-face on Saturdays from late morning to mid-afternoon fi ve or six times a year, the majority of meetings being held either in our offi ces near Pangborne, Berkshire, or more recently in London. We also hold meetings by telephone conference call (for which no special equipment or expertise is needed), usually lasting around an hour, about six times a year on Saturday mornings. In addition, Trustees pick up a variety of tasks to be carried out between meetings.

As well as Charity Trustees, Board members also become Company Directors of the PBS. Our current Trustees represent a wide range of ages and backgrounds, and the most essential requirements are the willingness to work together with others in a friendly team, and the ability to devote the time to the job. Access to-email is essential. If you think you may be interested, or would just like to fi nd out more, please contact the Society Chairman, Prudence Dailey, on 01865 766023 or e-mailprudence.dailey@prayerbook.org.uk.

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Desperately Seeking …… No, not the advent of a PBS ‘lonely hearts’ column, but a plea for a volunteer to become Editor of this publication! Since our current Acting Editor has now also become Chairman of the Society, she is very anxious to fi nd someone else to take on this task. Practical common sense is much more important than prior editorial experience, and typesetting/layout ability is NOT required (since this is done by a professional publisher). While a new Editor will naturally fi nd his own way of working, tasks would typically include:

Gathering together material that is sent in by �

e-mail and post;Under the guidance of the Editorial Board, contacting people and asking them to write articles;Circulating material by e-mail around members of the Editorial Board and collating comments/corrections;Sending the fi nal version of all material to the publisher by the deadline;Ensuring that proofs are read and fi nal corrections submitted to the publisher.

For further information, please contact the Society Chairman, Prudence Dailey, on 01865 766023 or e-mail prudence.dailey@prayerbook.org.uk.

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Annual General Meeting: Date for your DiaryThe 2007 AGM will be held on Saturday 14 July at the University of Westminster in central London. AGM Notices will be sent to members nearer the time, but you may wish to make a note of the date.

A Heartfelt Thank YouWe have been overwhelmed by the generosity of members’ responses to our request for donations in the Advent 2006 Newsletter. To date, we have received over £7,500 (much of which is covered by Gift Aid, enabling us to increase the sum further by reclaiming tax). We are truly grateful for all your kind donations, both large and small, which will be used to further our work of promoting the Book of Common Prayer.

Change of Registered AddressOur Registered Offi ce has now changed from 16 New Bridge Street, London, to the address of our administrative offi ces: The Studio, Copyhold Farm, Goring Heath, Reading RG8 7RT (telephone 0118 984 2582; e-mail pbs.admin@prayerbook.org.uk). If you have supplies of our membership application forms (and, in the case of Branch Offi cers, headed notepaper) bearing the old address, for legal reasons these should NO LONGER be used. Please contact the offi ce at the above address for replacements.

Lambeth Palace LibraryThe collection of books and manuscripts in the Lambeth Palace Library is a unique resource, one of outstanding national importance. The PBS is a member of the Friends of the Library. In July of last year the society was represented by Gareth Hardwick, London & Southwark Branch Chairman, at the Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library, After the business of the meeting, chaired by the Archbishop, the audience was treated to an address by Dr David Starkey on ‘Church and Crown: the Royal Supremacy in English History, 1532–1689’ – delivered by Dr Starkey in his usual pungent style. It was of course the period from which our Prayer Book emerged. The library is open to the general public and further information may be obtained by ringing 020 7898 1400, or visiting the website at www.lambethpalacelibrary.org

ErrataUnfortunately, errors crept into our report in the Trinity 2006 Journal of the fi nals of the Cranmer Awards, held at Hatfi eld House. In the junior competition, the second prizewinner was in fact Thomas Niblock of the Lichfi eld Diocese. In the senior section, Rebecca Tildesley (also of the Lichfi eld Diocese) was highly commended.We sincerely apologize for any disappointment or confusion caused to our members, and to contestants and their families.

More items of news can be found on pages 23 and 24

News and Notices

12

‘A Liturgy for the Twenty-fi rst Century’Diocese of Oxford Training Initiative

Oxford RevisitedA number of those who attended last year’s Cranmer commemoration service in Oxford, asked whether it would be possible to hold an annual event to remember the Archbishop in the place where he was put to death. The Oxford Branch has, in fact, been doing this for some years (though on a much more modest scale than the 450th Anniversary service, of course), and would be very pleased to welcome all members and friends of the PBS to join them for this year’s commemoration on Wednesday, 21 March. (For full details, please see ‘Forthcoming Events’ on page 30)

1313

The Eternal in Choral Singingby Joe Bolger

I didn’t know it at the time, but my decision to become involved with the choral scene was one of the defi ning moments of my young life. Singing

was to become something that would shape me, both in a musical and personal way, into the person I am today. As a probationer and young chorister, it was impossible for me to see outside the box; indeed, I cannot remember ever having a sense that I actually understood what I was singing about. This was particularly evident with the much under-appreciated art of psalm singing. Despite my lack of understanding, and therefore, often, my enthusiasm for psalms, the quality of my singing on any particular occasion was invariably determined by this nightly venture into the lives of Sehon, King of the Amorites, and Og, the King of Basan. However many verses were to be sung, or however boring the chant, I always felt that if I could just get through the psalm without a mistake, the rest of the service would sing itself. Of course, I never managed it, and even if I had, the service never would have sung itself, but it is something I still hold to, and which continues to defi ne my singing today. Obviously a lot changes in the mind and spirit between the ages of eight and eighteen, but psalms have for me been something eternal. They have not changed, and I hope they never will, but what has changed is my understanding of the signifi cance of the text itself, and, therefore, my enthusiasm for the task of singing it. At fi rst, psalms were a chore that, regretfully, had to be done, but somewhere along

the line, I’m not sure where, they turned into these fantastical stories of long-forgotten peoples and times that inspired and moved me. And that is just the point. They have not been forgotten, due almost entirely to the role that

choristers and lay clerks play on a nightly basis. Although church numbers may be dwindling,

owing to among other things the distractions of modern life, I know that,

as long as psalms continue to be sung, someone is benefi ting from and, more

importantly, enjoying their time in the presence of God. The relationship, like our

relationship with God, is a mutual one. You give psalms your heart and mind and, eventually, they will pay you back for it. Whilst the positive effect that they have had on my singing is a wonderful thing, it in no way compared to the

effect that my self-enforced perseverance with these wonderful stories has had

on my own sense of faith, and therefore myself. It is a great comfort to me to know that, as life begins to change, and I begin to venture into the unknown, I will always have the art of psalm-singing as something eternal, that I know, and can trust to be a rewarding experience, both as part of the public life of the church, and in the private spaces of my own spirit.

Joe Bolger, after singing as a chorister and member of the Youth Choir of Carlisle Cathedral, is just starting university and a choral scholarship. This article fi rst appeared in Carlisle Cathedral Choir Association News Pentecost 2006, and is reprinted by kind permission

PBS Easter CardsWe still have supplies of the PBS Easter cards which were previously offered for sale. These come in packs of ten priced at £3.95 per pack, and are available in two designs as illustrated. The wording inside each card reads ‘With All Good Wishes for Easter’. Easter cards should be ordered from PBS Trading on the enclosed book order form, ensuring that the required design (A or B) is clearly indicated. Orders will be turned around quickly, so you will still have time to send out the cards for Easter.

AA BB

14

The defence of the Prayer Book can be a complicated matter. Opponents often portray it as an argument of pure conservatism

against innovation. There is of course truth in this—certainly, members of the Society are generally lovers of the old language of the Book of Common Prayer, of which Common Worship’s poetic efforts are a fairly feeble imitation, especially the examples of over-enthusiastic alliteration. I wish to examine some of the categories under which the Prayer Book was defended in previous centuries, when to defend the Prayer Book was part of the greater justifi cation of the Anglican settlement as a whole, when the opponents in debate were Rome and dissent and not modernizers within. When the Prayer Book was the only vehicle of Anglican worship, among the Claims of the Church of England (as in the 1947 title by Archbishop Garbett) were that it was the true church of the land, catholic in order and apostolic in doctrine. I delve into these now not in defence of the Church

(although they still hold there), but because they are imperilled by the modern changes in liturgy, perhaps unwittingly. As I will observe, they are often alluded to in Common Worship, but are in fact neglected, and lovers of the Prayer Book will perceive that the defence of the Church of England itself is harmed thereby. Let us examine four principles : Order, Tradition, Prayer for the State and Publicity. Historians will wonder about sources—the synthesis is my own and largely free of quotation, but the arguments are found repeated from the seventeenth century on, in Wheatley’s Rational Illustration of 1710, Christopher Wordsworth’s nineteenth-century Theophilus Anglicanus down to Garbett in the twentieth century as mentioned above. Society is prejudiced against vintage arguments; theologians need not be, if they have any sense.

OrderThe text ‘Let everything be done decently and in good order’ (1 Corinthians 14.33) has formed a backbone of Anglican apologetics for centuries. In its widest sense it means that our worship cannot be chaotic and that churchgoers should have a reasonable chance of knowing what is going to happen next. Yet although the charismatic churches strive to overthrow even the most basic meaning of the text, most denominations do worship according to a familiar pattern, knowing when song is likely to turn to sermon, and who will pipe up the loudest each time in ‘free prayer’. In the history of the Church of England the text has been adopted in a narrower sense, that for each liturgy—marriage, funeral, daily prayer as well as the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion—the texts to be used should be written out for reading by the minister, who is called to be a diligent and accurate user of the offi cial liturgy, not a creative synthesizer of acts of worship. As late as the 1920s Archbishop Randall Davidson was thought broadminded for tolerating ‘extremists’ who desired extemporary prayer.1

Yet how common now are the prayers caricatured as ‘O Lord, as we heard on Radio 4 earlier …’ devised by clergy and laity alike. There is a counter-argument to be acknowledged—that liturgy at its best can be the free and creative expression of the

Morse-BoycottBursary Fund

Working to give boys from all backgrounds the benefi t of a superb musical education in a choir school, and to preserve the centuries-old tradition of English Church Music

This Fund provides bursaries to parents of boy choristers at choir schools throughout the UK and continues the work of the Christian educationalist Fr Desmond Morse-Boycott who established a Trust in 1932. Now administered from Chichester Cathedral, it depends entirely on donations and legacies to build the capital from which bursaries can be provided to the needy.

Please give if you can, and preserve this tradition, to:–The Administrator

Morse-Boycott Bursary FundThe Royal ChantryCathedral Cloisters

Chichester PO19 1PXTel: 01243 812492 Fax: 01243 812499Email: admin@chichestercathedral.org.uk

Gift Aid forms available on request

Patron: Miss M. Morse-Boycott Registered Charity No. 313217

Some Principles of the Prayer Bookby Neil Patterson

15

Spirit-fi lled people of God, given form by subtle and sensitive leaders of worship, as suggested by many contemporary liturgical writers. Maybe that happens sometimes. For myself, I know that however generously my parishioners describe my words, I do not really know what is going on in their hearts as they kneel (if they kneel …), unless close pastoral encounter has opened them up, and then their feelings could seldom be expressed in public. When we trust in the timeless words of the liturgy, so often drawn from scriptures whose depths are greater than we can plumb, we offer the space and silence for worshippers to offer truly of themselves to God. An ordered liturgy delivers us also from clouding our judgement with emotion: not that churches are emotionless places—far from it—but recognizing that my joy or disgruntlement today is not necessarily yours. Common Worship aspires to this order and offers prayers for many situations, but the meaningful pleas of the rubrics look like earnest sandbagging before the deluge. In the regular worship of the training course where I teach, the next generation of clergy choose informal or illegal services so instinctively that a quota of Common Worship has been imposed to ensure adequate training. Within a worship shaped for us we are truly free to be ourselves and to fi nd God as he is.

TraditionThis is a slippery word, demanded by many and patient of many interpretations. Very often when a defender of the Prayer Book points to the antiquity of the texts the modern liturgist will scoff. Modern texts are in fact far older, far more traditional. ‘We revisers are praying words from the fourth century, don’t you know.’ Maybe, but that does not make it traditional. Real tradition is the handing on of something alive, not exhuming from the records of the past and dressing up in modern style. The Herefordshire squire or Shropshire farmer whose family have lived in one house for three centuries, adjusting house and lifestyle with the times or perhaps admittedly a little behind them, are traditional. To call a prayer selected (and which are selected?) from a sixth-century manuscript, translated into modern English and read in newsreader-speech from a plastic lectern (when it was composed to be chanted in Latin in procession in a cold abbey) traditional is like donning doublet and hose of nylon and polyester for a medieval re-enactment before driving home to central heating and believing that one is living further back in history than the old farmer.

If this point is taken, we are challenged again—why then should we be traditional anyway? In short, because we always have. The Christian liturgy as received by the Church of England has been handed down with slow modifi cation except for the more drastic but still not critical alterations of the Reformation, and this continuity has long been part of the proud claim of the Church. We have not departed from the old ways, but reformed them. I shall risk ‘heresy’ in the Society by suggesting that small modifi cations to the Prayer Book under Queen Anne might have been benefi cial. Liturgy as taught in our colleges is no longer a matter of respect for the received inheritance—ordinands make up consecratory prayers as an exercise rather than learning how the one we have has come down out of the mists of time. Those who made our worship were great Christians; many bishops, some saints. Time will tell whether the compositions of our own age will merit such praise—if they last that long.

Prayer for the StateOne of the most striking features of the Prayer Book in comparison to the modern services is the constant prayer in regular worship for the state in the person of the Queen. A feeble rubric in Common Worship orders that the Sovereign is the proper focus

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16

of prayer for the nation, but composed intercessory prayers tend to focus on local concern or the sick and needy. The principle of prayer for the state is so misunderstood that it needs defending. ‘It’s all about the Protestant Establishment’ the critics groan. ‘If you didn’t have this strange Church under a secular supreme governor …’ This is simple nonsense. No-one familiar with the Coronation service can believe that the Crown is a secular offi ce. But it is also true that prayer for the Sovereign is much older than the Reformation. Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester introduced daily prayers for the King and Royal Family into his monasteries almost a century before the Conquest, and in the Canon of the Sarum Missal the prayer which now appears in the Roman Missal for ‘our Pope N, and our Bishop N’ covered Pope, King, Bishop and Lord, in that order. The exclusion of state prayers within Catholic worship is a product of the church–state confl icts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, like the abolition of royal nomination of bishops once common across Europe. ‘It’s all about Christendom, and quite inappropriate in a multicultural society’, say the politically correct. This claim is on equally shaky ground. The Queen has made her own commitment to her faith clear throughout her reign, and most English people still claim to be Christian, including our Prime Minister. Yet even if they did not, the ‘powers that be’ are still to be prayed for as the vehicles of God’s governance of the world. Our culture has developed the delusion that religion is essentially private in its interests, something completely belied by Scripture’s constant encounter with kings and governors. To pray for the state is to demand the recognition that God’s rule affects those in power, and that those with authority need grace in their awful responsibilities for the lives of others. Especially when our government seems to forget to guard the freedoms won over centuries in this country, Christians must not shirk the call to pray that they do not forget that the Crown stands under the Cross.

PublicityI do not mean that the Prayer Book or the Church should be defended by energetic advertising, but rather to observe a major issue in the way our worship is now often presented. We are familiar with the good argument that Common Prayer is common across the land—it is important also to remember that Common Prayer is commonly available to all people. How do you receive the modern services (if

you attend them)? On photocopied sheets run off by the vicar that morning? In a fading booklet produced by the computer-literate curate who moved on the year before last? Have you ever tried to buy a copy of Common Worship? If you are suffi ciently keen to know Common Worship inside out, have you ever been surprised by an unfamiliar Proper Preface or Blessing, and discovered that it is only printed in the altar edition because ‘only the president needs’ that text? Has anyone noticed that the Common Worship Ordinal now in use is not available in print anywhere? In Common Worship, understanding of the liturgy has been taken away from the people and we are back to the Middle Ages where the clergy put together services out of books kept by them alone. I could go on. There is encouragement, however. Although it may be diffi cult to buy Common Worship, copies of the Prayer Book can still be found in many ordinary bookshops. Unlike the new texts, common memory can still just about grasp some of the well-established ones. But with the passage of time it is likely that most people will know no forms for Christian worship at all. The liturgical reformers, in their enthusiasm to liberate vast acres of ‘exciting’ texts, have not accepted that most people have forgotten even the few simple forms that the Prayer Book asked of them.

ConclusionI may seem to have painted a gloomy picture of the present in the arguments of the past, but really hope to incite vigour to the struggle. I hear enough encouraging noises from the Liturgical Commission to suspect that the fi ght for these principles within Common Worship may yet fi nd new champions in the national Church. Members of the PBS are called to strive for the Prayer Book as a sound expression of these principles, and even where Common Prayer cannot be had, to argue for them in the life of their own parishes. In PCC or Synod ask why congregations must hear unwritten words or join in illegal services, why the Lord’s Prayer is not said in the words everyone learnt as a child (including myself in the 1980s) and why the Queen is not prayed for. We are not only striving for the Prayer Book but for the soul of England, and by God’s grace we may prevail.

1 Archbishop Davidson and the English Church, Ch IX, Sydney Dark, London 1929

The Revd Neil Patterson is a Trustee of the Prayer Book Society and Ecclesiastical Chairman of the Hereford Branch

17

Thomas Cranmer and the West Countryby Peter Coxon

450 years ago Thomas Cranmer—the great architect of the Book of Common Prayer—was martyred in Oxford after a show trial.

His association has always been with Cambridge where he enjoyed a successful academic career, and London whence he was whisked by Henry VIII to thrash out his monarch’s case in divorcing Catharine of Aragon. His destiny was to become England’s leading prelate, the Archbishop of Canterbury. A few weeks ago a curious connection between Thomas Cranmer and the West Country came to my attention. Milverton, a few miles west of Taunton, boasts an open church—St Michael’s. Its red sandstone Perpendicular tower rises above a pattern of streets in the small town—including North Street which surely lays claim to be one of the most charming Georgian thoroughfares in Somerset. When the Domesday Book (1086) was being compiled the church was held by Stephen, William the Conqueror’s chaplain. In 1226 Jocelyn—who became bishop in Wells exactly 800 years ago—was granted the advowson of the church by William Briwere and in 1241 settled it on the archdeacon of Taunton as a prebend. The impressive ‘Old Parsonage’ building lies to the east of the church and dates back to the late fi fteenth century when it served as the archdeacon’s residence. The conservative Bishop of Winchester and, during Queen Mary’s reign, Lord Chancellor of England, Stephen Gardiner (1490–1555) held the archdeaconry. Gardiner was ever a thorn in the side of his contemporary, the reformation-minded Thomas Cranmer (who respected his clever adversary and referred to him as ‘wily Winchester’!). When Gardiner was rewarded with the bishopric of Winchester for his work as royal secretary of the team working on Henry VIII’s divorce, his successor as archdeacon of Taunton was Cranmer. Diarmaid MacCulloch, in his magisterial biography1 of Cranmer, poses an interesting question: ‘Is it too far-fetched to suppose that the appointment was on the recommendation of the previous incumbent? It was, after all, Gardiner who had brought Cranmer to the King’s attention in 1529.’ Cranmer, as archdeacon of Taunton, had just begun to climb the ladder of ecclesiastical preferment. Gardiner could hardly have imagined

what his successor in Taunton would achieve in later years. St Michael’s is full of good things although the medieval bench-ends are one of the church’s greatest treasures, most dating from 1540–60. Contemporary with Cranmer it comes as no surprise to fi nd among them, the Arms of King Henry VIII, two portraits said to be of Ann Boleyn and Henry, and others reputed to be of Mary Tudor, Edward VI, Cardinal Pole, a bishop (Gardiner or Cranmer?) and Henry VII. A more lasting memorial to Archbishop Cranmer can be found at the church entry: thumb-marked copies of the Book of Common Prayer …

1 Thomas Cranmer: A Life (Yale University Press, 1996), p.67.

Professor Peter Coxon is Secretary of the Bath & Wells Branch

The Reverend Canon Professor J. R. Porter 1921–2006

A former Vice Chairman of the Society died aged 85 on the last day of 2006. He was Roy Porter, former Professor of Theology,

University of Exeter, and in recent years Emeritus Professor. He was a fi ne scholar and prolifi c author who wrote a vast number of books ranging from theological manuals to lavishly illustrated coffee-table books on biblical subjects. A member of the General Synod 1970–90 (and of its Panel of Chairmen 1984–86), his expertise was hugely valuable to the PBS Committee on which he served for many years, including being Vice Chairman 1987–96. He was also President of the Anglican Association from 1986 to 2001. He had been a priest since 1946, a Canon of Chichester 1965–88 and thereafter Canon Emeritus, and his posts were too numerous to be listed here. Though he had a sharp tongue and quick temper on occasions, he had a rich sense of humour and was a fascinating conversationalist and a valuable adviser. The church and the PBS are the poorer for his passing.

18

Letter from Europeby John Osbourne

In view of the scarcity of BCP services in mainland Europe and the predominance of Common Worship, the expatriate PBS member is

forced to consider what alternatives are available. It very soon becomes clear that the Roman Catholic Church has also suffered from liturgical reform, although it has recently become more responsive to the needs of those who still prefer traditional forms. In Strasbourg, for instance, the Community of St Arbogast celebrates the Mass every Sunday morning in Latin with a congregation of over 200, including worshippers of all ages; it does so, moreover, with the explicit approval of Mgr Doré, the Archbishop of Strasbourg (my experience in Britain suggests that there is a lesson here for some of our Anglican Bishops). This is a salutary reminder that serious worship, without concessions, is still a viable proposition. It is, however, ironic that the achievement of the modernizers should make us look nostalgically back to the Latin rite. A more obvious alternative is provided by the Lutheran Churches: in my part of France the Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine, to which the Anglican Church is joined (in partial communion) by the Reuilly Declaration. In Alsace, unlike most other parts of France, there are a number of very fi ne protestant churches, most notably St Thomas’, Strasbourg (the ‘protestant cathedral’) and St Pierre-le-jeune, the city’s oldest, and perhaps most beautiful, church. Both of these churches have a special interest for members of the Prayer Book Society, for their pastors have included three Reformers from the Strasbourg-Basel circle who were close to Thomas Cranmer. Martin Bucer, the most important, came to Strasbourg in 1523, serving fi rst as pastor at St

Aurelia’s and then at St Thomas’. In 1524 Wolfgang Capito, formerly provost at St Thomas’, was appointed to St Pierre-le-jeune as its fi rst protestant pastor. On his death of the plague in 1541 he was succeeded by the Hebrew scholar Paul Fagius. Following the victory of Charles V at Mahlberg in 1547, and the imposition of the ‘Augsburg Interim’, Bucer and Fagius were stripped of their offi ce, whereupon they were invited by Cranmer to move to England. Fagius, however, died before being able to take up the chair of Hebrew at

Cambridge, whereas Bucer was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity. He was frequently consulted by Cranmer at an important stage in the development of the Book of Common Prayer, and he exercised considerable infl uence on the revisions leading to the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI (1552). Possibly because of its history, but also because it can call upon a number of retired ministers of the old school, St Pierre-le-jeune still cultivates a straightforward and formal style of worship.Of course the congregation sits to sing, stands to pray and does not kneel at all, but it is not one of those churches to which one goes in order to feel good and wave one’s arms about. It is no good expecting a liturgy to rival the Book of Common Prayer—the liturgy

of continental protestantism is rather minimalist—but compensation is to be found in the musical tradition and the hymnody of the Lutheran church. I have, however, noticed with dismay that the English-language section of the German hymnal includes two or three of the worst hymns ever to have been written (by Fred Kaan); while the compilers of the new French hymnal have employed a rebarbative system of numbering worthy of ASB at its most unhelpful. St Pierre-le-jeune can, however, boast

St-Pierre-le-jeune: list of pastors

19

one of the fi nest organs in the region, a Silbermann organ of 1780 (with some restoration), used by Helmut Walcha in recordings of Bach for Deutsche Grammophon, and this carries with it certain obligations. The other great tradition of the Lutheran church is its preaching. At St Pierre you can expect to hear, week in, week out, the kind of sermon that has, alas, become all too rare in the Church of England: a serious exegesis of the text for the day, without digressive references to the personal circumstances of the preacher.

For visitors to Strasbourg: St Pierre-le-jeune (protestant—there is a Catholic church with the same name) is tucked away in a square a quarter of a mile to the north of the cathedral. It is open daily to visitors, from April to November, and during Advent (the time of the Strasbourg Christmas market). A guidebook in English is available. Details of Sunday services can be found in the Friday issue of the local paper (Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace: http://www.dna.fr/). See also: http://www.saintpierrelejeune.org

Ben Morris, 15, a young organist at St Michael’s Church, Basingstoke has been awarded a grant from the Society’s Sidney

and Nancy Hibbs Fund, which was created to support the training of organists to play for Prayer Book services. Mrs Nikki Sales, Company Secretary of the PBS, presented a cheque for £300 at Evensong on 29 October 2006. The service was conducted by the Revd Jo Stoker, Team Rector, with Ben Morris playing the organ. Members of the Prayer Book Society joined the congregation of St Michael’s for an inspiring act of worship The money will go towards a four-year

scholarship fund set up by the PCC at St Michael’s. The entire scholarship will pay for organ lessons, the purchase of music, and for an annual residential course with the RSCM (or similar). Mrs Stoker says that Ben, who is a pupil at Reading Grammar School, has been learning to play the organ over several years, reaching a ‘high standard’. He has recently been playing the organ to accompany the choir singing psalms (Anglican chant) and canticles (Anglican chant and settings) in addition to anthems and voluntaries at the weekly service of Evensong. He has also played for the sung Parish Communion service.

Young Organist Receives Grant from PBS

Junior Choir Prayer Book Examination (1897)

Members may be interested in this test for the Junior Choir printed in a church magazine in 1897 in Port Stanley in the

Falklands, sent in by a member, Rosamund Du Cane. How many marks would you have got? It seems either that the Junior Choir consisted entirely of girls, or else none of the boys entered. We do not have the marking scheme, but the top candidate got forty-seven out of a maximum forty-nine.

What is the fi rst line of the Venite, and where is it taken from? What verse in it should be sung softly?What is the name of We praise Thee, O God? Write all you know about it.Write the fi rst words of the Benedicite and say where it comes from.Write the story of the Benedicite.

1.

2.

3.

4.

Give the other names for the Song of the Three Children, the Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Song of Simeon.Write the fi rst line of the Jubilate, and say where it comes from.What is the Benedictus? Who sang it and where is it taken from?What is the Gloria?Why do we sing it after the Psalms?After what canticle do we not sing it?. What does Advent mean?At what special part of the Service does everyone bow at the name of Jesus?How used the men long ago to show reverence at that part instead of bowing?

(In 8 it is probably the Doxology that is intended.)

5.

6.

7.

8.9.10.11.12.

13.

2020

Bishop Edward Kingby Peter Criddle

There will only be a handful of people alive today who can claim to have been in the presence of a Church of England bishop who

was generally regarded as a saint. Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln, died ninety-fi ve years ago but the glamour of his spiritual personality has lived on in the diocese. People said that spiritual power radiated out of him. A biography referred to his ‘perfect refi nement of thought and bearing’ and Lincolnshire children who had been introduced to him were commonly told by their parents always to remember that they had met a saint. Two churches in Grimsby were among many memorials erected after he died. And ever since 1935 a special commemorative service has been held each year at Lincoln Cathedral on the anniversary of his death. Edward King came from a clerical family. His ministry was for more than 25 years in Oxfordshire, fi rst at Cuddesdon, training young men for ordination, and later as Professor of Pastoral Theology at the University. And he was strongly infl uenced by the Oxford Movement, some of whose great leaders he had known. It was indeed as the last immediate disciple of the Tractarians and a foremost leader of the High Church school that he had been chosen as Bishop of Lincoln in 1885. And, because he was widely regarded as an extremist, his appointment produced fi erce protests from extremists on the Church’s opposite Evangelical wing. However, fears that Bishop King would come

to Lincoln with ‘an agenda’ proved groundless. He made very sure that there was never any controversial tone to his teaching or his preaching. The charm of his presence disarmed opposition. The warring factions in the diocese were united in a wonderful way and the Bishop was quickly equally popular with church people of all shades of opinion. The Bishop did indeed provoke controversy by some of his occasional ritualistic practices

in High Church parishes which were sympathetic to his own views. Lighted candles on the altar or the wearing of vestments were shocking to ordinary church people in those days and King was the fi rst of the Church’s bishops in modern times to wear the mitre in England. He did make sure his conduct of services had the full concurrence of the vicar of the parish where he was offi ciating, but he was eventually prosecuted for illegal ritualistic practices by the Church Association in 1889. In the ‘Lincoln Judgement’ the decisions of the Archbishop

were largely in his favour. And King afterwards characteristically ordered that the decisions, insofar as they had been given against him, were to be strictly observed by his clergy, which they were to be in no way bound to follow though the Archbishop had backed up his own position. But perhaps Queen Victoria was, as so often, representative of informed public opinion. The future archbishop Davidson noted in his journal her

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being much interested in the Lincoln prosecution but ‘objecting equally to the Bishop’s doings and the prosecutors.’ All in all, however, the Church in Lincolnshire knew or cared little about ‘King’s cases’. The Tractarian movement had made very little headway in the countryside. The controversies were a diversion from the central aim of King’s episcopacy which was ‘to do God’s Will and to help others to fi nd out the Will of God as it is made known to us in Christ’. Despite having held his professorship, his approach to Christianity was rather of the heart than the head. ‘Too many of us’ he said ‘hold the Christian Religion with the tips of our intellectual fi ngers instead of embracing it with our whole hearts’. And to his clergy he stressed above all the necessity for them to be spiritual men, saying: ‘we must know what prayer and worship mean ourselves before we can hope to divert and lead the worship of the people’. For King it was essential that the Church should hold fast to the old way, to be found in the Bible and Prayer Book. This was all the more so in an age when people wanted ‘to have security and comfort but without religion, without the Church’. They were ‘trying to make themselves happy without religion but it is a hollow, heartless kind of happiness not worthy of the name’. Modish ideas of ‘the New Theology’ had no appeal for King. ‘There is not much ‘New’ in it. It seems to be Pantheism in its tendency’, he wrote to a disciple. ‘I should leave all that if I were you and stick to the old line of the Church.’ And he sharply rebuked politicians he thought were interfering with the Church’s role in education: ‘The Church of England is very liberal, very gentle … but she has got a mind … let us alone and leave us as we are in our Prayer Book and in our life.’ Of course, for King, as for other church people of years gone by, love of England itself was bound up with his love of the English Church. Goodness and happiness were, he said, for English people to be found in their greatest perfection in the Church of England. And it was almost impossible to overestimate the secret infl uence of the Church in the growth of our English constitution and on the character of its people. He believed the truth as we have it in the Church of England was the secret of England’s highest happiness and of England’s power. But his deep love of England was far removed from jingoism of any kind. The country itself had to be judged by high Christian standards and, while not actually opposing the Boer War in any way, he did gently observe of England’s warlike atmosphere

of the time that ‘it may be that we want a little quietening down in that way, so that we can put aside anything overbearing, if there is any, which comes from our greatness’. King, of course, did not live to see the catastrophic World Wars but the problems of Edwardian England seemed serious enough and he implored that there should be no omission in church services of the State Prayers. ‘Never was there an age’, he said, ‘when King and Queen more needed our prayers than now … don’t rob King, Queen and country of your help’. If King loved England, he was especially fond of Lincolnshire. Unlike at Oxford, where he had had ‘the terrible task of holding the fortress of belief in God’, in Lincolnshire there was the steady traditional religion of the countryside . It brought increasing brightness and happiness to his own life. And King was everywhere a popular fi gure and so exactly what the public expected a bishop to be. He was impatient of being bogged down with administrative detail and felt it absurd, as he put it, that bishops should have to spend their time ‘rushing about’. His own watchword in this respect was ‘accessibility’, whether ‘on his travels in the diocese or in the giving and accepting of hospitality in Lincoln itself.’ There he regularly addressed the annual guild meetings of railwaymen, thousands of whom were locally employed at that time. He closely followed the doings of the Lincolnshire Regiment and gave an annual dinner at the Palace for the jockeys and others involved in the Lincolnshire Handicap at the Racecourse. Enjoying such popularity it was hard for the Bishop to contemplate retirement when, at eighty, he had begun to feel he ought to do so. Then, suddenly, his fi nal illness struck him and, in a last letter to his diocese, just before his death on 8 March 1910, he wrote: ‘I have for some time been praying God to tell me when I should give up my work. Now He has sent me, in His loving wisdom, a clear answer. It is a very great comfort to me to be relieved from the responsibility of leaving you … may God guide you and bless you all and refresh you with increasing consciousness of His presence and His love.’ Many thousands of lives had been brightened by the bishop’s presence and given hope by his assurance that ‘there is sunshine through the gloom, if only we look for it.’

Peter Criddle is a retired solicitor and a member of the Lincoln Branch of the PBS

22

Book Reviewby Raymond Chapman

The Homilies Appointed to be Read in ChurchesBrynmill/Preservation Press, 2006;ISBN 978-0-907839-82-8 £27.00www.edgewaysbooks.com

It is often rightly said that the Anglican Church has no foundation document comparable to the Westminster Confession, and with equal truth

that the Book of Common Prayer is in practice the source of her worship and doctrine. The two Books of Homilies, little known today even by regular church members, have a claim to be included as one of our early authorities. Their purpose was to ensure sound and orthodox preaching in the new services. Then and later, many clergy lacked learning, and others were disaffected and used the new services reluctantly. Those who for these or other reasons were not licensed to preach, were required to read one of the Homilies. The name of Shakespeare’s priest Oliver Martext in As You Like It suggests that he was one of these. The fi rst book in fact antedates the BCP. It was published in 1547, putting into effect a plan which had started as early as 1542. Several divines contributed to it; these included, predictably, Cranmer and, surprisingly, Bonner who was later the persecuting Bishop of London in the reign of Mary I. The second book, largely the work of Bishop John Jewel of Salisbury, was compiled by 1562 and printed in its fi nal enlarged version in 1571. From 1623 the two books were printed as one volume. The only mention of a sermon in the BCP is in the rubric in the service of Holy Communion after the Creed: ‘Then shall follow the sermon, or one of the Homilies already set forth, or hereafter to be set forth, by authority’. Both books contain homilies treating of faith and morals. Like the Articles, they were directed to the needs and controversies of their time, and in places address issues which seem remote from our present problems. Yet if we can see our Church as continually evolving but fi rmly rooted in traditional faith, they still have much wisdom to offer. They represent the stability, often threatened and sometimes allowed to decline into stasis, which has preserved the Church of England. Their emphasis is

Protestant—or Evangelical to use the name favoured by modern historians—but they also contain much that is Catholic in the true sense. For example, fasting is strongly urged on all churchmen, a practice which Pusey found to be neglected and sought to revive as part of the Oxford Movement. They are frequently outspoken, and none the worse for that. What about this as a comment on ‘binge drinking’: ‘It hurteth the body; it infecteth the mind; it wasteth the substance; and is noisome to the neighbours.’ They also contain some deep devotion, still suitable for private meditation today. Thus on the Passion, ‘No tongue surely, is able to express the worthiness of this so precious a death. For in this standeth the continual pardon of our daily offences, in this resteth our justifi cation, in this we be allowed, in this is purchased the everlasting health of all our souls.’ The Homilies have for long been out of print and diffi cult to obtain. This splendid edition is based on the one published by John Griffi ths in 1859. The work of making it acceptable to the modern reader in such matters as punctuation, has been done by Ian Robinson, well known to members of the PBS for his scholarship and original writing; he has also contributed an introduction and explanatory preface. With its hardback binding and its large and attractive typeface, this is a volume to be unreservedly commended.

Raymond Chapman

Blackburn Twenty-fi rst Century PapersThe Blackburn Twenty-fi rst Century Papers is a collection of addresses and sermons from the Blackburn Branch’s Annual Festivals and other Branch events between 2002 and 2006. The sixty-page booklet includes contributions from, among others, Professor Roger Homan, John Scrivener (the Editor of our sister publication, Faith & Worship) and Canon Arthur Middleton. The Papers are available for the bargain price of £1.80 post free (cheques made payable to ‘Prayer Book Society—Blackburn Branch’) from:N. J. Inkley, 6 Knot Lane, Walton-le-Dale, Preston, PR5 4BQ

2323

News and Notices

Anne Robinson Shows Support for Cranmer Awards in NorwichThe Norwich Branch has held a most successful Cranmer Awards heat, with TV personality Anne Robinson judging the twenty-fi ve entries. The heat took place at St Lawrence’s Church, Castle Rising, near King’s Lynn on 1 December, kindly arranged by Branch President Lord Howard of Rising, who invited Anne Robinson. The photograph (right) shows the Junior winner, Sam Miller, from King Edward VII School, King’s Lynn, with Anne Robinson and Lord Howard.

Prayer Books Presented to HospitalBecause the Books of Common Prayer used at St Nicholas’s Hospital, Salisbury were in a poor condition, the Master, the Revd Jeremy Ames, contacted Mr Ian Woodhead, the Chairman of the Salisbury Branch of the PBS, to see if he could help with good second-hand editions as replacements. Rather than giving second-hand books the Salisbury Branch felt that the hospital deserved better and made a gift of new pew editions for use by the hospital occupants. The photograph (above) shows Ian Woodhead making the presentation to the Revd Jeremy Ames on Thursday, 26 October.

Macclesfi eld Choir Turns 10The Thomas Cranmer Choir of Macclesfi eld celebrated its tenth anniversary on Sunday 29 October with Choral Evensong and a recital at Gawsworth Parish Church. The choir was formed to offer its services to churches without a choir of their own who wish to maintain traditional Prayer Book forms of worship. The picture (below) shows the choir with Bishop William Pwaisiho and the Revd A. J. Draper of St. James the Great, Gawsworth.

More items of news can be found on page 11

2424

PBS Member Bill Power has sent us this picture of a Prayer Book belonging to William Cordiner, a private in the 36th Ulster Division. He was wounded twice

(the second time severely in the arm) during a charge against a German stronghold at Theipval Woods on 1 July 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. When Private Cordiner took the book from a pocket over his heart to give thanks after the battle, a German machine gun bullet fell out. Comments Bill Power, ‘You could say this book saved him twice!’

Salisbury Branch Cranmer Awards heats

Some of the competitors enjoy a break in the proceedings (left)

The Revd Derek Frost, Salisbury Branch Chaplain, with prizewinners in the Branch’s Cranmer Awards

heats (right)

Clergy (and others) retreat to Launde AbbeyFrom 9–11 January thirty-six people gathered for a very successful retreat at Launde Abbey, the retreat house of the Diocese of Leicester, on the theme of the seven deadly sins. The seventeenth-century house stands in the centre of what was clearly a fi ne sporting estate, and boasts a lovely ancient chapel attached to the house in which all our services were conducted, and the food and accommodation were very satisfactory. The Warden of Launde Abbey, the Revd Tim Blewitt, not only provided an address on anger but volunteered an evening talk on the history of the house, and we were very grateful for all his help and that of his Deputy Warden Canon Beryl Wood during the retreat.

The participants were varied: clergy, readers and laity; some longstanding members of the Society, others who had seen advertisements in Leicester and Lincoln postings; and the Trustees present steered a careful and we felt very Anglican course through the diverse expectations of participants. Many left expressing a keen interest in joining the Society. The Society is very grateful to John Yaxley and the Revd Paul Thomas for their hard work in bringing the event to fruition. We are pleased to report that a retreat next year is already under discussion, perhaps in a different part of the country to draw in new people once again. A fuller report of the retreat with some account of the various addresses will be published in the next Journal.

25

Collegiate Church of St Mary the Virgin, Warwick

LENT ADDRESSES 2007

Questioning Faith25 Feb Lent 1 Faith and Contemporary Society

The Revd Prof. Martyn Percy, Principal of Ripon College, Cuddesdon; author of Clergy: The Origin of Species and member of the Advertising Standards Authority’s Council

4 Mar Lent 2 Believing in God Now

The Revd Prof. Keith Ward FBA, Regius Professor of Divinity Emeritus, University of Oxford and author of God: A Guide for the Perplexed and Is Religion Dangerous?

11 Mar Lent 3 Faith, History and Current Affairs

Christopher Lee, historian, journalist, creator and writer of BBC Radio 4’s This Sceptred Isle and This Sceptred Isle: Empire

18 Mar Lent 4 Faith and Experience

Sr Frances Dominca, founder and trustee of Helen and Douglas House, Children and Young Adults Hospice in Oxford

25 Mar Lent 5 The Challenge of Interfaith Dialogue

Prof. Hugh Goddard, Professor of Christian-Muslim Relations, University of Nottingham and author of A History of Christian-Muslim Relations

2 Apr Palm Sunday Christianity After the Da Vinci Code

The Revd Robin Griffi th-Jones, Master of the Temple Church, London; author of The Da Vinci Code and the Secrets of the Temple

6.30pm at the Collegiate Church of St Mary, WarwickEach Address is part of a service of BCP Choral Evensong and is followed by coffee

and an opportunity to question the speaker.Further information from the Parish Offi ce: 01926 403940 or offi ce@powo.spacomputers.com

Retreat withJohn Keble

Priest, Professor and PoetAn Open Retreat with Prayer Book worship

2–6 July 2007St Denys Retreat Centre

Ivy House, 2–3 Church St,Warminster BA12 8PG

Tel: 01985 214824Fax: 01985 219688

stdenys.ivyhouse@btopenworld.com

Conductor: Canon Arthur Middleton

Anglican Association Northern Retreat

The Anglican Association have asked us to publicize their retreat at Parcevall Hall, Appletreewick, near Skipton, North Yorks.,

from 18 to 22 June 2007. All services will be in accordance with the BCP, and all readings from

the Authorized Version of the Bible.

Parcevall Hall is located in the idyllic surroundings of Upper Wharfedale.

For further details, please contact Mrs R. Hall, 23 Beatty Avenue,

Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 3QN Tel: 0191 285 7534

email: hallrosyhall@aol.com

Forthcoming Events

26

LettersWhat, no Prayer Books?When I attended the 450th anniversary Holy Communion at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford I found I had left my prayer book behind and asked those greeting us as we entered if there was a copy in the church which I could borrow. After a brief search a rather embarrassed person told me that there was none to be found anywhere in the church. Perhaps they, above all, might be asked to care for the collection of historic prayer books for which a home was sought through the pages of the Trinity 2006 issue of the Journal?

Stephen Pryor

A call to stand togetherI have received several communications in response to my letter which was published in the Lent 2006 edition of the PBS Journal. From these replies many express a deep disappointment with priests who act more like social workers organising get-togethers ‘… we might as well be in the pub’ as Mr Martin Mortimer of Chippenham comments. Others refl ect that the wishy-washy church leadership blows with the prevailing wind at any given time. Perhaps the PBS and its members, however few in number and geographically scattered, are being called to stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood to stand as a fi rm and spiritual unit within the Church of England. If this is not presumptuous, perhaps we can make our own attempts. It might also lead to the restitution of respect for the clergy.

Mrs A. L. StephensonThetford, Norfolk

Under-used prayersI have attended our Parish Church, St Alphege, Solihull, for forty-one years—since I married my late wife in 1965. The Prayer Book is used at Evensong, and occasionally for

midweek Communion. Two things may be of interest: (1) The General Thanksgiving—surely one of the most splendid prayers in the BCP—I have heard used in those forty-one years only once. (2) The Prayer of St Crysostom, such a lovely prayer at Evensong, I have also heard only once—and then only because I told the celebrant I thought it should be used: he was very sympathetic to the BCP and agreed with me. This is surely dreadful. One can of course use these, and other prayers from the BCP, in one’s daily private devotions: I do so myself.

R G EverittSolihull, West Midlands

1928 Prayer BookRecently there have been re-printings of various liturgical books, mostly Anglo-Catholic, such as the English Missal and a nineteenth-century translation of the Sarum Missal. A fi ne edition of the American 1928 Prayer Book has been re-printed recently but in a limited edition. Congregational editions of the still authorized Scottish BCP of 1929 have also recently been re-printed. And Cambridge has re-set the 1662 BCP and it continues to publish the BCP in various editions. However, the Proposed BCP of 1928 is not in print (although some of its services are included, for example, in the Shorter Prayer Book). Copies of 1928 are increasingly rare and expensive. There is a real need, I think, for a re-printing of the 1928 Altar Book or at least an edition large enough to be used at the altar. The 1929 book has helpful invisible mending in a small number of the Epistles and Gospels. It contains additions to and variations from 1662 that have often been used, and it also has music for the celebrant. Perhaps the Prayer Book Society could encourage such a re-printing.

The Revd Dr John BunyanNew South Wales, Australia

Liturgical contemptAs a Branch Chairman, I am occasionally asked where, in a particular area of the diocese, a worshipper may fi nd a BCP service. This is usually in connection with the main morning service on a Sunday. Ideally one would think that all one needed to do would be to look at the list of services posted on the church notice board, parish magazine or website. What one fi nds, however, is that, for the most part, churches and cathedrals give no indication of the liturgy that will be used for a particular service. It seems to me that too many clergy of the Church of England treat their congregations with what can only be described as liturgical contempt. The attitude would appear to be that, as most of the typical congregation do not care about the quality of liturgy (which may, of course, be true), they therefore do not need to be told what liturgy will be used -- this is at the least disdainful, and I would say contemptuous, of those who do care. I urge all members of the PBS to make a personal effort to encourage churches and cathedrals to indicate clearly what liturgy will be used for a particular service.

Gareth Hardwick(Chairman, London & Southwark Branch)London

Annual General Meeting: Date for your DiaryThe 2007 AGM will be held on Saturday 14 July at the University of Westminster in central London. AGM Notices will be sent to members nearer the time, but you may wish to make a note of the date.

2727

BlackburnAs a new venture, the Blackburn Branch held a different style of meeting on the evening of Friday 1 September at Whalley Abbey. Billed as ‘part tourism, part serious, part fun’, it began with a tour of the Abbey site with guides dressed as Cistercian monks. There followed a lecture by Neil Inkley, the Branch Secretary. Finally, after an excellent buffet with wine, the Revd Alan Reid, Branch Chairman, gave a delightfully light-hearted account of fi fty years in the ministry. All of the fi fty people present reckoned that the evening gave rise to much more social contact between members than is usually possible.

Neil Inkley

CarlisleIn June 2006 members of the Carlisle Branch and their guests journeyed to the north of the diocese, to the cathedral city of Carlisle and to the Georgian church of St Cuthbert and St Mary for their festival Eucharist and Annual General Meeting. The service was sung to Merbecke’s familiar setting, while the anthems were in the capable hands of the Thomas Cranmer choir, whose professionalism becomes

more apparent with each involvement. Their superb rendering of Stanford’s Te Deum brought the service to a fi tting conclusion and won universal praise. The congregation was intrigued by St Cuthbert’s unique feature, its moveable pulpit. This huge ornate structure is propelled automatically to the chancel entrance from where the Word is proclaimed, before the wooden edifi ce trundles back to its resting place in the north aisle. Lunch was taken at the adjacent Tithe Barn, now tastefully restored as a church hall, while retaining many of its original features. In earlier days it formed part of the abbey to which farmers brought their corn and other tithes. We were pleased to welcome the Chairman and Secretary of the Branches’ Representative Council, Mr Neil Inkley and Mrs Rosemary Hall, to the day’s proceedings. Mr Inkley spoke briefl y of Society matters at the AGM, at which reports were adopted and the offi cers re-appointed. Choral Evensong for Harvest in Kendal Parish Church was our second event of 2006 when, at the vicar’s invitation, the Branch Chairman gave the address. The parish church choir having had the distinction of singing Evensong in St Paul’s Cathedral on the Feast of St Philip and St James, their well-trained voices were heard to

advantage in their choice of music, culminating in the familiar strains of Haydn’s The heavens are telling. The combined voices of choir and congregation united in a memorable offering of harvest praise and thanksgiving.

Arthur Moss

ChichesterThe Chichester Branch presented new enlarged print Prayer Books to the diocese’s thirty ordinands attending a retreat before their ordination as Priests and Deacons. The photograph above depicts the Revd Canon Donald Johnson, Branch Chairman, with the books outside the Bishop’s Palace at Chichester.

Ada Zahoui

ExeterLt Col A. J. M. Drake has handed over the Chairmanship after serving the Branch faithfully since 1995. Col Drake gave freely of his time in promoting the BCP in his own church as churchwarden, in addition to his involvement in Branch events, culminating in the Cranmer Memorial Service at Exeter Cathedral which Col Drake arranged with the Bishop and the Dean. Despite holding offi ce fi rst as Sheriff and later as Chairman of Devon County Council, he still found time to support all the local activities of the Branch.

News from the Branches

The Thomas Cranmer Choir at the close of the service at St Cuthbert’s, Carlisle, with the Branch Chairman

and the vicar of the church on the left and the Revd Eric Robinson (celebrant) on the right

2828

London & SouthwarkThe branch AGM was held in the Parish Hall of St Mary Abbotts, Kensington, on Saturday 4 November 2006. We were delighted to have present the Revd Prebendary William Scott of the Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy, who delivered the Revd John Paul Memorial Address. The AGM was followed by tea and a service of Evening Prayer at St Mary Abbotts. It was very pleasing to be able to report that the branch had been joined by some forty new members over the previous year. The branch had an excellent visit to the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court, on Sunday 8 October for the service of Matins. We were warmly welcomed by the Chaplain, the Revd Dennis Mulliner, who delivered a sermon which went straight to the heart of why we are all members of the Prayer Book Society – it is hoped we will be able to publish his sermon in a future PBS Journal. For those who could stay we enjoyed lunch and a walk round the palace before Evensong. The choir was, of course, superb, under their director Mr Carl Jackson. The London & Southwark heats for the Cranmer awards took place on the morning of Thursday 16 November 2006 at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City, through the kindness of the Rector, the Revd Dr Peter Mullen. We have two strong contenders for the fi nal in February. We were indebted to Frank McFarlane and Meg Pointer who made the whole thing happen. Through the generosity of the Edith Matthias Fund we have been able to present prayer books to two parishes, one in London (St Andrews, Fulham Fields – the Revd Martin Eastwood) and one in Southwark (Christ Church, Gipsy Hill – the Revd Andrew Rumsey). It is very encouraging to see the BCP being introduced again into parishes where it has been absent for many years. At the service at St Andrews, Fulham Fields, we were honoured by the presence of Baroness James of Holland Park, who read one of the lessons. In addition to the notices of events that are sent out about three times a year to branch members, e-mail notices and reminders are sent out to those able to receive them. If any

member from another branch would like to receive the e-mail notices of London & Southwark branch events we would be very happy to add your e-mail address to the distribution list. Events are, where possible, also publicized on the PBS website. In 2007 it is planned to have a service on 21 March to commemorate the martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer and, in the early summer, a guided walk round some of the City of London’s wonderful Wren churches, followed by tea and Evensong. At the time of writing this report the details have not been fi nalized, but when the fi nal arrangements are known branch members will be notifi ed by post and a notice posted on the PBS website.

North WalesA memorable service of Sung Evensong was held on Sunday, 9 September 2006 in the splendid perpendicular church of St Mary the Virgin, Mold, one of the churches built by Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, to celebrate the victory of her son Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field in 1485. It is a moving thought that our liturgy was substantially that of the 1549 Prayer Book issued under Henry’s grandson, Edward VI. Musical and campanological choices were also carefully selected to be appropriately close in period: bellringers from Beaumaris joined the home team to ring a Stedman quarter peal and the organist/choir leader of the church, Fay Adamson, chose settings by Thomas Weelkes (1576–1623), introit (O come ye servants of the Lord—Christopher Tye) and anthem (Lord for thy tender mercy’s sake—Hilton/Farrant) for the Nativity of the Virgin. Hymn tunes were also in period: Forth in thy name (Gibbons) and How shall I sing and Glory be to thee, my God, both Tallis.The church choir was supplemented by volunteers from as far as St Asaph and Bangor, the latter including members of the Monteverdi Singers whose conductor John Huws Davies led the singing. It was inspiring to see how the service had brought singers and ringers from many miles as well as members in some cases making a one-hundred-mile round trip to be present: there is clearly an enthusiasm for noble words and song as the best

of our tradition represents, and the local congregation seemed to agree. The preacher was Neil Fairlamb, Rector of Beaumaris, and Branch Secretary. Our thanks to the vicar, the Revd Ian Day, and the church members for their welcome and excellent refreshments.

NorwichAt the Branch AGM on 3 June 2006 Charles Farrow stood down after thirteen years as an excellent Branch Chairman, and in recognition of this and of his very stalwart service to the Society in general the Branch decided to honour him with a Vice-Presidency. Richard Harrison, a committee member for some years and a keen lover of the Book of Common Prayer, has taken on the Chairmanship. After the business of the AGM, a very erudite local church historian, Martial Rose, gave a most interesting illustrated talk on the roof bosses in St Helen’s, one of Norwich’s oldest churches, which are still decorated in their original thirteenth-century bright colours. New Branch Committee member, the Revd Neil Spencer, followed this with a lovely service of Evensong beneath them before members fi nally went home.

A. J. Thornton

PeterboroughOn Saturday 25 June 2006, members of the Peterborough Branch visited Warkton Church, Northamptonshire. They were treated to a tour of the famous Montagu/Buccleuch monuments, followed by tea and delicious home-made cakes. The photograph below shows some of the members enjoying the tour.

2929

Members were invited to attend Choral Evensong at All Saints’ Church, Northampton on 24 September. The church, which featured in the Lent Journal has a thirty-strong high quality choir, and the rector, Father Simon Godfrey, is a keen member of the PBS. The Branch funded tea and cakes after the service and set up a PBS bookstall.

RochesterMembers of the Rochester Branch of the Prayer Book Society met at St Botolph’s Church in the grounds of Lullingstone Castle on Saturday, 10 June in a celebration of the Book of Common Prayer in this 450th anniversary year of the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. St Botolph’s was an obvious choice of venue as the church, which featured in the Whitsun 2004 edition of the Journal, has corporate membership of the Prayer Book Society. The day began with Morning Prayer and the Litany taken by the rector, the Revd Neil Taylor. The organist of St Martin’s, Eynsford, Nevil Brown, and some members of his choir enriched the service with their music. Their contribution was greatly appreciated by regular members of the congregation and visitors.

Branch members had brought friends and were pleased to welcome a group from Rochester who had seen the event advertised in the ‘What’s On’ section of the diocesan newspaper. For some of the day’s congregation it was the fi rst time they had heard the Prayer Book Litany read in church and no one could remember hearing it in the last ten years, yet all agreed it was a distillation of the Christian faith and that its prayers and petitions were as relevant to the troubled times in which we live as when they were written in the mid sixteenth century. After morning service there was time to picnic in the shade of trees on the lawns of Lullingstone Castle and to view the beautiful and historic house. Tom Hart Dyke gave an enthralling tour of the ‘World Garden’, the most recent feature of Lullingstone Castle. Under a clear blue sky and scorching sun, Tom guided his visitors around the continents laid out in the ancient walled garden; a journey interspersed with insights into his months of captivity in the Columbian jungle where the project had its genesis. The Prayer Book Society day ended with Evensong. It may be 450 years since Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was burnt at the stake during the reign of Mary Tudor for refusing to renounce his protestant faith but, as Reader Alan Gillott said in his closing address at Evensong, ‘if you want to see his monument, it is here in the Book of Common Prayer’.

SalisburyThe late spring meeting of the Branch was held at Toller Porcorum Village Hall. The speaker was Dr Colin Podmore, Secretary to the Liturgical Commission. He explained the nature of his work for liturgical revision, adding amid laughter that as a Cornishman he would probably have rebelled against the fi rst Book of Common Prayer. The Branch’s summer meeting took place at Netheravon Village Hall. The speaker was Mr John Scrivener, a member of the General Synod and editor of Faith & Worship. He compared the BCP and Common Worship and explained how they are used in churches today. During a lively question time, members related the methods they employ to get the BCP used in their churches. The sixth consecutive Branch Advent Carol Service took place at the Church of St. Martin, Barford St. Martin, near Wilton. The programme of Advent carols and hymns with readings from the King James Bible, compiled by the Vice Chairman of the Branch, Miss Sheila Houliston, was considered the best ever. The Chairman of the Branch Mr. Ian Woodhead said: ‘We have established a wonderful tradition. The event was the best attended yet.’

The Revd Neil Taylor with Branch Chairman Alan Morley

Tom Hart Duke in the ‘World Garden’, with St Botolph’s in the background

Salisbury Branch Chairman Ian Woodhead greets PBS Company Secretary Nicki Sales as members arrive for the service

Canon Eric Woods says farewell to Salisbury Branch members Dr and Mrs Larkin

30

All are welcome to attend these events

CarlisleSaturday 23 JuneThe Carlisle Branch will be going to the Kent Estuary resort of Arnside for its 2007 festival. The annual choral Communion is to be held in Arnside Church on Saturday 23 June at 11.30 a.m. when the singing will again be in the capable and well-trained hands of the Thomas Cranmer Choir. The Revd Stephen McCann, who was born in the USA and served his profession as a Roman Catholic monk before being accepted into the Anglican Church, will give the address. Stephen is currently assistant curate of Kendal Parish Church.Lunch and the Annual Meeting will follow in the nearby village hall. Details from the Chairman on 01539 720800.

GuildfordSaturday 19 March4.00 p.m. Holy Communion in the Founder’s Chapel, Charterhouse School, by kind permission of the Headmaster. Followed by tea.

Saturday 9 June2.30 p.m. Annual General Meeting, Charterhouse School. Followed by Evening Prayer (said) in the Founder’s Chapel, and afterwards tea.

Lichfi eldSunday 17 June4.00 p.m. AGM, Blithfi eld Hall, Rugeley, Staffordshire. Followed by Evensong, with music provided by the Cranmer Choir. The evening concludes with supper, for which booking details can be obtained from the Membership Secretary, Mr David Doggett—see Branch Contacts on page 31.

Sunday 7 October11.00 a.m. Matins, Berwick House, Shrewsbury. Followed by lunch at the Prince Rupert Hotel, Shrewsbury. Details from David Doggett, as above.

NewcastleSunday 29 July6.00 p.m. St George, Mickley. Holy Communion

Sunday 21 October6.00 p.m. St Mary Magdalene, Mitford. Evensong. Preacher, Bishop Paul Richardson.

North WalesThursday 31 May11.00 a.m. Holy Communion (1662) in St Deiniol’s Church, Hawarden, Flintshire followed by lunch in St Deiniol’s Library.Hawarden is a few miles from Chester, and is full of associations with W. E. Gladstone who lived at Hawarden Castle where his descendant Sir William Gladstone, KG, a PBS member, still resides. The church is richly Victorian, and the residential library adjoining makes for a fascinating visit.

OxfordWednesday 21 MarchAnnual Commemoration of the Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer. 10.30 a.m. Matins at St Michael at the North Gate, Cornmarket Street, Oxford, followed by wreath laying on the Martyrs’ Memorial.Lunch afterwards at The Mitre, by ticket in advance ONLY. Cheques for £15.00 per head to be sent to: Geoffrey Horne, 6 Millers Close, Goring, Reading RG8 9BS (tel: 01491 873117), enclosing name and address. Non-members and those from other Branches very welcome.

PeterboroughSunday 13 May5.15 p.m. AGM in All Saints’ Church, Kettering. At 6.30 p.m. there will be a service of Choral Evensong. The All Saints’ choir is of a very high standard and regularly undertakes international tours. All are welcome—members, friends, family. Light refreshments will be served after the service and there will be a PBS bookstall.

Ripon & LeedsServices at Markenfi eld Hall Chapel.

Saturday 24 March11.00 a.m. Sung Matins. The Revd Jim Thom and the Choir of St Columba’s Church, Topcliffe.

Thursday 19 April 6.00 p.m. Evensong.Canon Edward Eason.

Saturday 5 May11.00 a.m. Holy Communion.The Revd Kenneth Tibbo.

Thursday 14 June6.00 p.m. Evensong.Canon Keith Punshon.

Forthcoming Events