Western Rite Orthodox Anglican Liturgies

Herewith, as suggested by some comments appended to my posting below (People Look East?), I offer my own criticisms of the two Anglicanesque liturgies devised and used by some of the groups of Western Rite Orthodox nowadays. These are called the Liturgy of St Tikhon and "The English Liturgy".

The Liturgy of St Tikhon

As to the first rite: the Liturgy of St Tikhon, despite its name, was only drawn up in the 1970's by Fr Joseph Angwin (so interestingly it only slightly predates the Catholic Book of Divine Worship, drawn up for those allowed the Anglican Use by the 1980 Pastoral Provision - albeit the B.D.W. was only finally published in 2003). It is used by the Antiochian Orthodox Church's Western Rite Vicariate.

I outline its structure below, numbering all Anglican items; be it noted that, while it may be claimed that various prayers derive from the Sarum Rite, that was always but a local variant of the Roman Rite, and one suspects that for convenience' sake the prayers are derived from a handy Missale Romanum:

• Asperges (from the Roman Missal)
• Introit (ditto)
• Collect for Purity (now considered quintessentially Anglican, though a translation of Deus cui omne cor patet from the Sarum form of the Roman Rite) - 1
• Summary of the Law (Anglican, first appearing in the Nonjurors' 1718 Liturgy) - 2
• Kyrie, ninefold (Anglican 1549, originally Roman Rite)
• Gloria in excelsis (ditto)
• Dominus vobiscum & Oremus (ditto)
• Collect (ditto)
• Epistle (ditto)
• Gradual and Alleluia (Roman)
• Gospel (ditto)
• Creed (ditto)
• Offertory prayers (all from the Roman Missal)
• Prayer for the Church (Anglican, but adding a petition for Saints' intercessions) - 3
• Invitation, Confession, Absolution & Comfortable Words (Anglican) - 4
• Sursum corda &c. (Anglican, originally Roman)
• Preface (ditto)
• Canon (Anglican, uniting the Prayer of Consecration and the Prayer of Oblation, but with a strengthened postconsecratory Epiclesis, where the American and Scottish Episcopalians place it, and insertion of the Memento etiam and Nobis quoque from the Roman Canon) - 5
• Lord's Prayer (Anglican, originally Roman) with Doxology (Anglican) - 6
• Embolism (Roman: Libera nos)
• Pax Domini (Anglican 1549, originally Roman)
• Agnus Dei (Roman)
• Prayer of Humble Access (Anglican) - 7
• Ecce Agnus Dei with threefold Domine non sum dignus (Roman)
• Prayers before Communion (Byzantine)
• Prayer of Thanksgiving (Anglican) - 8
• Dominus vobiscum (Roman)
• Postcommunion (Roman)
• Dominus vobiscum and Ite missa est (Roman)
• The Peace (Anglican Blessing) - 9
• Last Gospel (Roman; not Sarum!)

"The English Liturgy"

The Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia (ROCOR), now reunited with the Russian Orthodox Church under Putin, I mean, the Patriarch Kirill, gave its blessing to another version of an Anglicanesque rite; and the Orthodox Patriarchates of Moscow and Alexandria also approve it. But upon examination, it turns out to be a translation into English of the mediæval Sarum Rite (the very rite killed off by Cranmer and the Tudors), with some Anglican add-ons:

• The Collect for Purity - 1
• Prayer for the Church - 2
• Canon (Anglican, uniting the Prayers of Consecration and Oblation, but with a completely different, Byzantinesqe postconsecratory Epiclesis, where the American and Scottish Episcopalians place it, and insertion of part of the Supplices te, plus the Memento etiam and Nobis quoque, from the Roman Canon) - 3
• Christ our Paschal Lamb (Anglican 1549 only, slightly amended) - 4
• Prayer of Humble Access - 5
• Prayer of Thanksgiving - 6
• The Peace - 7

The Canon is the only main divergence between the Sarum Rite and this Liturgy.

Additionally, "The English Liturgy" contains two frankly bizarre appointed hymns: in place of the Byzantine Trisagion, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty" (a nice hymn, but really!); and at the Offertory, "Let all mortal flesh keep silence", which was Moultrie's versification of the Sigesato pasa sarx, used as the proper text of the Cherubikon in the Liturgy of St James. This is very bad liturgy.

A Comparison with the B.D.W.

But to be fair, let these (unquestionably valid!) liturgies be contrasted now with Rome's first try at providing Anglicans with a Use of their own, in the Book of Divine Worship...

Firstly, the B.D.W. is based largely upon the U.S. 1979 B.C.P, whereas the two Orthodox liturgies are based upon the U.S. 1928 B.C.P. I must say that the 1928 is probably more what traditionally-minded Anglicans prefer.

Secondly, I must say, unfortunately, the B.D.W. appoints the use of the modern Roman Lectionary in place of the B.C.P. system of readings, which derive from the Sarum Use of the Roman Rite. From what I know, the Orthodox forms utilize the B.C.P. system, suitably augmented.

Thirdly, and rather notoriously, the modern Novus Ordo offertory prayers are inserted holus bolus, including those dreadfully lame ICEL translations of the "prayers over the gifts".

Fourthly, the whole Roman Canon - in a pleasingly traditional translation - is inserted as the Eucharistic Prayer. It appears that it was a step too far for Roman liturgists of the 1980's to try and modify the Prayers of Consecration and Oblation to produce a satisfactory Anglican Canon. But stay! Two more Novus Ordo intrusions are present: the actual words of consecration are taken from the modern ICEL version, and likewise the Memorial Acclamations are inserted.

What then are the Anglican prayers included?

The prayers and structure of the U.S. 1979 B.C.P. are followed (modifying a few rubrics here and there), down to the end of the Penitential Rite (slightly amending the Absolution) after the Intercession (the Prayer for the Church, adding the names of the Pope, the local Bishop and Our Lady), including the Pax Domini as placed there in that order. Then the whole Novus Ordo "preparation of the gifts" is inserted, as remarked above. The Sursum corda, Preface and Sanctus-Benedictus follow, as the 1979 book directs. Then comes the Roman Canon. Finally, the prayers and structure of the 1979 B.C.P. are followed through to the end, except that the somewhat Zwinglian invitation to Communion, "Take them in remembrance...", is replaced with the Roman Ecce Agnus Dei and Domine non sum dignus.

I now list the Anglican prayers thus preserved:

• The Collect for Purity - 1
• The Ten Commandments - 2
• The Summary of the Law - 3
• The Prayer for the Church - 4
• The Invitation, Confession, Absolution and Comfortable Words - 5
• Christ our Passover (U.S. 1979 modification of the 1549 Christ our Paschal Lamb) - 6
• Prayer of Humble Access- 7
• Prayer of Thanksgiving - 8
• The Peace - 9

B.D.W. Mark II?

I suspect that the Vatican will produce a better, more acceptable Anglican Use liturgy for use in the upcoming Ordinariates (about which much is written, though they exist only on paper as yet, and so far have no members, clerical or lay).

The great question is, will an Anglican Canon be devised, or not?

(I would argue that the ideal Anglican liturgy would be based upon the Scottish 1929 B.C.P., but that is probably just my liturgical fantasising running riot.)

East or West?

To recapitulate, the great difference between the two Orthodox Western Rite Anglican liturgies, and the Catholic Roman Rite Anglican Use, is that the former still keep a modified form of an Anglican Canon, but the latter does not.

The present Anglican Use Eucharist, then, is arguably more faithful to the shape of Episcopalian liturgy, without turning it into a recreation of the Sarum Rite or Roman Rite, but suffers three drawbacks, all of them traceable to the malign influence of the Novus Ordo, in those dark decades when it was thought that the traditional Latin Mass had been banished to the outer darkness...

The two Eastern Orthodox forms have the strength that they utilize the Anglican Prayers of Consecration and Oblation. Strangely, they insert prayers for the dead and for communion with the saints, taken from the Roman Canon, when their versions of the Prayer for the Church already contain these!

The Scottish Episcopalian liturgies, since 1764, and their daughters, the U.S. Episcopalian liturgies, ever since Bp Seabury's Communion Office, have all had an Epiclesis placed after the words of consecration and the liturgical oblation. Only the Scottish, alone of all Anglican forms, has a fully orthodox epiclesis, praying that the bread and wine "become" the Body and Blood of Christ - all others pray that "we receiving them [still bread and wine] may be made partakers of the Body and Blood", which is heretical.

The two Orthodox forms simply strengthen the postconsecratory Epiclesis to make it orthodox.

However, Rome will not, given the decisions made during the time the Novus Ordo was drawn up, permit a postconsecratory Epiclesis.

All other Anglican orders - the 1549, the 1662 et al. - follow the original Roman Rite in having a preconsecratory Epiclesis, and this is what Rome will want.

I have blogged below on how I think an Anglican Canon could be composed, following the genius of the Nonjurors' 1718 and the Scottish Episcopalian 1764, 1912 and 1929 liturgies, by running the Prayer of Consecration, the Prayer of Oblation and the Prayer for the Church all together. This produces a proper Eucharistic Prayer with fulsome intercessions, exemplifying how the Eucharistic Sacrifice is offered up for determinate ends, being a sacrifice of impetration for all causes.

People Look East?

For some Anglicans, whether still in the Anglican Communion or somewhere in the Continuing spectrum of ecclesial bodies, the prospect of submission to the Pope is unpleasant; some instead look East.

The Nonjurors, unsurprisingly, entered into correspondence with the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchs back in the early 18th century; equally unsurprisingly, the Orthodox indicated that the Nonjurors, who represented themselves as the remnant of the ancient Catholic and Orthodox British Church (O Anglicanism! how Janus-faced thou art, shewing whatever visage will appear fairest to whomsoever thou courtest!), must nonetheless accept every single unchanged doctrine of the Holy Orthodox Church, including belief in the change in the bread and wine into the very Body and Blood of Christ with no bread and wine remaining save but in outward appearance (the Greek term used answers to the Latin transsubstantio), invocation of the saints, and veneration of images. These doctrines, plus the suggestion that they should give up their liturgy and use that of St John Chrysostom, the Nonjurors persisted in rejecting, and had the nerve to ask might be considered optional, "second order" issues (cf. Rowan!), which they could leave aside, and yet nonetheless be admitted to "inter-communion". Anglicans of such stiff-necked sorts don't change: all they really want is everyone else to acknowledge them right.

At the time, these negotiations came to nothing, for neither side would give way, and moreover the Patriarchs found out from the then Archbishop of Canterbury that these Nonjurors were an insignificant group of dissenters.

In the late 19th century, some American Episcopalians approached the Russian Orthodox Bishop Tikhon (later glorified by the Russian Church as a saint), asking to become Orthodox but - as usual - keep their Prayer Book. The Russian Church theologians compiled some very valuable notes on the American B.C.P., very perceptively noting its deficiencies and points wherein its Protestantism would have to be corrected. In the event, no one was reconciled at the time...

In past decades, groups of Western Orthodox have been at length finally established, typically using either a version of the Roman Mass Byzantinized with an inserted Epiclesis after the words of consecration, or a mixture of Anglican and some Roman prayers styled the Liturgy of St Tikhon. The latter in particular is a strange hybrid, a real dog's breakfast; I think it an example of how not to compose or correct a rite (e.g. in the amended Prayer of Consecration and Oblation taken from Anglican books, several clauses of the Roman Canon are slotted in, alongside an Epiclesis from Chrysostom's Divine Liturgy).

From what I can make out, these Uniates - for that is what they are, and the Orthodox should not be ashamed to acknowledge this word, for all that they condemn Rome for having Eastern Catholic jurisdictions - are fairly small in number, and some practise faintly ridiculous pastimes, such as composing Offices for obscure English saints, whose cultus is revived precisely because they luckily died ante 1054: for after that date, all were but Western heretics in their eyes.