Two prayer books linking Old England with modern Canada will be celebrated by Anglicans in Victoria next weekend.
On Sept. 8 and 9 in a special weekend of services, Christ Church Cathedral will be marking two anniversaries: the 350th anniversary of the 1662 adoption of the Book of Common Prayer in England and the 50th anniversary of adoption of the Canadian Book of Common Prayer.
Ian Alexander, a Christ Church parishioner helping to organize the events, said Canadian Anglicans are lucky to be able to celebrate "a double anniversary."
"We have something that we have inherited from England (The original Book of Common Prayer)," Alexander said.
"But we also have continued in this country making our own contributions, refining and reshaping it to make it uniquely Canadian (Canadian Book of Common Prayer)."
According to Alexander and Rev. Logan McMenamie, rector at Christ Church, the original Book of Common Prayer marks one of the milestones in English-language religious life and its reformation.
When Canadian Anglicans decided hundreds of years later to adopt their own prayer book, they made reforms. They injected a new and distinctly Canadian spirit, one that places communion at the heart of church worship.
For religious scholars, the Canadian book makes communion, taking the wafer and wine in commemoration of Christ's last supper, a more prominent part of regular worship than the English.
So where the English Book of Common Prayer begins the consecration prayer simply with the words "Almighty God," the Canadian book starts the consecration prayer begins with the richer "Blessing and glory and thanksgiving" (thanksgiving itself being a distinctly North American sentiment).
Alexander and McMenamie said, despite the revisions and reforms (Canadian Anglicans even have another, later prayer book, the Book of Alternative Services, published in 1986), the original English version has never been entirely abandoned.
"England is the mother but we just don't always listen to our mothers," McMenamie said.
The original Book of Common Prayer actually dates back even further than 350 years to 1549 and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury for King Henry VIII and later Edward VI. It was first heard in Canada in 1578 in what is now Nunavut, when English seamen and explorer Martin Frobisher led a service from its pages.
Cranmer (1489-1556), one of the original English church reformers, wanted to make the Bible and its celebration closer to the common people by creating something other than the previous Latin services. His reformist efforts led to his imprisonment under the Catholic Mary I. And so he recanted his efforts and made public reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church.
But he was burned at the stake anyway, and just prior to his execution Cranmer dramatically recanted his recantations, earning himself Protestant martyrdom. Pictures often show him thrusting the hand that signed his original recantation into the flames first as a demonstration of his error.
It wasn't until 1662, after the religious turmoil spread by the English Civil War and the Puritan Oliver Cromwell that a revised version of Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer became Britain's national standard.
And that standardization was decreed by an Act of Parliament that stands today.
That standardization in the language of religious service also became one of the early influences in the formation of a standard English language, one apart from local dialects, accents or quirks.
"It regularized the language to a great extent," Alexander said.
McMenamie also said the original Book of Common Prayer continues to exert its influence with Anglicans around the world as a unifier.
He noted the modern Anglican Church is not a top-down hierarchy with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the head. Authority is much more widely dispersed and diversified.
"But we are still a communion throughout the world," said McMenamie. "And it's the Book of Common Prayer and our worship that holds us together."
For a complete list of the events of next weekend, including a re-creation on Saturday of a 1662 service, go to chrishchurchcathedral.bc.ca
