Recessional

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, pressures that strained the boundaries of Anglican Christianity, in so far as the Prayer Book defined them, came largely from the advanced “high-church” movement known as Anglo-catholicism, which sought to recover or re-introduce liturgical practices that had been abolished at the Reformation. An attempt to deal with the nonconformity of Anglo-catholic “ritualists” led to a proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer that Parliament declined to endorse. Nevertheless, revision gathered momentum, with the result that by the end of the twentieth century the “classical” Prayer Book had been superseded by other, modernized liturgies throughout the Anglican world. While it remains a venerable book, the Book of Common Prayer may be revered for what it once was more than for what it is.