Dear friends, and especially anonymous1995,
I was a convert to Anglicanism in January of this year. Having experienced many of its pitfalls, politics, and strange ways of approaching Christianity, I was allowed to come back to Rome in May. My experience over 5 months was very interesting…
Firstly, we must make sure to distinguish which Anglicans we’re talking about. There are four broad sorts:
- “Classical”, active from 1560-1830, mostly gone by the 1900 -certainly by 1960.
- Evangelical, often called “Low Church”
- Anglo-Catholic, often called “High Church”
- Liberal, often called “Broad Church”
Approaching them chronologically:
In the classical Anglican way, the average orthodox minister wore a cassock, long white surplice, and black, stole-like “tippet” scarf for all services. He celebrated the holy communion facing the north end of the table; that is, with his right side to the people, in profile. He celebrated all services only with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the sole approved liturgy of the Church of England (available in its entirety
here). He believed strongly in authority, and in conformity to the Creeds, Articles, and Homilies prescribed by the Church of England. He never prayed to saints, never prayed for the repose of the dead, never lit candles except in necessity, never genuflected, and never used incense (with a few rare exceptions). He allowed images and paintings if they were high up in the church and could not be venerated. He basically considered himself a “Reformed Catholic”.
In the “Low Church” (1780s), the average minister wore whatever secular clothing he deemed most suitable and reverent. He took his cue from Baptists and other non-denominational ministers, who popularized secular attire before it was taken up by “Low Church” or Dissenting Anglicans in the 1700s & 1800s. His one authority was the Bible, not Creeds or Articles. He was the “liberal” of his day.
If he used the official liturgy, he played with its structure - usually to add more hymns, or lay participation. He certainly never even contemplated prayer for the dead, intercessions from the saints, incense, or images of any kind. He considered himself Reformed or Protestant before anything else.
In the “High Church” (1830s), the average minister wore the same vestments as a Catholic priest of the day. He sought to conform everything to the Medieval ideal, as a good Romantic-era man might be expected to do. He adopted the Roman Missal, or interpolated the Roman Canon into the 1662 Communion rite. He added candles, incense, images, rood screens, and ad orientem worship. He invoked the saints, prayed for the dead, and was devoted to the Blessed Virgin.
In the “Broad Church” (1960s-1970s), anything goes. You can have liberal evangelicals and liberal "C"atholics. Their main distinguishing feature is theological and liturgical modernism. Chasubles, if used, are generally bright and gaudy or have cheesy images on them, since the Broad/Liberal Anglican has no compunction against images (so long as they are “nice”). Candles, incense, and other such things are par-for-the-course, if only to give them something formulaic to do for a sense of mystery (unless they’re evangelical).
It is important to make these distinctions. The BCP 1662 liturgy of Holy Communion was enforced very strictly across the country from 1560 to the 1870s, at least in England. Ritualism (the use of candles, lighting of incense, elevation of the bread & wine, etc.) was made illegal in civil law by the 1870s, though this was soon repealed as the Anglo-Catholics gained more support in society.
Classicists and conforming Evangelicals continued to use the 1662 BCP until the 1980s - by which point Classicism had basically died out, and Evangelicals & Liberals had switched to Common Worship (England), Book of Alternative Services (Canada), and the 1979 BCP (America). All of these were created in the 70s & 80s as Anglican responses to the Roman liturgical reform of the 60s and 70s. Anglo-Catholics remained mostly aloof, and continued to use their Anglican Missal, or a “medievalized” 1662 BCP (1928 BCP for Americans).
Roman Eucharistic Prayers and liturgical structure inspired the liberal Anglicans (for purely “ecumenical” reasons), not the other way around. Any resemblance of the Ordinary Form of Mass to modern Anglican liturgies is purely coincidental, not consequential. Also, we must remember that Cranmer (who invented and wrote almost the entire BCP) was a big researcher of the Church Fathers. He fashioned his liturgy from what he thought was most authentically patristic. This is the reason his Communion rite resembled the ancient pattern: confession, praise, epistle, Gospel, homily, offertory, consecration, communion. The Orthodox claim that the Catholic Mass is simply a derivative of their divine liturgy, for the same reasons.
I hope this helps… you are free to disregard it…
