Praying by the Book Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1549

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII and Edward VI, was the primary architect of the Book of Common Prayer. When England broke ties with the Roman Catholic Church in 1532, Cranmer was given the task of creating English-language books for use in liturgy.

His first effort in 1532 was very conservative, still very Catholic in form, and was merely a translation from Latin into English of books already in use (Cranmer could be accused of plagiarism!). In 1538, after meeting with a Lutheran embassy, he produced the first real English language book (The Exhortation and Litany) for use in Church of England worship.

Henry was not terribly keen on it since it was somewhat too Protestant for his taste. With the death of Henry in 1547 and the the accession to the throne of the boy king Edward VI, Cranmer really got going and produced the Book of Common Prayer.

Answer: Thomas Cranmer

Archbishop Cranmer drew the content of the Book of Common Prayer from several different sources: the Missal for Holy Communion; the Manual for the occasional liturgies - Baptism, Marriage, Burial; and the Pontifical for those services presided over by a bishop - Confirmation and Ordination.

He based his services on those used primarily in the south of England, known as the Sarum Rite or Use of Sarum. In the 1552 version which he produced, he shows the influence that the German reformer Martin Bucer, the Italian reformer Peter Martyr and even his chaplain, Thomas Becon, had on his churchmanship and theological thinking.

Answer: 21

The Book of Common Prayer includes liturgies for all services,with special liturgies for High and Holy days like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and literally covers Anglican life from the cradle to the grave. In addition to liturgies, the Prayer Book contains a complete psalter, readings for every Sunday of the year and for High and Holy days, a Calendar of Saints, a Table of Kindred and Affinity (so that one knows whom one may legally marry!), a Catechism, the 39 Articles of Faith, prayers for private use, and more besides. My favourite is the Creed of St. Athanasius, which is rarely if ever used in worship (the use of the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed are ordered for Morning Prayer and Holy Communion respectively).

The Creed of St. Athanasius is a dandy soporific and I read it when I'm having difficulty falling asleep!

Answer: The Sarum Primer

The Sarum Primer, or the Sarum Rite, was generally used throughout the Province of Canterbury, which is all of England south of the Midlands. (The Midlands north falls under the governance of the See of York.) Since this was the most heavily populated part of England in Cranmer's time, it was the use most familiar to the majority of the people.

The Sarum Rite was not, however, contained in just one book, but in several. The Book of Common Prayer was the first all-in-one prayer book used.

Answer: False

The Book of Common Prayer was introduced on Whit Sunday, 1549, after long and thorough debate and revision by Parliament, and it ran into a great deal of opposition - primarily in Cornwall and Devon, and in the north of England. People particularly resented the fact that commissioners were being sent out to ensure that the new Prayer Book was used.

The parishes opposed the inclusion of laity in the Communion. The fact that Holy Communion was now to be part of regular worship also met with opposition, partly because the cost of providing the bread and the wine would fall on the parish, but also because Communion had previously been associated only with the marriage ceremony and with illness.

Answer: False

The first major revision after 1549 occurred in 1552, and it was minimally revised again in 1559, after the accession of Elizabeth I (Mary I had banned its use, of course). In 1604 revisions were made to the Catechism, and in 1662 the Prayer Book was re-introduced. It had not been used during the period of the Commonwealth because the Puritan Parliament had banned its use - it was too Catholic for them - and replaced it with a set of instructions for public worship called 'The Directory of Public Worship'. The 1662 Prayer Book contained some 600 revisions, but they were mostly minor changes. No further revisions were made until the twentieth century.

It's a good thing that Cranmer, in the 1549 version, wrote a preface which still appears in the BCP, that began "There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted..." or Anglicans would never have stood for any revisions!

Answer: The Holy Communion

Prior to the formation of the Church of England, there was no liturgy allowing the congregation to participate in Holy Communion. It was reserved to the priest(s) only. In 1548 the Convocation of the Church of England declared that all the baptised were to receive the sacrament "in both kinds" (i.e. bread and wine). Cranmer wrote the liturgy for Holy Communion (based on the Sarum Rite for Communion to the Sick) and from 1549 onward the Book of Common Prayer has included the form for Holy Communion. Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer and Compline were drawn from the Monastic offices and included in the Prayer Book, and the Marriage and Burial services were culled from the Sarum Rite.

Answer: True

Even though polity and theology differs widely in the many Christian denominations, many of them have drawn on the language and forms of the Book of Common Prayer. Chief among them are the Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Unitarian Churches. Even the Roman Catholic Church in England, following Vatican II, adopted an English language mass and used many of the prayers which Cranmer had translated from the Latin of the Missal, the Manual and the Pontifical back in the middle of the 16th century. How's that for what goes around comes around?

The marriage and burial rites of the BCP have been adopted by many other denominations - and by Hollywood (most Hollywood film marriages begin with "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony ...", while Hollywood film funerals usually use BCP language).

John Wesley, an Anglican priest whose revivalist movement in the eighteenth century led the way to the establishment of the Methodist Church, wrote "I believe there is no Liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England." Maybe this was why Methodist churches in England continued to use the BCP Holy Communion (with a few slight revisions) until well into the 20th century.

Phrases from the Book of Common Prayer have become part of the language - "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust" from the funeral liturgy, "Till death do us part" and "Speak now or forever hold your peace" from the marriage service, "Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest (the scriptures)" from the collect for the Second Sunday in Advent, and "From all deceits of the world, the flesh and the devil", from the Litany.

A walk along the shelves of a public library will also prove interesting since hosts of authors have lifted phrases from the BCP as titles for their books.

One literary historian - obviously with too much time on his hands - found roughly 200 allusions to BCP texts (mostly from the psalter) in the works of Shakespeare.

Answer: False

While the basic BCP remains intact and preserves the stately Cranmerian phrasing and language, each part of the Anglican Communion (and there are 37 national Anglican Churches throughout the world) has revised the BCP at one time or another to accommodate local needs. Some of the revisions have been very slight, while some have been sweeping.

Answer: False

The readings and the psalms are taken from the Great Bible, translated by Miles Coverdale under warrant from Henry VIII and first published in 1538. The Great Bible was the authorized version to be read in the Church of England until it was replaced by the King James version in 1611.