Studia Liturgica

The Rites of Durham was written c.1593, and the authorship is uncertain, but is presumed to be a compilation of accounts by one or more of the former monks and clergy who lived through the dissolution and who remained either at the cathedral or in Durham parishes after the Elizabethan Settlement. Rites gives detailed descriptions of the cathedral furnishings and of the processions and festivals prior to the dissolution when the shrine of St. Cuthbert was still intact. The account shows a bias against the further reforms made under Dean William Whittingham. It is not, however, a Customary, and has inaccuracies and biases. It is most certainly a liturgical anamnesis, and a lament for a lost liturgical past. The compiler, though, may have intended it as a testimony of the past which might one day be restored.

Ambrose’s interpretation of his eucharistic prayer played a foundational role in the developing theology of consecration in the West. Medieval commentators conflated Ambrose’s prayer and ritual context with the later Roman Canon and the mass. By reconsidering the relationship between the eucharistic portions of De sacramentiis and De mysteriis and the structural differences between Ambrose’s prayer and the earliest sacramentary versions of the Roman Canon, one can base a Western theology of the “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” on the Western eucharistic prayer family’s chiastic references to offering and acceptance. Ambrose’s witness overcomes ecumenical impasses on sacrifice, because the indigenous Western European theology of the Eucharistic Prayer includes the local community’s participation in Christ’s cosmic and ecclesial thanksgiving to God the Father; by this participation they bind themselves to do God’s work; what is sacrificed is the greed by which they formerly sought their own interests. To constrain Roman Catholic theologies of the Roman Canon with this theology is also to respect Luther’s testamentary theology of eucharistic liturgy and show a way for ecumenical convergence.

A kenotic theology of infant initiation that emphasizes extending the self-giving of God through the sacraments is an alternative to a covenantal approach when celebrating Christian initiation in an American religious landscape characterized by declining participation in religious institutions, a growing population who identify as nonreligious, and increasing uncertainty about matters of faith. This study is anchored in twenty-one stories emerging from qualitative interviews with Protestant clergy about their experience of receiving requests for infant initiation. Analysis of interview data reveals five types of distance from the church (formal, relational, historic, theological, and moral), four primary motivations prompting families at a distance to request infant initiation (family celebration, cultural tradition, concern for salvation, and spiritual connection), and five approaches clergy take in responding to requests (safeguarding, hospitality, compassion, conviction, and evangelical opportunity). Engaging Chauvet, Belcher, Peirce, and Hughes, a kenotic approach invites the church to pour itself out, without expectation of reward, and with the risk of loss, as an extension of the self-giving of God. A kenotic approach invites participants with a range of relationships with the church to bring their own motivations and meanings which, through encounter and dialogue, may enrich the practice for all involved, including clergy and congregations, as a fusion of meaning is produced collaboratively.

Liturgical scholarship identifies the memorial section of the Eucharistic Prayer as the anamnesis. However, Eucharistic liturgies can contain multiple anamneses. For example, Alexander Schmemann speaks of the anamnetic quality of the Great Entrance in the Byzantine Rite in his book The Eucharist. In Anglican worship, the offertory rite is juxtaposed (à la Gordon Lathrop) with the prayers of penitence, prayers of intercession, and the peace. These juxtapositions produce the type of transformative opportunities Bruce Morrill discusses in his book Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory. In this paper, I examine the offertory rite as found in the Church of England’s Common Worship as an example of this juxtaposition. Using Schmemann, Lathrop and Morrill’s liturgical theology as foundational, I argue that the offertory rite in Anglican worship is anamnetic and can lead to a transformative encounter with Christ, leading to ethical action.

This article analyzes the formative power of the Korean dawn prayer service to better understand the public and private dimensions of Christian spirituality. It explores the origin of the dawn prayer in the history of Korean Protestantism, and examines an example from a particular church. On the basis of this exploration, it is argued that the dawn prayer service should not be understood as an instrument to strengthen individual spirituality, but rather as a place to participate in God’s redemptive work to and for the world. Both the individual and communal aspects of dawn prayer practice are important, but I will argue that current Korean practice leans too much toward the individual.

The relationship between scripture and Christian liturgy is one that was discussed and assumed in much of the liturgical and ecumenical literature in the twentieth century. The majority of that work focused on the use of the Bible within liturgical rites in general and not within the text of specific liturgical rites. This article is a constructive proposal of a comprehensive taxonomy to describe all the possible ways that a liturgical text can appropriate scripture as a source. Such attention to the ways biblical texts and exegesis are reflected in euchological texts not only has the potential to provide clarity on how the early Christians related to the Bible in general and within their liturgical rites. It may also provide an additional source for answering questions about the dating and provenance of particular rites by identifying the overlap with strains of patristic exegesis, for which we possess significant evidence.

This paper will examine how the Convocations of the Church of England remembered their past liturgies, and the reformation theology that formed the previous Prayer Books of the Church, in their main period of work on the revision of the Prayer Book from 1906 to 1920. Focusing on the Communion Service, it considers the lack of defenders of the 1662 Communion service and its reformed theology. It will examine how the 1549 Prayer Book was used as a basis for reordering the Communion service, and how this original Prayer Book was seen in relation to preceding medieval Roman Catholic theology. Ultimately it considers how a re-imagination of the English Reformation was used to justify the incorporation of liturgical theology that had no historical basis in the Church of England.