CHAPTER 5 Prayer Book Revision and

As I discussed in the last chapter, by 1929 scholars and clergy of the Episcopal Church had begun to recommend the reintroduction of long-forgotten Holy Week rites and to provide extra-Prayer-Book resources. Liturgical manuals and missals, together with grassroots liturgies devised using the Prayer Book, the hymnal, and the Bible provided resources that parishes could use before of- ficial Holy Week resources became available. These – with the first two edi- tions of The Book of Offices (1940 and 1949), which contained no Holy Week material – were the only authorized resources available with which to devise liturgies. In the previous chapter we reviewed significant unofficial Holy Week material from the first half of the twentieth century. Several other notable re- sources became available toward the middle of the century. This chapter will survey a number of these and then will go on to explore, in some detail, the process of official prayer book revision that got under way in the Episcopal Church beginning around 1950.

1 Unofficial and Grassroots Holy Week Liturgies at Midcentury

In 1946, the Rev. Morton C. Stone, assistant at Christ Church, Bronxville, New York (and a member of the Standing Liturgical Commission c. 1950 to c. 1955), provided simple, detailed suggestions for Holy Week ‘that any parish can perform … with the help of Bible, Prayer Book, and Hymnal alone’.1 Stone noted that these ceremonies, ‘though not included in our Prayer Book … are often performed in Anglican churches’.2 For , Stone pro- posed an agape meal, during which John 13–17 is read and the priest washes the hands of the congregation ‘in imitation of our Lord’s acting as a server’. concludes the evening.3 For , he suggested a dramatic reading of the Passion from John, divided into seven parts, each accompanied by its own ‘ceremonial expression’ (some examples of these are listed below). For the Even rite, he proposed that a ‘Christ candle’, which had been lit at the Maundy Thursday agape meal and laid to rest at the font, be used

1 Morton C. Stone, ‘Prayer Book Holy Week Ceremonies’, The Living Church, 31 March 1946, p. 10. 2 Stone, ‘Prayer Book Holy Week Ceremonies’, p. 10. 3 He does not name a source for the Tenebrae liturgy.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004413917_007 84 CHAPTER 5 at the kindling of new fire. The Christ candle is lit and ‘the ministers move in to the , bearing the lighted Christ candle.’ He sug- gested that ‘for the blessing and lighting of the Paschal the same hymn may be used as at the Agape on Maundy Thursday [i.e., a setting of the Phos hilaron], for the lighting of the paschal is derived from this ceremony, and was in use long before the Exsultet of the missals was composed.’4 The service concluded with the singing of the Te Deum, the Easter Collect, and a blessing.5 The rites that Stone proposed include several traditional Holy Week elements. Maundy Thursday includes a variation of the mandatum. The Good Friday liturgy has John’s account of the Passion and, among the ‘ceremonial expressions’ that accompany the reading of the Passion are the Veneration of the Cross and the .6 The Easter Even liturgy includes the kindling of new fire and the blessing of the Paschal Candle. St. Ignatius of Antioch, New York City, began to make significant changes to its Holy Week liturgies during Wilfred F. Penny’s tenure as rector (1948–1954). In 1949 Penny moved the from 7 am to noon on Saturday.7 In 1950 the Maundy Thursday service was moved from 7 am to 7 pm, followed by a watch before the Blessed Sacrament.8 Even more importantly, that year the Easter Vigil was moved to 10 PM on Saturday.9 The impetus, according to Penny, was that the parish ‘found difficulty in accommodating our souls, minds, bod- ies, and emotions to the assumption that Saturday morning is the “night ver- ily blessed”’.10 The parish used an English translation of the Roman Catholic Church’s Holy Week liturgies.11 Penny points out in a footnote that ‘the actual

4 Stone, ‘Prayer Book Holy Week Ceremonies’, p. 10. 5 Stone, ‘Prayer Book Holy Week Ceremonies’, p. 10. 6 Stone, ‘Prayer Book Holy Week Ceremonies’, p. 11. 7 St. Ignatius’ parish register, April 1949. 8 St. Ignatius’ parish register, April 1950. 9 St. Ignatius’ parish register, April 1950. Although it is impossible to determine conclusively, the evidence suggests that St. Ignatius was the first parish in the city (and possibly in the Diocese of New York) to move the Vigil to Saturday evening/night. Church advertisements in the New York Times support this. In addition, Leonel Mitchell affirms that the parish ‘was the first to move the vigil to night’, but he does not specify whether he means in the city, in the diocese, or in the Episcopal Church as a whole; Leonel Mitchell to Associated Parishes mailing list, 3 February 2010, [email protected]. 10 Penny, ‘Easter the New Way’, p. 12. 11 The parish used the Holy Week liturgies published by the Church Literature Association. Two of these were given to me by Roger Gentile, former priest associate at St. Ignatius: Good Friday (London: Church Literature Association, n.d.) and Easter Vigil (London: Church Literature Association, n.d.). I have had difficulty getting more information about these or about the Church Literature Association. However, Meyers says that these were English translations of the Roman liturgies, ‘published in London … for use in Anglican