Talk:Book of Common Prayer

Reference styles
Why does this article have multiple reference styles (footnotes and parenthetical)? Shouldn't there be just one format? I personally prefer footnotes because you can see all the citations at once without having to search for them through the article, but either way the current systems are confusing. Ltwin (talk) 01:18, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

BCP 1549 article
The section on the 1549 BCP was getting long with multiple subsections, so I went ahead and split it off into a new article. It can be found at Book of Common Prayer (1549). Ltwin (talk) 08:43, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

More content on the development of the 2019 addition by the Anglican Church in North America is due, especially regarding Anglo-Catholic and Reformed theological influences.Lyndon Jamison (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

"Roman Catholic" to "Catholic"
asked fo a discussion before adjusting the term "Roman Catholic" to "Catholic." I'll outline my reasons why here, and will likely bring the similar points up to whichever authority is relevant to making this a more standard thing: These reasons and more pose at least a reasonable argument for disco:uraging the usage of "Roman Catholic," with particular reference to recent and present issues. Please discuss below! I'd be willing to wrangle up relevant external sources to provide more context as requested. If there are no additional concerns, I'll revert things to "Catholic" this weekend. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:25, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It is certainly traditional for Anglicans (particularly in Anglophone regions) to address the the Catholic Church (ie. the church in full communion with the Pope of Rome) as the "Roman Catholic Church." This expresses a number of perspectives from Anglican (and other denominations of English Protestant) theology and politics, mostly pertaining to Anglicans being part of the "catholic Church" as described in the Nicene Creed and that "Roman Catholics" are a "branch" of that same broad church. This is a legitimate perspective and not directly relevant to the usage of "Roman Catholic" on Wikipedia and in academic circles, but important context to understanding the term.
 * Describing someone as a "Roman Catholic" also rarely conveys the same pejorative qualities as describing someone as a "Romanist" or "papist" does, though there are exceptions. My qualms with the term "Roman Catholic" are not with regards to any chance it might offend, simply that it is imprecise.
 * Describing something relevant to Anglicanism as "catholic", as in the adjective, is sufficient to capture the universal church the Church of England and others believe they're a part of.
 * Wikipedia is inconsistent in how it deals with the term. Dioceses of the Catholic Church are discussed on articles named "Roman Catholic Diocese of X" (such as the the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond), however the official nomenclature describing the Catholic Church as the "Catholic Church" is utilized elsewhere.
 * We should take cues from how we deal with nomenclature relative to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. While discussing members of that church in recent decades, the term "Mormons" is discouraged (though we can appropriately use "Mormon" when referencing members of the church from the Nineteenth Century, when the term was more regular).


 * Oppose Thanks for the full explanation Pbritti. However, the change proposed would appear to offer little advantage in terms of consistency with other article usages concerning the Anglican Communion and its formal instruments of faith (as this is).
 * - Where Anglican churches are invited into official relations with the churches in the Roman Communion; both parties generally adopt the term "Roman Catholic Church" to denote these latter and continue to do so; as with Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission.
 * - It is insufficiently distinctive to have 'catholic' used as a term indicating the catholicity of Anglicanism; and "Catholic" used for the Roman Communion. This distinction is central to the emergence of the Book of Common Prayer as a historic formulary of the Church of England; and in the BCP itself, the term "Catholick" is only used in the former sense.
 * - The Book of Common Prayer is not only the standard of faith for a particular church; it is also formally incorporated into the statute law of England. In UK statutes, the term "Roman Catholic" is invariably used for Christians in the Roman Communion.  This remains the case.
 * - The parallel with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, strikes me as far-fetched; the histories of Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism in England are clearly intertwined; before the early 16th Century, the Church of England established in law was within the Roman Communion; at the end of the 16th Century it wasn't. The BCP represents a key stage in the emergence of this distinction. The term "Roman Catholic" is an essential component of the discourse of Christian differences that arose with this split.  To a considerable degree, that is what much of the article is about; and how most of the notable authorities cited express it.  TomHennell (talk) 15:32, 23 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Fair points all around, . Unless some else agrees with my position on this terminology, I see no reason to defer to your position as it is what is currently use. That said, I would like to hear if you'd be opposed to me renaming the "Roman Catholic Adaptations" section. I feel like in that instance, the precision of the term is more necessary. Best regards. ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:41, 23 April 2021 (UTC)


 * I would support renaming that section "Modern Catholic Adaptations" TomHennell (talk) 22:48, 24 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Brilliant. Thanks! ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:02, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree. Some doctrine says "Holy Catholic Church." The Book of Common Prayer was introduced after King Edward VI had been instituting a common school system (he had been working on this project before his Dad had died). Education is important, as all Christians are to be Catholic. As to the LDS, they never used to object to "Mormon," they even referred to themselves as such. I guess one should accommodate them in a change of faith? 74.82.228.16 (talk) 02:51, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

List of BCPs
This month, I want to construct a list containing as many versions of the Book of Common Prayer with as many versions with a proper image as well. Since I have access to about 20 different permutations, I would like help with this page to ensure its as comprehensive as possible. Besides the question of what the plural for BCP is ("Books of Common Prayer" or "Book of Common Prayers"), can anyone else list resources of where to find lists of prayer books? I intend to sort them by nationality. Thank you. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:12, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Splinter Books of Common Prayer
There is too much discussion of Books of Common Prayer of the Anglican Church in North America and other splinter groups that are outside the Anglican Communion in the section on the Book of Common Prayer in the United States. 69.114.98.242 (talk) 04:55, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * A single paragraph on a "splinter group" with a Sunday attendance roughly equivalent to the US Episcopal Church in a broad survey article isn't undue. ~ Pbritti (talk) 05:47, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Italicization
Should the title (and other occurrences of the term) really be italicized? Surtsicna (talk) 18:55, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Per MOS:MAJORWORK, this could go either way. Since Book of Common Prayer can refer to a variety of books related to one another to differing extents (some belonging to the same series, some being periodic revisions of older versions, other being mostly independent works derived from completely different source material), it comes down to whether we believe the various BCPs fall under the exemption described in multi-volume works (e.g. encyclopedias), and booklets, but not certain revered religious texts or scriptures. Religious texts, according to the most generalist definition, encompasses liturgical books. However, the modifying adjective "revered" here seems to imply reference to texts of scriptural importance. As such, I vote that we italicize per the MOS. ~ Pbritti (talk) 20:34, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Order of Influence and Catholic Sections
It seems to me that "Modern Catholic adaptations" is a special case of "Religious influence" and the order of the two sections should be reversed? Thoughts? Jahaza (talk) 18:44, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Agree. It should be a subsection of "Religious influence". Ltwin (talk) 20:09, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Latin version of 1559 prayerbook
Elsewhere I have struggled to find a reference for the Latin translation of the 1559 prayer book; I did however find this: which says on page 77 that Queen Elizabeth granted the right to use the Latin prayer book to Eton and Winchester, in order that Latin be learnt better at these schools. The schools fact is not mentioned here. For some reason the addition of this fact and the related source was reverted; I note the following reference relates to Wales rather than the Latin version of the Prayer Book. Regarding the kind of Latin; the Latin of this period was post medieval, so would better link to Neo-Latin. That's not really the sort of thing you need a reference for, it's just a known quantity in terms of the development of standardised Latin. Jim Killock (talk) 21:46, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I have provisioned a clearer and more reliable source on the subject of the Latin prayer book. I recently completed the article covering the 1560 translation—Book of Common Prayer (1559)—so I feel pretty confident the role of the Latin text as an educational aid is ancillary to as broad an article as this. As to the type of Latin used, Ecclesiastical Latin was awful common for worship texts both Catholic and Protestant in this period, so you would definitely need to source it as specifically Modern Latin. ~ Pbritti (talk) 21:52, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, the source looks good.
 * Regarding the kind of Latin, that is not really correct; Ecclesiastical Latin in this period is just Neo-Latin adjusted for some vocabulary. It underwent the same purification in both Protestant and Catholic circles. There are two good chapters on this in ; as well as the one on education.
 * In short, I won't find a source showing that this particular text is in modern Latin, but I can find you sources such as that above that say that "Ecclesiastical" writings in this period used the modernised Latin, if that will suffice.
 * Regarding schools or just universities, perhaps, but as it stands it is inaccurate (it says it was "destined for use in Universities" implying this exclusively, in effect) and the source you have presumably doesn't mention other kinds of education. Probably the right approach would be to say "destined for use in education" as that is general and accurate, but I suspect you can't say that without using both sources. Jim Killock (talk) 22:10, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The multiplicity of modern scholarship trends away from describing the Elizabethan Latin prayer book as an educational tool, instead ascribing that role to the Elizabethan primers and the Latin-only Orarium. The purpose of the Latin translation, as generally understood now, was as a prestige piece with little practical purpose. Again, the type of Latin is not specified in the source and saying that is just Neo-Latin adjusted for some vocabulary would be to suggest there was no real distinction that survived (which is not the case). Unless you can explicitly define the type of Latin used in the 1560 translation, don't link to a particular variety.
 * As to the source I reference, it specifically names the collegiate chapels the text was meant for (see Book of Common Prayer (1559) for said list). These weren't classroom texts, but strictly liturgical books meant for public worship. I'll adjust the passage in the interest of conformity to the reference. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:21, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The point is that Universities and schools like Eton, Winchester etc held services in their own chapels as well, using the the Latin liturgy. The educational point was (presumably) to reinforce the Latinity of the educational environment, which was wholly Latin with a bit of Greek; not that it was a study aid per se.
 * On the question of the kind of Latin, I am scratching my head a little. I doubt anyone's written so much on the translation itself in the last few years. On the other hand, there is something on Walter Haddon, noted here as a "humanist" (ie, someone who wrote in the purified Latin we now call Neo-Latin), and there is this from "Lucy Nicholas (visiting fellow at the LBI for Neo-Latin Studies)" who clearly views his Latin as within the Neo-Latin currents of the time. I'm not sure I will do much better given the resources given to this topic by academia. On the other hand, given his prestige and the modernity and Classicised nature of his style, it would seem very very unlikely that his style would be radically different in his rendering of the BoCP. Jim Killock (talk) 22:43, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That's entering original research territory trying to make the 1560 text—which is only thought to have been translated by Haddon (again, see the main article)—fit a particular parameter. Find a modern source on the prayer book's Latin and its employment and we can discuss further. ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:52, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I will do my best. But this is a bit like trying to prove a negative; I haven't read a single source discussing Latin of this period that makes a distinction between Neo-Latin and the Latin used in churches. They for sure understand there are differences within different Latin contexts, but the "Neo-Latin" element is the purified grammar rather than terminology or even style. Jim Killock (talk) 22:55, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, in keeping with Wikipedia's policies, if something isn't verifiable it probably either isn't the case or isn't encyclopedically relevant. I'm watching the page so anything you uncover will hit my watchlist. Thanks! ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2023 (UTC)


 * The problem isn't the lack of sources; I can find you loads that explain that the Latin written in the period, in England, within Protestantism and within Catholicism, was of the purified sort. The problem is that I am being asked to find a source for a specific book in this period that attests that it was written to the common standards of the day. Jim Killock (talk) 23:18, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * This is among the most studied books of the period. If it's relevant, it'll be mentioned. ~ Pbritti (talk) 23:20, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It's just that, while "rain is wet", I am asked to find a source which says "this particular rain is wet". Is that really required? Jim Killock (talk) 23:31, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

Split to list
A substantial portion of this article is devoted to listing the myriad revisions of the prayer book both in England and abroad. While there is great utility in retaining some of this information, I think this article could be trimmed down a bit to being a general encyclopedic overview of BCP trends. As I will have some time over the next couple weeks, I wanted to float the idea of splitting this article, with some information moved to a new list, perhaps named List of Books of Common Prayer or List of Anglican liturgical books. Please provide feedback on this idea here! ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:20, 28 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I think this would be helpful. I am mindful, however, that even outside of England 'the BCP' often means 1662 and it would be a pity for the article to lose this emphasis. Perhaps begin the list with 'While BCP often means 1662, there are other options:'
 * I also prefer List of BCPs to List of Anglican liturgical books Arrowe6365 (talk) 15:49, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input. If such a split happened, the recurrent role of the 1662 prayer book would definitely get mention in both this article and in the list. Such a list might come about mid-December. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:45, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
 * @Pbritti, I think this would be a good idea. Ltwin (talk) 00:56, 29 September 2023 (UTC)