It is a text which has served as the foundation for the public worship not only of the Church of England, but indeed of the worldwide Anglican Communion. On Wednesday May 2nd, a special Service of choral Evensong will be held in St Paul’s Cathedral in London, to mark the occasion; and on Thursday May 3rd, we will be holding our own service of choral Evensong at St George’s, using the Book of Common Prayer. It is hard to overestimate the impact of this prayer book upon the English church – and, indeed, upon the history and culture of the nation itself! Its chief architect was Thomas Cranmer, a Cambridge theologian who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1532, under Henry VIII, at the time when the Protestant Reformation was spreading through Europe.

     It was Cranmer’s own commitment to the authority of the Bible that enabled him to gain a firm grasp on the key doctrine of the Reformation – salvation by grace alone, through faith in Jesus Christ. He saw clearly that no person can be declared right with God by virtue of their own merit or worthiness. To believe that one could and should earn one’s own salvation would produce one of only two possible alternatives – foolish pride in one’s own worthiness, or else despair that one could never be worthy, and would thus be lost without hope.

    In the of this, Cranmer insisted upon faithful Biblical teaching in the churches Sunday, and crafted liturgy that gave clear expression to Biblical truth. saw his task, as the leading churchman of his day, to restore church in England to a sound biblical faith. His devotion to this task is reflected the masterful liturgical reform that gave the world in the first and second English Prayer Books, the precursors to the Book of Common Prayer of 1662. The latter book, which still serves as the standard for orthodox Anglicans around the world, is substantially the Book that, under God, Cranmer gave to the church. 

Yours sincerely in Christ,