Fr. Dan Martins, agreed. I spent many an hour in the Virginia Theological Seminary library with Hatchett’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book open before me, as I wrote a paper contrasting topics in the 1928 and 1979 BCPs. When I queried the late Rev. Dr. Peter Toon for an authoritative work on the 1979 version, he directed me to Hatchett’s Commentary. I wonder what the two of them (Toon and Hatchett) are talking about now!
I suppose what Dr Hatchett will be remmebered for most is that, for good or ill, he was one the principal architects of the 1979 BCP
One of the architects, to be sure, but certainly also the definitive expositor of it in his “Commentary…”.
His Liturgical Index to the Hymnal 1982 is fabulous also.
Fr. Dan Martins, agreed. I spent many an hour in the Virginia Theological Seminary library with Hatchett’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book open before me, as I wrote a paper contrasting topics in the 1928 and 1979 BCPs. When I queried the late Rev. Dr. Peter Toon for an authoritative work on the 1979 version, he directed me to Hatchett’s Commentary. I wonder what the two of them (Toon and Hatchett) are talking about now!