St. Paul’s Cathedral in London celebrates the occasion on 2 May with a special service of evensong, or evening prayer, from the 1662 volume, often shortened to the BCP or Prayer Book. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is to attend, along with members of Prayer Book societies in Australia, Canada and the U.K. that are dedicated to keeping the work alive.
“I hope and pray that people in Britain and around the English-speaking world realize the importance of this great work,” Prudence Dailey, Chair of the Prayer Book Society in the U.K., told ENInews.
The reality is that in most parts of the UK it’s hard to find Prayer Book services at times other than 8am, and with a congregation averaging under 75 years in age or over 7 in attendance. I take my seven year old to one of these said services once or twice a month; he is patient and attentive and loves the quiet rhythm of strange but self-evidently gritty and honest cadences. The BCP language is electrifying, dynamic and life-transforming to those with the ears to hear – a quality none of its successors can match even in part. But it is now a tongue not understanded of the people. When the (long-retired) priest turns up at all even he is barely awake or coherent.