The Alcuin Club

Promoting the Study of Liturgy

The Alcuin Club

Promoting the Study of Liturgy

The Anglican Eucharist in New Zealand 1814 -1989

SKU JLS 21 Category

£3.75

74 in stock

Joint Liturgical Studies 21

“Lex orandi is always and everywhere Lex credendi, but very markedly so with [Anglicans]. That is why in our history we have had few heresy trials, but, however wrongly directed, many ritual prosecutions.”

In 1914 the Rev. H. T. Purchas wrote in A History of the English Church in New Zealand that “The conduct of public worship in New Zealand presents no special
features in contrast with that of the mother Church.” This statement, however, can be seen both as an oversimplification, and as an indictment against those who transplanted Anglicanism to New Zealand soils. It is an oversimplification because, for example, it neglected/to observe the unique Maori pattern of worshipping. It is an indictment because it declares that in the century since the first Anglican service led by Rev. Samuel Marsden, little adaptation had occurred, for example, to the different seasons of the southern hemisphere.

A statement like that of Purchas could not be made with any validity today. In eucharistic worship, with which this Study is concerned, the Church of England
is still deeply divided into parties.

Bosco Peters