Anglican/episcopal Churches

Worship in the Anglican Communion is structured by liturgical celebration of the Christian year, centering on Easter. In recent decades, greater emphasis has been placed on the paschal and baptismal nature of the church year and on observing the complete yearly cycle, not just major festivals. The churches of the Anglican Communion inherited the Christian year from the pre-Reformation church in England. It has been an integral part of the worship of the Book of Common Prayer since 1549, and its use was staunchly defended in the seventeenth-century Anglican-Puritan controversy. The liturgical movement of the twentieth century has brought a renewal and deepening of the theological understanding of the Christian year and the reform of many details in its practice. The Episcopal liturgist Massey H. Shepherd has aptly summarized the theological conception behind such reform. The Christian year is a mystery through which every moment and all the times and seasons of this life are tran…