A Study of the Evangelical Decline of the Burial Rites in the English and American Prayer Books
The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us there is “a time for every purpose under the heaven,” which includes “a time to be born, and a time to die… a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Eccl. 3:1-2,4 ESV). While the inescapable reality of death loomed heavily over the imaginations of older civilizations throughout history, modern western man has sought to insulate and distract himself from this tragic truth through various forms of busyness and entertainment. The overall effect of this trend in modern society has been to minimize modern man’s exposure to, and contemplation of, the inevitable end of his life, which has in turn robbed the church of a powerful, natural apologetic for the faith. This trend has manifested even within the life of the modern church, which has in practice seemed to affirm there is no time to die as the streamlining of religious funerals becomes normalized.[1]
The practice of cremation and the abandonment of graveside services have decreased the likelihood of funeral attendees ever even seeing the body of the deceased or witnessing it being committed to the ground.[2] There are many cultural factors that have contributed to this phenomenon. However, it is worth considering how changes in theological emphases emerging from the Protestant Reformation as evidenced by the language and rituals in various editions of the Book of Common Prayer has contributed to these changes. In attempting to correct the theological errors and abuses of the late medieval Roman system, funeral services in the English prayer books would be simplified over time, placing greater emphasis on comforting the grieving with the sure and certain hope of resurrection rather than embracing the season of mourning which accompanies the end of life, resulting in the decline in the necessity for funeral rituals and a growing disconnect between the living and the dead.
The preoccupation of the medieval world with death cannot be overstated but it can be, and often is, misunderstood. It was not some dark fascination with the macabre, such as that which characterizes the modern horror genre, that prompted somber religious observance by medieval worshipers in preparation for death. Rather it was the fundamental reality of death that was unignorable and inescapable, and the knowledge of judgment that was to follow. The passing of the soul into the afterlife was the beginning of the journey through the purifying fires of purgatory on the way to heaven’s glory. According to historian Eamon Duffy, the doctrine of Purgatory was “the single most influential factor in shaping both the organization of the Church and the physical layout and appearance of the buildings in which men and women worshiped.”[3] Duffy explains that the organization of the church was shaped by the massive increase in the number of ordained priests needed to provide funeral masses for the dead and that the architecture was shaped by the donations given to the church as good works that would remind worshipers to pray for ones soul after death.[4] The legacies of the dead manifested in beautiful worship spaces and the prayers of the living served to bind generations of Christians, past and present, together in one holy fellowship. Those who had passed through death were not gone, but merely further ahead on the journey toward heaven. Intercession then for the dead was not a morbid obsession, but rather “a means of prolonging the presence of the dead within the community of the living.”[5] In the words of Nicholas Orme, the church served not only as a place for worshipers to draw near to God, but as “a lookout point on a journey that was to take them into another world altogether.”[6]
Though there was some variation based on what families of the deceased could afford, funeral rites consisted primarily of a service and a burial.[7] The public ritual began with the procession of the body to the church accompanied by the mourning family and friends of the deceased. Such processions among Christians in Britain differed from the dirges of their pagan ancestors in that hopeful psalms and hymns were sung along the way.[8] However, such a procession would still be seen as a public display of mourners that has largely disappeared from modern society. The Office for the Dead would begin in the morning with the Dirige, a Matins service asking God for direction with the words, “Guide, O Lord, my God, my path.”[9] This would be followed by the Requiem Mass for the deceased, and in some cases, a sermon.[10] The eucharistic celebration for the dead was an important component of the burial service of martyrs going back to the earliest days of the church, notes 19th century Anglican commentor, John Henry Blunt. St. Augustine’s Confessions testify to the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice at the burial of his mother, Monica, at the end of the fourth century.[11] Medieval accretions of funeral rites complicated and may have distorted the theology of the ancient funeral rite, but they did not represent an innovation in the core components of a funeral service and burial from the early church. Following the service, the body of the deceased was then carried to its final resting place to be interred in the ground. The rituals at the gravesite communicate an understanding by the living that they were sending off the body of the deceased. The blessing of the grave, the use of holy water and incense to ward off fiends, the prayers commending the soul to God, the placement of the cross beside the head of the deceased, the ceremonial spreading of dirt over the body – all these actions were intentionally performed by the living as the dead was left to await the resurrection.[12] Penitential Psalms were then sung during the procession of the mourners back from the grave. In sum, the funeral rites of the medieval Church, says Massey Shepherd, “became less a means of comfort to the living and more a plea for mercy and assistance to the departed. ”[13]
The theological changes brought about by the English Reformation would have significant implications for how funeral rites would be performed in England going forward. The most consequential of these changes was the denial of the medieval doctrine of Purgatory, which had only been formalized by the Roman church in the 12th century. It was this doctrine, notes Trevor Lloyd, that served to undermine “the assurance and joy of the early church’s hope” as well as “opened the door to a range of financial abuses, with payments for indulgences, prayers, Eucharists, and memorials for the dead.”[14] Such a denial flowed naturally from the Reformation doctrines of sola Scriptura and sola gratia. In his Answers to the Fifteen Articles of the Rebels in Devon and Cornwall, written in 1549, Cranmer rejected the doctrine of Purgatory on the grounds that “Scripture maketh mention of two places where the dead be received after this life, of heaven or of hell, but of purgatory not one word is spoken.”[15] Furthermore, Cranmer continued, the doctrine of Purgatory makes a mockery of Christ’s sacrifice by suggesting that His blood has not sufficiently cleansed one of all sin.
But if according to the catholic faith, which the holy scripture teacheth, and the prophets, apostles, and martyrs confirmed with their blood, all the faithful that die in the Lord be pardoned of all their offences by Christ, and their sins be clearly sponged and washed away by his blood ; shall they after be cast into another strong and grievous prison of purgatory, there to be punished again for that which was pardoned before?[16]
Four years later, these convictions would be summarized and published in Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles of Religion: the doctrine of purgatory “is a fond thing vainly feigned and grounded upon no warrant of scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God.”[17] By 1571, this article would be formally approved by Elizabeth I as part of the Thirty-Nine Articles that would be the official doctrine of the Church of England.
Cranmer’s first prayer book in 1549, however, while significantly simplifying and shortening the funeral service, did maintain much of the continuity with the elements of the medieval Sarum Rite. Beside changing the language from Latin to English, Massey Shepherd highlights the key differences Cranmer introduced into the service as the elimination of the procession of the mourners with the body to the church and the reduction of the rite to a single Office of the Dead, consisting of the reading of Psalms, a Scripture lesson from I Corinthians 15, and prayers.[18] Cranmer, however, retained the commending of the soul of the deceased to God, addressing the corpse with these words: “I COMMENDE thy soule to God the father almighty, and thy body to the grounde, earth to earth, asshes to asshes, dust to dust, in sure and certayne hope of resurreccion to eternall lyfe, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”[19] This was followed by a prayer for the dead and the committing of the body to the ground.
On this point, Blunt states that “every primitive Liturgy that exists contains prayers for the departed, and the works of early Christian writers make innumerable references to the habit as one which was evidently as familiar to them as that of praying for the living.”[20] If prayers for the dead were the regular practice of the ancient church, the real issue in the late middle ages then seems to be the development of the doctrine of Purgatory “with its penal torments, again cast a pagan gloom over the burial of the Christian dead, bringing a revival of the black garments and the notes of mourning and terror of heathen days,” notes Edward Parsons.[21] This doctrine was the theological innovation carrying negative implications for the funeral rites that Cranmer reformed by removing all references to it in the burial rite. In addition to prayers for the dead, Cranmer also concluded the 1549 funeral service with the retention of the funeral mass, the benefits of which, notes Blunt, are for the “whole church” according to the Prayer of Oblation in the 1549 Prayer Book and not merely for the church militant.[22]
Given these continuities with the medieval rite, which would later be perceived as extremely controversial among Protestants, one is left to wonder whether the implications of the rejection of the doctrine of Purgatory for the burial of the dead had fully been appreciated by Cranmer in 1549 or whether, for Cranmer, there was no inherent inconsistency between rejecting purgatory and praying for the dead. If the latter is true, was his subsequent elimination of the prayer commending the soul to God a political move in response to pressure he was facing from Reformers? Dr. Gerald McDermott, in his book, Deep Anglicanism, defends the practice of prayers for the dead, emphasizing that the funeral liturgy “is expressly intended for the funerals of believers who were baptized and professed faith, and so are presumed to be on their way to heaven.” Thus, in praying for the dead, one is not praying “to get the lost out of hell”, but rather “to help believers on their journey toward heaven.”[23] Understood in this way, Cranmer’s 1549 funeral rite strikes an appropriate balance between retaining the Catholic tradition and reforming it in line with Protestant principles.
However, the growing Protestant influence in England under the rule of the impressionable Edward VI would not be satisfied with this aforementioned synthesis. The logic of reform suggested that if Purgatory was a doctrine repugnant to Scripture, there was no need for prayers to be said for the dead. Those who have died are either in one of two final destinations for their souls, heaven or hell, and thus beyond the effects of any prayer that could be said for them. To suggest that the dead would still be needful of our prayers would imply that faith in Christ’s sacrifice was insufficient to prepare them for the afterlife. Furthermore, on the basis of sola Scriptura, there was no such explicit command in to engage in the practice. As Andrew Cinnamond summarizes, “Omission is prohibition becomes a key evangelical defence against those who would seek to reintroduce praying for the dead into the Church of England.”[24] Thus, all such prayers were removed from the funeral rite in the 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. The Requiem mass was also eliminated from the funeral rite for similar reasons. If the Eucharist is for the church militant, what good would it do for those who have joined the church triumphant or those doomed to eternal punishment? Here marks the beginning of the distancing, rather than the mere distinction, of the church militant from the church triumphant. In an attempt by the Reformers to emphasize the sufficiency of Christ and assurance of salvation for those who have died, they also, intentionally or not, contributed to the initial breakdown of the reciprocal relationship between the living and the dead within the medieval church.
The funeral rite of the 1552 Prayer Book brought more change than the mere subtraction of the Requiem and the prayers for the dead. Indeed, there was no need for a funeral service in the church at all, but only a simple burial at the graveside, and thus, the former was eliminated. The overall focus of the burial service shifted away from the sending off of the deceased toward comforting the living in the hope of the resurrection. No Psalms were to be recited, for such words on the lips of the mourners seeking God’s comfort amidst weeping took away from the hope of the resurrection that was to be the central point of the service. There was nothing to commend to God as it was acknowledged that “the soule of our dere brother here departed” was already gone. What remained was nothing more than the empty shell of the body, which was to be committed to the ground. After reading the Scripture lesson from I Corinthians 15, the priest offered a prayer of thanksgiving for the delivery of the deceased from the miseries of this world. The main petition of the prayer was that God would “shortely…accompllyssh the noumbre of thyne elect”…that those departed “in the true faith of thy holy name, maye have our perfect consummation and blisse.” The service then concluded with a collect said by the people, asking that God would raise them “from the death of sinne unto the life of righteousnes, that when we shal depart thys lyfe, we may reste in him.”[25] The extreme deprivations of the funeral rite exemplified in the 1552 prayer book were short lived as the Roman Catholic Queen, Mary I, would come to the throne the following year upon the death of Edward VI.
Mary’s short reign was succeeded by her younger sister, Elizabeth I, in 1558. The following year the Elizabethan Prayer Book was published, which moderated the 1552 book in some places, but left the funeral rite completely untouched. Eamon Duffy shows that despite the rule of the prayer book under Elizabeth, the new funeral rite remained a point of contention among the laity who preferred the traditional rite of the medieval church. “Episcopal visitation frequently singled out funeral ritual as one of the most recalcitrant areas of continuing Catholic practice, particularly the use of candles and Crosses about corpses, and the ringing of peals both before funerals and on All Souls’ eve, to elicit prayers for the dead.”[26] Yet, that which was formulated in the most radical years of the 16th century English Reformation would remain the standard for the burial rite in England for the next century. The emerging Puritan element within the Church of England in the early 17th century preferred to avoid the slightest bit of ceremony when burying the dead. The future Bishop of Durham, John Cosin, testified that Puritans did not even believe it necessary to have priest present at a burial service, “but the corpse to be brought to the grave and there put in by the clerk, or some other honest neighbour, and so back again without any more ado.”[27] In the midst of the English Civil War in 1644 the Directory for the Worship of God was written and adopted by the parliaments of England and Scotland to replace the English Book of Common Prayer. The language concerning the burial of the dead is even more strict, forbidding even the mourners from “praying, reading, and singing” while walking to or from the gravesite.
When any person departeth this life, let the dead body, upon the day of burial, be decently attended from the house to the place appointed for publick burial, and there immediately interred, without any ceremony. And because the custom of kneeling down, and praying by or towards the dead corpse, and other such usages, in the place where it lies before it be carried to burial, are superstitious; and for that praying, reading, and singing, both in going to and at the grave, have been grossly abused, are no way beneficial to the dead, and have proved many ways hurtful to the living; therefore let all such things be laid aside.[28]
It was not until after the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660 that another opportunity for the publication of a new prayer book was afforded to the Church of England.
On St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1662, what would become the longest standing official prayer book in the history of the English Church went into effect. After decades of conflict and turmoil, the 1662 Prayer Book, along with the Act of Uniformity passed by Parliament earlier that year, was a product of compromises made aimed at securing a policy of national comprehension. The funeral rite in this book was altered in slight, but significant, ways in the traditionalist direction. First, rather than being banished to the graveyard, the Service of the Dead was moved back into the church to be observed prior to the time for burial as indicated by the rubric.[29] Second, the Psalms made a return with the inclusion of Psalm 39 and Psalm 90 placed at the beginning of the service. Both Psalms speak about the brevity of life and the need for repentance and mercy. Psalm 90 includes a petition that God would teach us to number our days: that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom (Ps. 90:12). With just this subtle change, the 1662 rite began with a shifted emphasis toward encouraging contemplation within the mourner so he might consider the transience of his own life and whether he is ready to face Gods “wrathful indignation” (v.7). Only then is the epistle lesson from I Corinthians 15 read, directing the mourner to the hope of resurrection. Following the Scripture reading, the corpse is brought to the grave where the burial service proceeds with prayers similar to those in the 1552 and 1559 books. Jeremy Gregory points out that in keeping with the concerns of mid-17th century Puritans, “at the committal the minister referred to the hope of the general resurrection to eternal life instead of focusing on the resurrection of the deceased.”[30] The 1789 American Prayer Book would go a step further in generalizing the prayers. From the minister’s prayer at the conclusion of the burial rite, the following line from the 1662 Book is removed: “We give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleaſed thee to deliver this our brother out of the miſeries of this ſinful world.”[31] In its place is the line, “We give thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those thy servants, who, having finished their course in faith, do now rest from their labours.”[32] Given this language, one might say that the identity of the deceased was entirely beside the point of the service. The increasing Protestant tendency was to use the burial rite to affirm general theological truths rather than confidently apply them to the deceased for whom a particular service was performed. The funeral in this era for English and American Protestants in the Episcopalian tradition was an occasion for listeners to reflect on the sure and certain hope of the promises of God and to consider their own death. Nonetheless, the overall balance brought by the 1662 Prayer Book passed the test of time and served to shape the worship and piety of England through its long golden age.
That long golden age came to an end in the Anglosphere at the beginning of the 20th century due to several factors, the most significant of which was the growing influence of the Anglo-Catholic movement in both Britain and America in the late 19th century. As controversy between evangelical and Anglo-Catholic parties intensified, calls for liturgical reform began in England as early as 1906 and persisted up to the start of the First World War. The monumental devastation of that earth shattering event stimulated a desire for further changes in the prayer book that many believed were pastorally necessary to minister to the unique needs of a people who were suffering from the trauma of war.[33] For example, the exigencies of war made the reservation of the elements for the Eucharist more common.[34] Furthermore, according to scholar Mario Hatchett, it was during the time of World War I and the influenza epidemic that followed on its heels that witnessed a dramatic increase in the use of prayers for the departed in the funeral rite.[35] In the midst of the unprecedented death and sorrow at the time, there seems to have been something that was comforting to mourners about commending the souls of their deceased loved ones to God rather than barely acknowledging the body in the burial rite and focusing on the comforting or warning of the living. Thus, the historical evidence would seem to indicate that the changes eventually proposed in the English 1928 Prayer Book, which was rejected by Parliament, and the American 1928 Prayer Book, which was accepted by the Protestant Episcopal Church, were not driven exclusively by theological commitments, but by the desires and needs of people on both sides of the Atlantic to address the spiritual needs of the day. If this is true, it is significant to consider the fact that in the midst great suffering and death, the degree to which the world had never seen, there was a greater desire to return to the theology and liturgy of the late Middle Ages retained in Cranmer’s first prayer book rather than maintain the rites with which the Anglosphere had become accustomed over the course of the previous three centuries.
The publication of the 1928 Prayer Book in the Protestant Episcopal Church in America then represents a massive reversal in the historical evangelical tendency going back to the Reformation of deemphasizing the importance of the deceased. Drawing heavily on the Scottish prayer book tradition, which had retained much of the structure and content of the 1549 Prayer Book, the 1928 Prayer Book most significantly restored the celebration of the Eucharist and the commending of the soul to God in addition to the committing of the body to the ground. The funeral service begins with more options for Psalms, six in total. In addition to the traditional Scripture passage from I Corinthians 15, alternative passages from Romans 8:14-39 and John 14: 1-6 are presented. Massey Shepherd astutely observes that the addition of verses from Romans 8 goes beyond pointing to the future bodily resurrection and reminds the mourner that God “is not alien to our sufferings and sorrows; He has shared them with us in His Son.”[36] For people suffering the devastations of world war and epidemics (and soon depression and more world war), it was important to be reminded that not only would there be a resurrection from the dead in the end, but that Christ has entered into the pain and suffering felt by the bereaved. The Scripture readings are followed by a prayer that God would remember the deceased so that he might “increase in knowledge and love of thee” and “go from strength to strength”, clearly implying that life in eternity is not a static existence, but one of growth and progress. This is consistent with another change introduced in the prayer for Christ’s Church in the communion service wherein it is asked for the faithfully departed that God would grant them continual growth in thy love and service.[37] Instead of reacting against Rome and the abuses of the doctrine of Purgatory, there seems to be a recognition that the church triumphant and the church militant, though separated by life and death, are still on the journey together.
The 1928 Prayer Book also introduced a special rite for the burial of a child as well as a burial at sea, indicating a greater appreciation for the various kinds of deaths taking place at the time and how that might cause people to grieve differently. The Psalms for the burial of a child come from Psalm 23 and Psalm 121, both of which would speak to the mourning family about Gods care and provision for them in the midst of the sorrow of losing a child. Matthew 18 would be read in addition to I Corinthians 15, reminding the listeners that those who are as little children will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Finally, prayers are added that are tailored to dealing with the death of a child asking God for faith to believe that the child is in heaven with God and that those living would conform their lives such they might have childlike innocency and faith.
Despite the recovery of the traditional elements of the burial rite in the 1928 American Prayer Book, the times had changed. Such changes in the 20th century American context would be seen as little more than options or personal references in the absence of an Act of Uniformity in England. The trend across all denominations of Christianity at this time was desire for more options and expressions of the faith. Thus, the same door that opened up a return to more traditional ways of observing the faith in the prayer book also opened the door to greater innovations that served to relativize the traditional standards. This can be seen most clearly in the two most significant Prayer books that would be published in the century following 1928: the 1979 Episcopal Prayer Book and the 2005 Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book. The 1979 book presented two different burial rites from which to choose. While both rites included options for the celebration of the Eucharist, Rite I was written in traditional Elizabethan English and closely followed traditional liturgical forms while Rite II was written in modern English and provided flexibility in structure and a range of available texts and prayers that could be utilized. Similarly, the prayer book of the Reformed Episcopal Church drew upon both the 1662 Prayer Book as well as the 1928. Like the latter prayer book, the REC burial rite includes more options for Psalms and includes the passages from Romans 8 and John 14 in addition to I Corinthians 15. It also retains the alternative readings and prayers for the burial of a child. However, it does not make provision for the celebration of the Eucharist, nor is there any language commending the soul of the departed to God, preferring the past tense language of the English prayer books subsequent to 1549, state that “it hath please Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother”[38] In short, the REC book incorporates some of the flexibility in structure introduced by the 1928 book, but maintains the central thrust of the theology of the prayer books from 1552 through 1662.
In 2009, the Anglican Church of North America was formed as new province in the Anglican Communion to be an orthodox Anglican option to the mainline Episcopal Church. By 2019 the ACNA published their first prayer book. The 2019 ACNA Prayer Book continues the trend toward maintaining the earlier tradition which had been recovered in the 1928 Prayer Book. At the same time, it furthers the modern trend of facilitating more individual choices by offering more options. The service begins with two additional passages of Scripture that could be read to introduce the service. Then, instead of just the traditional reading of I Corinthians 15, there are no less than fifteen additional options for Scripture reading, followed by many alternative prayers from which one may pick and choose. The tradition that is recovered with one hand is undermined by the modern individualist tendencies of the other. While flexibility and adaptation are understandable and even commendable in certain cases, leaning too far in this direction creates the impression that there is no standard for funeral rites and all are free to customize their own story. Sensitivity and accommodation to the many particulars of varying funeral services is offered as a tradeoff for having a standard funeral rite that would serve to unite the people of a particular religious tradition.
The customization of the funeral rite in modern prayer books is reflective the larger cultural trend toward the privatization of the funeral and the disappearance of the public reminder of the reality of death. Once a family-centered and community affair wherein the church functioned as a public institution in laying the body to rest and commending the soul of the departed to God, death has become a booming industry that discreetly eliminates the inconveniences, and shields us from the unpleasant realities, of death.[39] Increasingly common is the fact that the body of the deceased is not even present and a “celebration of life service” is held instead of a funeral so that the living may reflect on the happy memories of the deceased rather than the tragic reality of death. This is not to say that there is no time or place for such activity, but this often skips an important step at the end of the journey that God has ordained for all men, the sending off of the departed to the next life and the committing of the body to the ground to await the physical resurrection at Christ’s second Advent. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” This includes a time to die, which must be embraced by Christians along with the times of joy and happiness lest we forget those on the journey ahead of us and fail to prepare to join them.
[1] “The Erosion of Funeral Customs and Its Impact on Ministry,” Ministry Magazine | May 2011. https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2011/05/the-erosion-of-funeral-customs Accessed November 19, 2025
[2] Statistics provided by the Cremation Association of North America indicate that over 60% of the deceased in 2025 are cremated. This number is projected to exceed 80% by 2040. https://www.cremationassociation.org/blog/category/statistics Accessed November 19, 2025.
[3] Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (Yale University, 1992) 301.
[4] Ibid, 301-302.
[5] Ibid, 303
[6] Nicholas Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press, 2021), 348.
[7] Ibid, 343.
[8] Trevor Lloyd, “Funeral Rites” in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey, eds. Charles Hefling & Cynthia Shattuck (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 518.
[9] John Anthony Hardon, Modern Catholic Dictionary (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1980), 160.
[10] Orme, 341.
[11] John Henry Blunt, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer; an Historical, Ritual, and Theological Commentary on the Devotional System of the Church of England (London, etc.: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907), 475.
[12] Ibid, 342-343.
[13] Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr. The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950), 324.
[14] Trevor Lloyd, “Funeral Rites”, 518.
[15] Thomas Cranmer, Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, ed. John Edmund Cox (Cambridge: Parker Society/Cambridge University Press, 1846), 181.
[16] Ibid, 181-182
[17] The Ven. Andrew Brashier has supplied a copy of the Forty-Two Articles of Religion on his substack since they are difficult to obtain here: https://thruamirrordarkly.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/the-42-articles-of-religion/. Accessed 25 November 2025.
[18] Shepherd, 324.
[19] Charles Wohlers, ed., “The Book of Common Prayer – 1549,” The Book of Common Prayer, October 3, 2018, http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1549/Burial_1549.htm. Accessed December 11, 2025.
[20] Blunt, 476.
[21] Edward Lambe Parsons, The American Prayer Book: Its Origins and Principles, (New York: Scribner, 1937), 263.
[22] Ibid, 475. Blunt cites the relevant part of the Prayer of Oblation in the 1549 Prayer Book: “most humbly beseeching thee to graunt, that by the merites and death of thy sonne Jesus Christ, and through faith in his bloud, we and al thy whole church, may obteigne remission of our sinnes, and all other benefites of hys passion [emphasis mine]. This, at the very least shows there is an internal consistency in the 1549 Prayer Book between its eucharistic rite and the funeral rite.
[23] Gerald R. McDermott, Deep Anglicanism: A Brief Guide (Nashota, WI: Nashotah House Press, 2024), 134. The Catholic historian, Eamon Duffy, seems to agree with McDermott’s argument when he says that the prayers for the dead were not offered to change the direction of souls headed to hell, “but because they were good, and their very presence in Purgatory was a proof of their faith, hope, and charity.” Prayers were offered “so as to evoke not merely the pity, but the admiration and gratitude, of the living, and thereby assure their intercession.” Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580, 332-333.
[24] Andrew Cinnamond, Sure and Certain Hope, Death and Burial in the Book of Common Prayer (London: The Latimer Trust, 2016), 12.
[25] Charles Wohlers, ed., “The Book of Common Prayer – 1552,” The Book of Common Prayer, October 3, 2018, http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1552/Burial_1552.htm. Accessed December 11, 2025.
[26] Duffy, 577
[27] John Cosin, Works, v. 168, quoted in John Henry Blunt, The Annotated Book of Common Prayer, 475.
[28] “Directory for the Publick Worship of God,” The Westminster Standard, January 30, 2017, https://thewestminsterstandard.org/directory-for-the-publick-worship-of-god. Accessed December 7, 2025.
[29] “After they are come into the Church, ſhall be read one or both of theſe Pſalms following.” Charles Wohlers, ed., “The Book of Common Prayer – 1662,” The Book of Common Prayer, October 3, 2018. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/burial.pdf. Accessed December 11, 2025.
[30] Jeremy Gregory, “The Prayer Book and the Parish Church: From the Restoration to the Oxford Movement”, in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey eds. Charles Hefling & Cynthia Shattuck (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 101.
[31] http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/burial.pdf. Accessed December 11, 2025.
[32] Charles Wohlers, ed., “The Book of Common Prayer – 1789,” The Book of Common Prayer, October 3, 2018.
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1789/Burial_1789.pdf. Accessed December 11, 2025.
[33] Brian Spinks, “The Prayer Book Crisis in England”, in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey, 241.
[34] Ibid, 240.
[35] Marion J. Hatchett, “The Colonies and States of America”, in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: A Worldwide Survey 184.
[36] Shepherd, 330
[37] Charles Wohlers, ed., “The Book of Common Prayer – 1928,” The Book of Common Prayer, October 3, 2018.
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/HC.htm. Accessed December 13, 2025.
[38] The Book of Common Prayer: And Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Reformed Episcopal Church in North America, Together with the Psalter or Psalms of David, (Philadelphia, Pa.: Standing Liturgical Commission of the Reformed Episcopal Church, 2013), 530.
[39] Cinnamond, 54-55.
