Prayer Book Studies Volume Three (Initial Pastoral Offices, Issues X-XV)

A landmark series of studies devoted to the revision of the Book of Common Prayer — Volume Three addresses marriage, baptism, minor holy days and the burial of the dead.

The creation of the landmark 1979 Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published irregularly over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

In Volume 3, the Standing Commission on Liturgy takes up the Pastoral Offices outside of Christian Initiation in publications from 1958 and 1959. The concluding study is not a study at all, but a plea to General Convention in 1961 to allow Trial Use for the liturgies produced up to this point.