It is May, for Catholics the Month of Mary. What about for Anglicans?

Does your church do anything to commemorate the Blessed Virgin? This is her month. My grandfather would always display a May bush on his house, as well as wear blue vestments and lead public Rosaries.

 

My parish isn't really doing things for the Blessed Virgin, which is probably more a Roman Catholic practice in this case... We celebrate her Feast Day as one of the saints, when it comes in due time

That being said, tomorrow May 3rd our parish is having the feast of Sts. Philip and James, so that's our main celebration, for the early part of May at least

 

What's a May bush?

 

A wee little bush covered in blue strings and ribbons, often with medals also in the branches.

The picture above is actually taken at our parish cemetery, it's the grave of a relative. We put one there every year.

A Naomh Mhuire, a mháthair Dé, guí orainn na peacaithe, anois is ar uair ar mbás. Amen.

 

Oh how beautiful. I'm not aware of this tradition ! However my high school always had a May altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.

 

Never heard of this at all.

Never heard of this at all.

 

I was down at the Chancery last fall doing some liturgical training and the Archbishop celebrated Dormition. He donned Sarum blue vestments. I've got a wonderful set of Spanish cut vestments in Marian blue but the rector I serve under is very Protestant and would probably burst an aneurysm if we actually commemorated one of the Marian feasts.

 

Is Dormition the same as Assumption? The Anglo-Catholic church we sometimes visit is going to have a High Mass on 15th August. Not sure if they have blue vestments though....

 

It's the same date but the theology behind the terminology is not the same. As I understand it, the Roman Church is ambiguous in its teaching on whether Mary died, but she was assumed bodily into Heaven. Dormition acknowledges that she died before she passed into Heaven. In iconography, the Dormition is written with Mary in death's sleep upon a bed and the apostles surrounding her.

 

There are a few CofE churches which follow Roman tradition and have May devotions in honour of the BVM.

Westminster Abbey held a day inMay in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham when the the image of OLOW was processed from St Margaret's Church into the Abbey for a Sung Eucharist. More details here:

https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-news/our-lady-walsingham

In terms of tree decorating, (not related to the BVM) I visited a church nearby a few days ago that has a Holy Well. There was a tree close to the well decorated with colourful prayer cards.

 

That is most unfortunate. You would think the Annunciation for example would be unobjectionable.

Dormition falls on the 15th of August, not May, however, so I don’t understand the May Marian thing. The Dormition of the Theotokos, the Nativity of the Theotokos and the Presentation of the Theotokos all occur in the latter half of the year, starting with the Dormition fast on August the 5th. The main Marian fest in the Spring is the Annunciation, and also Candlemass.

 

I like that very much.

 

My old parish used to celebrate May as Mary's month. We would have a crowning of the BVM and the Rosary was said more frequently. My current parish is stuck in a time warp (1970s) and so goes for Catholic minimalism. So, nothing Marian in our parish during May. Similarly, my current parish does not bother with October as the month of the Rosary, but my defunct parish did.

 

Not quite, in that some Roman Catholics believe the Theotokos was assumed without dying, like Elijah but without the Chariot of Fire, whereas others, and everyone else, believes that she died, and her remains were then taken up into Heaven.

This latter story makes sense to me, because a dramatic assumption could have caused confusion or distraction to the evangelization of the nascent church, but St. Mary was clearly as worthy as St. Elias (Elijah) to reside bodily in Heaven together with her son, our Lord, God and Savior, from whom she had been very traumatically separated.

 

Might I ask what your old parish was? It sounds very much on the Anglo-Catholic side of things. I assume by Rosary you mean the Marian one, and not the Anglican one based on the Jesus Prayer?

 

It was very much Anglo-Catholic and very properly conservative and traditional. Sadly, when our priest retired (he should have retired many years earlier on health grounds) the bishop swooped in and closed the parish. We were amalgamated with two 'middle-of-the-road' parishes (we have moved our Sunday observance elsewhere). Yes, it was most definitely, the Marian Rosary.

 

It sounds lovely. Regarding the Ave Maria this is used in Orthodoxy, and there is a Rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov not unlike the Rosary, only simpler. But I also like the Anglican Rosary as I think the Jesus Prayer is also something very good.

And the action of your bishop greatly distresses me. This current trend of parish amalgmation in the C of E boils my blood. I would willingly uproot myself and volunteer to serve at one of those parishes if they would let me, and sustain myself by working in one of the IT sectors where Britain has experienced “brain drain” to the US, so as to balance the scales, were that possible. Or indeed for that matter I would work a miserable job on the railways; being somewhat of an enthusiast stateside I have ample experience with our system and considerable knowledge of yours, and would not find it beneath my station to suffer the otherwise miserable job of a station agent at a place like Clapham Junction.

 

Don't let it; otherwise, you'd completely boil away here. The bishops are working hard to replace orthodox faith with anything goes liberalism.

I'd happily do it, too. Of course, the drawback is we're not ordained. I'm not convinced there's any shortage of Anglo-Catholic priests. The issue is when the parish priest of an Anglo-Catholic parish retires or moves elsewhere the bishop suspends the living and draws up a scheme that ultimately closes the parish. They want to make Anglo-Catholicism extinct.

You must, indeed, be a very dedicated man to want to work on Britain's railway system. But, to return to a serious note: Just as I don't think there's a shortage of Anglo-Catholic priests I think there's also a good number of them who are already self-supporting.

 

To clarify, I was speaking metaphorically. But fortunately, there are still a few good Anglo Catholic bishops in the Church of England, in the Society/Forward in Faith movement. And I would hope there are also some good bishops of lower churchmanship, for example, bishops involved with the Prayer Book Society or bishops who are sympathetic to GAFCON or the traditional, albeit low-church Sydney Anglicans.

I do also benefit from a lifeboat in this respect that other members might not, in that for the time being I remain a member of the Orthodox Church, rooting for traditional Anglicanism from the sidelines in the hopes that the traditional Anglicans will prevail, in some form, and enter into communion with us.

Of course, if we have volunteer clergy, a benefice is not required.

Also, as an interesting case of traditionalism operating via a backdoor, are three parishes in the Square Mile of the City of London which are still operational as Church of England parishes, but which largely owe this status to being used by Orthodox congregations: the Antiochians are graciously allowed to use St. Botolph’s-without-Bishopsgate, the Sunday services at St. Andrews-by-the-Wardrobe are provided by the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (the larger of the two Syriac Orthodox churches not subordinate to the Patriarch of Antioch; the smaller one is actually in full communion and intimately related to the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, which is part of the Anglican Communion alomg with the CSI and the CNI, and then there is the Malankara Jacobite Syrian Church under the Patriarch of Antioch), and finally, the Romanian Orthodox use St. Dunstan-in-the-West, having one of three of the installed altars to their use, which features a beautiful iconostais imported from Romania:



Now, to be absolutely clear, I am not advocating the conversion of Anglican parishes to Orthodox parishes. Nor am I advocating putting an iconostasis in them (only the Eastern Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox make heavy use of the iconostasis per se, and of the churches I mentioned, only St. Dunstan in tne West has a dedicated altar for Orthodox use, but this actually works somewhat well in its case as the churh has multiple chapels each with its own distinct appearance and is thus enriched, but in the case of St. Botolph’s-without-Bishopsgate and St. Andrews-by-the-Wardrobe, this is not used, and the rubrics of the Orthodox churches do not require a dedicated altar (at least, not those of the Syriac, Coptic, Assyrian and Eastern Orthodox), because the Eucharist is actually celebrated on something called an antimension or tablitho, and these are placed atop the Holy Table, but can also be used elsewhere). I should add in most cases the addition of an iconostasis alongside or instead of the existing altar, would be architecturally unwarranted and wrong. Especially in parishes with a chancel screen; the chancel screen is the traditional Western form of the Templon, just as the Iconostais became the Byzantine and Coptic form, the curtain, the Syriac form, and the Bema, the Armenian form. The removal of Rood Screens and Chancel Screens from most Roman Catholic churches following the Council of Trent was a disgrace; it was based on a Dominican and Fransiscan agenda, as their dedicated churches did not feature these, in order to allow the congregation a better view of the priest during the service. It is easy to see how this led to celebration versus populum and the inane insistence on “active participation” which disastrously managed to escape the confines of the Roman church and infect BCP-substitutes like Common Worship.

I should note that I am extremely opposed to Common Worship, and believe it should be banned; the Church of England should authorize only the use of the 1549, 1662, 1928 Deposited, and 1929 Scottish BCPs (the latter for congregations comprised of Scottish Anglicans living in England or in abroad in the Continental European diocese of the Church of England), along with the English Missal or Anglican Missal. The new 2019 ACNA missal could be used in what I hope would be the rare case where it was deemed the congregation was incapable of following the older service books, or alternately, the books I listed, especially the 1662, which is and ought to remain the standard BCP in England, into modern vernacular English (which would be logical, considering the large number of other languages, including various little-known tribal languages, and obscure regional languages of otherwise English speaking people, for example, the Gaelic dialects of Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and Cornwall).

Rather, in the case of these three parishes, their shared use by the Orthodox supports the Anglican congregation and vice versa, so for example, St. Andrew’s-by-the-Wardrobe is one of many City churches that now specializes in providing weekday services for the convenience of the workers in the City, with a Eucharist on Monday, whereas the Malankara church uses it on Sundays. The Orthodox are used to travelling longer distances to reach parishes in the diaspora, and the potential exists, via such sharing agreements, to keep Anglican parishes operational that the bishop would otherwise shut down. Especially if the bishop allowed ordained priests to volunteer rather than serve as paid rectors, or alternately allowed the parish to be lead by a Reader and provide Mattins, the Litany and Evensong, with occasional Eucharists depending on the availability of clergy.

I really like trains. I have volunteered thousands of hours on a heritage railway. Being a driver or controller on the Tube or one of the railways around London would be thrilling. Especially if I got to work on the Piccadilly or Bakerloo line before the 1972 and 1973 stock is retired. The highly automated Victoria line has new trains alas, but surprisingly, these are as pretty as the old 1967 stock, and that would also be an easier job. But the Northern Line, with its awkward combination of old infrastructure and newer trains, and several stations with frighteningly narrow platforms which have to be carefully managed to avoid dangerous overcrowding would be miserable. The “Drain” (the Waterloo and City line) and the Overground services would be awesome, however.

That being the case, is the consolidation of these parishes pure spite from liberal bishops? Because if so, one possibility might be to encourage Orthodox or Assyrian congregations to share the facility, which even a liberal bishop like the Bishop of London will likely support for ecumenical reasons, and which could act as an obstacle to prevent the capricious shutting down of the parish. This would only work to a limited degree, but it could work, as it has in the City. It would not be an understatement to say that the presence of Eastern congregations has helped to ensure the survival of the Anglican communities in those parishes. The survival of the parishes is the primary objective; if another congregation from a different church consisting of an ethnic minority is allowed for ecumenical reasons to share the building, this reduces pressure on the Anglican congregation and makes shutting down the parish building a more daunting task.

In like manner, there are other minority churches which could also be encouraged to request access, for example, the Anglican Church of Wales has taken over one of the City churches, and another is used by the Scots, and another by the Dutch. There are doubtless many immigrants in the UK who are Anglicans, members of provinces from around the world, and many of these people I would expect are attending English language parishes, but might be in several cases highly desirous of attending a church in which their native tongue is spoken. In Eastern Orthodoxy there is something called a “Metochion”, which is a parish in the canonical jurisdiction of one patriarchate operated by representatives of another; for example, there are churches owned by the Moscow Patriarchate, in Moscow, which are used by priests from the churches of Alexandria, Georgia, and other countries, both to serve expatriates and also to act as a sort of ecclesiastical embassy. Inviting other members of the Anglican Communion to jointly operate some of these parishes could help ensure their survival.

There are also a great number of completely disused parishes held by the church conservation trust, and the same techniques could potentially be used to reopen them.

~

By the way, here is a question: would a visiting Anglican priest from another Province, or even in the Church of England, on a pilgrimage, potentially be able to obtain permission to celebrate supplemental, one time services, perhaps with fellow pilgrims, at some of the beautiful and under-utilized churches in the City? As many members know, I have a particular love for the parishes. If ever I wound up an Anglican priest, I would want to as a matter of priority try to get permission to celebrate additional services in some of the exquisite City churches which presently are not as heavily used as one might wish. Beautiful churches like St. Stephen Walbrook or St. Mary le Bow.

 

Yes, in a nutshell it is. They want to do away with those parishes that do not accept that woman can be ordained. Of course, they never give that as their reason. They claim it is a pastoral re-organisation needed because the size of the congregation, the parish income, etc. makes it untenable. Of course, those circumstances must have existed prior to any incumbent's resignation or retirement. However, I don't think they can close a parish whilst it has an incumbent.

I am not certain of the answer to your question. I know in the Church of England a priest must be beneficed, hold a licence under the bishop's seal or have a PTO (permission to officiate). All these require the priest to have undergone approved safeguarding training. So, I don't know if a visiting priest could simply celebrate Mass as a one-off. He certainly would not be able to do so on a regular basis without one of the aforementioned requirements. I've entered a variety of terms in the CofE's Web site but cannot find what the requirements are for a priest from overseas being allowed to celebrate a public service in a church in England.