Worship Resources for the Diamond Jubilee Available
Clergy and Readers of the Diocese who are planning worship over the next months will want to know of resources which have been compiled by the Church of England's Liturgical Commission to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. There is a rich range of prayers and services available, drawn from material from the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship.
The Sunday of the Jubilee Weekend, 3 June, is a Principle Feast, Trinity Sunday, and the collect and readings at the main services that day must be for the feast itself, but the resources are adaptable to fit in with the feast or to be used on other occasions.
Some slight modification may be needed to certain prayers recognising that Queen Elizabeth II is of course, not Sovereign in most parts of the diocese, but our clergy and Readers are already used to making these adjustments!
Click here for the link to the resources.
Glad to be 1 of several visitants on this awful site : D
ReplyDeleteHow does this Jubilee work for all those Anglicans who do not have British nationality, and whose Queen is not Elizabeth? I know from our own church, there are people form all over the world (USA, Australia, Mexico, China, Korea, Tanzania, Liberia, Dutch, German, etc, etc.). But there are also churches who exist completely from Anglican immigrants from Africa.
ReplyDeleteHow are those people supposed to look at this Jubilee. I know the Queen is Supreme Governor over the Church, but she is that only because of her Supreme authority over the UK. So I guess, she cannot be Supreme Governor over churches in countries not under her authority. Shouldn't the Churches on the Continent celebrate jubilees of the governments of their own states.
If I look at the material provided, it affirms what I said. We thank "that You have blessed THIS Nation, the Realms and Territories with Elizabeth OUR beloved and glorious Queen." But she is not my Queen, nor is the British Anthem, my national Anthem.
ReplyDeleteI have pointed out in the post that the material will likely be adapted for use in our diocese by our very competent clergy and readers. They are used to making such adjustments for our own context. The celebration of the Jubilee is not mandatory on our churches. The liturgical resources are available for those who wish to make use of them.
DeleteIncidentally, Queen Elizabeth II remains the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The Diocese in Europe is part of the Church of England, her 44th diocese.
Thank you bishop David for your reply. I completely accept you easy way of dealing with it. But it still makes for an interesting constitutional and ecclesiological discussion about the position of the Diocese in Europe, as a bit of a sui generis within the CofE.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the Preface to the 39 Articles and the Act of Supremacy, it clearly connects the Supremacy of the King over the Church to its Sovereignty over the Realm:
"Being by God's Ordinance, according to Our just Title, Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church, within these Our Dominions, We hold it most agreeable to this Our Kingly Office, (...) to make this Declaration following ... That We are Supreme Governor of the Church of England ... "
"The King's majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other of his Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign jurisdiction ... We give (to our princes) that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal..."
So if you look at this from the founding documents (which are part of British constitutional law) the Diocese in Europe cannot of itself be subject to the Supreme Governership of the Queen, though it might be canonically subject to the ecclesiastical power of Canterburry. Her Governorship is bound by her power over the territories where the churches reside. If Anglican Churches subject to other Sovereignties, recognize the Supreme Governership of the Queen, the Anglican Church would act in a similar way as Rome did in the time of the Reformation, claiming Sovereignty in foreign lands.
But I guess this question must have been discussed somewhere. By the way, it also ties in nicely with current discussion about the position of the Archbishop of Canterburry within the Anglican Communion. I just read Primates from Africa and Asia are considering to propose a chosen Primate as Primus inter Parus. The old structure of the British Empire and its constitutional law does not really fit anymore to current ecclesiastical realities.
You can be assured that as a bishop in this diocese I am fully aware of the sui generis nature of it, and with all the complications, ecclesiological, jurisdictional and missiological that this presents. It is my daily diet.
ReplyDeleteAt their licensing, the clergy of this diocese take the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty as she is supreme governor of the Church.
The parallel with the question of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury within the Anglican Communion is not really that relevant, as we are part of the Church of England and his role for us, is clear. The Diocese in Europe is not a separate province of the Communion but part of the province of Canterbury of the C of E. Neither are we the product of the British Empire, but are a diaspora jurisdiction of the C of E, a phenomenon widely known in European Churches. The parallels are more suitably seen in such jurisdictions that, say the Russian Church or the Romanian Church (both national Churches) have outside their national borders but within Europe.
Best wishes
+David