While it is certainly true that some Anglicans pray the Hail Mary, I'd have to dispute that it has any official Anglican standing. Being bound by my assent to the 39 Articles, I would feel unable to include it in public worship, even if I personally wished to do so
Merry Christmas! Christ is in our midst!
Yes, I should have clarified that the Hail Mary is only official at the doctrinal level in the Roman Catholic and Syriac Orthodox churches, like the Malankara Independent Syrian Church, which is in full communion with a member of the Anglican Communion, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, but not itself a member. (And the official use of the Hail Mary is to my knowledge limited to serving as an optional part of the
Qawmo, which are analogous to the Preces from the Anglican Divine Office. In the Russian Orthodox Church, the prayer rule of St. Seraphim of Sarov is an official part of the monastic rule of some monasteries, most famously the convent in Sarov which St. Seraphim ministered to, which would be a top sight for worldwide pilgrimage except the Sovietsky Soyuza decided to locate their main nuclear weapons research center in Sarov, which makes it one might say difficult to access for non residents.
I have come to really appreciate the precision of Lutheran thinking, and in particular their emphasis on being clear about the difference between those things which are adiaphora and those which are not.
I also forgot to mention the Lutherans! Martin Luther was apparently very fond of the Hail Mary but did omit the intercessory prayer, so it was literally just a salutation, “Hail Mary, the Lord is with Thee, blessed art Thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb Jesus Christ.” This still might clas with Article XII, but in the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Church of Canada, I doubt anyone would care. It would indeed be better if there were a formal system of adiaphora, because on the one hand, in the US, the Episcopal Church deprecated the 39 Articles of Religion in the 1979 BCP to historical documents (although some dioceses still care) and on the other, while mostly this enables harmless Anglo Catholic displays that were according to the Oxford Movement, legal anyway (for example, the upper high church Anglo Catholic parish of St. Magnus the Martyr in London celebrated the Tridentine Mass in the 1920s and 30s, and there are still many “Missal Catholics” in the C of E and the Episcopal Church, and the 1979 BCP has Rite III, which in theory is not supposed to be used for primary worship services.
But then we also have St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco which appeared in my survey of problematic parishes in the United States because among other offensive liturtical practices (offensive to every Christian I have talked to on religious grounds, and offensive on the basis of cultural appropriation to several ethnic groups whose religious rites are used in the services, including the Japanese practitioners of Shrine Shinto, Shinto and Buddhism, Shugendo and other syncretic religious sets, and Ethiopian Christians), for it uses Ethiopian Orthodox umbrellas and chants, Russian Orthodox chants, it uses a Shinto shrine in its cremation liturgy, has an icon fresco of the Kangxi Emperor, who in response to the Chinese Rites Controversy in the Roman Catholic Church, made the practice of Christianity a capital offense, and uses a Eucharistic Prayer, an Anaphora, dedicated to Cain; traditionally Anaphorae are either named for their author or recensor, like St. Jacob of Sarugh, St. John Chrysostom, or Theodore of Mopsuestia (Mar Theodore the Interpreter is how he is venerated by the Assyrian Church of the East and the Ancient Church of the East, which unlike the other Eastern churches, practice open communion, as we discussed), or for particularly venerable saints, for example, the Ethiopian Anaphora of St. Mary, or the Armemian Anaphora of St. Athanasius, or the Eastern Orthodox Anaphora of St. Peter (based on the Roman Canon).
The services at St. Gregory don’t even bother to use the cover afforded by “Rite III” but no one cares, perhaps because much of the Bay Area has long been what Las Vegas falsely claims to be: what happens there stays there.
So a sense of adiaphora that could allow variable churchmanship while putting the brakes on parishes and cathedrals like the aformentioned St. Gregory of Nyssa St. John of Divine in New York City with its crucifix on a side altar depicting Christ as a woman and its over the top Halloween parties.
@Paidiske would I be correct in assuming these worship practices would violate your sense of duty regarding the 39 Articles. Also, have you, or my other Aussie Anglican friend, from Victoria,
@Philip_B ever heard of anything as extreme as any of the English or American parishes I mentioned in Australia?
And on an almost entirely unrelated brought up by the mention of what goes on in Sarov, have either of you seen
On the Beach, the 1959 nuclear apocalypse film involving a fictional US nuclear submarine, the Sawfish, surfacing in Melbourne, Australia being the only country not immediately destroyed in WWIII? (In the end it winds up a victim of fallout - the movie is desperately sad, but also features a beautiful love story with Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and also stars Anthony Perkins and Fred Astaire, who does not do any tap dancing as this film is serious). It also has a creepy scene shot in San Francisco totally devoid of life, no cars on the street, no visible damage, just really massive radiation conveyed by a brilliant orchestral score. The main orchestral score is centered around Waltzing Matilda. Its a good fim, admittedly more of an American film set in Australia than authentic Australiana, like
Mad Max (I love the original
Mad Max, where civilization is clearly starting to fail but remains semi-functional, at least at first; the later films I found disappointing).
(she isn’t really, I am being silly), and other liturgical and historical resources like Ritual Notes, the Directorum Amglicanorjm, and the classic guidebook by the Anglo Catholic priest, Rev. Percy Dearmer, A Parson’s Handbook, can be found here: Anglican Liturgy
