High church or Low church ?

[Deegie]

Out of curiosity do you get incense at any service?

A few times a year, yes. Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, Easter Vigil, the occasional funeral. Maybe even All Saints next Sunday.

 

[RickardoHolmes]

I am 100% into the High Church I wont even go to a low church and I find broad church to be mostly uninspiring. Fortunately we have a high church but even more low churches

I especially like the Christmas Eve "Midnight Mass" as we call it THAT is the highlight of advent

 

[Margaret3110]

I think I'm pretty middle of the road. I like simplicity.

 

[RickardoHolmes]

I have been attending a High church this Advent It is a little bit of a drive but worth it.

Also following daily devotionals and the "spiritual preparation for Christmas"

 

[The Liturgist]

I think I'm pretty middle of the road. I like simplicity.

Now just out of curiosity, is the simplicity of the liturgy inherently a property of churchmanship?

The reason I ask is that if we look at, for example, the Roman Catholic Church, the Roman Rite historically has always been simpler than the Byzantine Rite or most of the other Eastern rites, and also the ancient form of the Mozarabic and Ambrosian and Gallican Rites, and indeed prior to the Roman Rite displacing the Gallican and adopting some Eastern influences like antiphonal singing, introduced by St. Ambrose of Milan, and Gregorian chant, introduced by Pope St. Gregory the Great and based on the eight mode Byzantine chant, and some uses of the Roman Rite such as the Carthusian and Dominican being simpler than the Tridentine and Sarum uses (and indeed the use of York comes across as being in some respects simpler than the Sarum; alas I do not know enough about the ancient uses of Durham and Hereford to compare them).

Thus it always felt to me as though churchmanship is less about how ornate the ceremonial is and more about an interpretation of the sacraments, et cetera, and also there is a further complexity, in that we have, for example, John Wesley, who strongly advocated for weekly communion, which was in many respects a high church view, but also in other respects was more low church. Also, no one would deny that, for instance, Rev. Percy Dearmer was Anglo Catholic, but in his Parson’s Handbook he insists on a style of worship which is simpler and much more focused on the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the traditions of the English church than what we see in many parishes people today would identify as Anglo Catholic. So in a sense one could call him a “low church Anglo Catholic” if the only dimension to churchmanship is the liturgical style?

Note that I am not disagreeing with you, but rather I wanted to ask you and the othet Anglicans whether or not liturgical ritual simplicity and churchmanship must be regarded as directly equivalent or whether churchmanship does not inherently follow ritual style. For example, it seems to me that most of the great cathedrals of the Church of England are of necessity broad church, to accomodate the diversity of views in their dioceses, but at the same time the level of ritual tends to be fairly consistent and also consistently more ornate than most parishes simply because cathedrals have resources for choirs, and so on. There is also the case of CS Lewis, who was in some respects broad church, for example, extremely inclusive in Mere Christianity, but also personally and privately Anglo Catholic, but who also always attended said services, which were also historically preferred by several Low Church anglicans, and are also favored by, for instance, the Prayer Book Society, which is arguably broad church but consistently focused on exact use of the traditional BCP.

Am I reading this correctly or am I misinterpreting the idea of what churchmanship is?

 

[Paidiske]

I agree with you that either sort of churchmanship can be more simple or more elaborate. However, historically, in many places, it has been the more catholic side which has had a tendency to be "fussy" and ornate, and so many people associate a more minimalist aesthetic with a low-church theology and approach.

 

[Margaret3110]

Am I reading this correctly or am I misinterpreting the idea of what churchmanship is?

Well, hopefully others more knowledgeable than I am will respond. My understanding is that it's both the style of liturgy and the theological interpretations, and that they often tend to go together in certain combinations - but of course there are exceptions such as the ones you point out.

 

[The Liturgist]

Well, hopefully others more knowledgeable than I am will respond. My understanding is that it's both the style of liturgy and the theological interpretations, and that they often tend to go together in certain combinations - but of course there are exceptions such as the ones you point out.

From the perspective of the actual style of worship I really love both low church and high church as well as the kind of full Anglo Catholicism one sees at parishes like All Saints Margaret Street, where the liturgy in some cases (the subset of Anglo Catholics known as “Missal Catholics”, for example) is closer to the Roman liturgy.

I grew up in traditional worship environments in Methodist and Lutheran churches and so low church traditional worship feels very natural to me. Conversely, the kind of exquisite music you get at broad church, middle church and high church cathedrals and parishes, such as Yorkminster, St. Paul’s, and a few lucky parishes with musical endowments like St. Thomas Fifth Ave. In New York City, which tend to have boys choirs, is extremely beautiful, and finally the ornate liturgics we see in some Anglican churches appeals to me in that the beauty of the traditional Western Rite is expressed free from the constraints imposed in the Roman Catholic Church, wherein, for instance, the Sarum Use of the Roman Rite from which the BCP was influenced (along with a proposed reform of the divine office by a Cardinal Quinones which heavily influenced Mattins and Evensong) is effectively suppressed.

Indeed in the US one of the many things about the Episcopalian church I greatly love is the freedom of parishes to explore different liturgies using a faculty the 1979 BCP provides nicknamed “Rite III”, which among other things has allowed Anglican parishes in the US to enjoy on occasion celebrating very different liturgies like the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, while retaining the Anglican services at the core.

 

[Margaret3110]

From the perspective of the actual style of worship I really love both low church and high church as well as the kind of full Anglo Catholicism one sees at parishes like All Saints Margaret Street, where the liturgy in some cases (the subset of Anglo Catholics known as “Missal Catholics”, for example) is closer to the Roman liturgy.

I grew up in traditional worship environments in Methodist and Lutheran churches and so low church traditional worship feels very natural to me. Conversely, the kind of exquisite music you get at broad church, middle church and high church cathedrals and parishes, such as Yorkminster, St. Paul’s, and a few lucky parishes with musical endowments like St. Thomas Fifth Ave. In New York City, which tend to have boys choirs, is extremely beautiful, and finally the ornate liturgics we see in some Anglican churches appeals to me in that the beauty of the traditional Western Rite is expressed free from the constraints imposed in the Roman Catholic Church, wherein, for instance, the Sarum Use of the Roman Rite from which the BCP was influenced (along with a proposed reform of the divine office by a Cardinal Quinones which heavily influenced Mattins and Evensong) is effectively suppressed.

Indeed in the US one of the many things about the Episcopalian church I greatly love is the freedom of parishes to explore different liturgies using a faculty the 1979 BCP provides nicknamed “Rite III”, which among other things has allowed Anglican parishes in the US to enjoy on occasion celebrating very different liturgies like the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, while retaining the Anglican services at the core.

I was Roman Catholic for a while, and have attended Latin Masses and Orthodox Divine Liturgies, as well as an Anglo-Catholic (Episcopal) parish for several years. I definitely admire the beauty of each of those traditions.

 

[Shane R]

Peter Robinson, Presiding Bishop of the UECNA, has been writing some short pieces lately with a goal of properly defining high church and low church. In his estimation, the difference is primarily theological. The distinctions are noticed in how the parties view the dominical sacraments and apostolic succession. In Robinson's estimation, low church is characterized by an ordinance theology or at least a discomfort with real presence and baptismal regeneration and an ambivalence to the episcopate - usually something like the view often espoused by Lutherans that the episcopate is one of several expedient ways of organizing a church. Robinson's other contention is that the ornamentation of the churches and the conduct of the service was fairly standard across most parish churches until the late 1700s.