¹ Edwin Augustine White and Jackson A. Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Otherwise Known as The Episcopal Church, Adopted in General Conventions, 1789–1979, 2 vols. (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 1981 edn, 1997), 1, p. 133.

² There have been two exceptions to the three-year pattern; the Conventions scheduled for 1807 and 2021 were both postponed due to epidemics. To this point, the Constitution makes no provision for such delay, but a revision to the Constitution adopted on first reading in 2022 (Resolution 2022-A157) would belatedly spell out a procedure for such delays. Like revision to the Prayer Book, amendment to the Constitution requires action by the subsequent convention.

³ White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, pp. 133–34.

⁴ If there were 100 deputations, 51 of which in each order voted three-one in favor, the revision would be adopted in the House of Deputies, even if the remaining 49 deputations voted four-nought against, producing an individual deputy count of 306 for and 494 against. On the other hand, a two-two vote of 51 deputations in a single order would defeat a revision, even if every other vote were in favor (an individual deputy count of 102–698).

⁵ White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, p. 135.

⁶ The Book of Common Prayer (1892), p. vi; and White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, pp. 464–65.

⁷ The House of Bishops approved the Book of Offices: Services for Certain Occasions Not Provided for the Book of Common Prayer (published by authority of the House of Bishops, 1917), which included services for Thanksgiving and Independence Day. Proper lessons and collects for those days were included in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

⁸ Prior to 1940 each convention voted to continue the existence of the Standing Commission. The 1940 canon made the body permanent. See White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, pp. 456–58.

⁹ White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, p. 137.

¹⁰ For an excellent review of the constitutional and canonical issues involved in the revision of the American editions of the Book of Common Prayer, see Matthew S. C. Olver, ‘Article X, Trial Use, and the History of Liturgical Authorization in the Episcopal Church’, Anglican Theological Review 105.2 (2023), pp. 167–93. In addition to the texts noted above, Olver points to two other instances of trial use in the 1960s and 70s: for Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1967, 1973) and for the COCU (Consultation on Common Texts) eucharistic rite (1969, 1970 and 1973). He raises questions about the appropriateness of designating ‘trial use’ in those two occasions and has similar questions about the designation of ‘trial use’ in the current century.

¹¹ White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, pp. 459 and 461.

¹² The 1940 canons specified ‘three Bishops, three Presbyters, and three Laymen’. The convention of 1946, reasoning that most of the actual work on the commission was being done by presbyters, changed the formula to ‘nine members, of whom at least two shall be Bishops, two Presbyters and two Laymen’ so as to allow the appointment of up to five presbyters. The 1949 General Convention added the Custodian of the Book of Common Prayer – the person in charge of authenticating printed copies of the prayer book – as an ex officio member of the Commission. See White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, pp. 458–60.

¹³ General Convention made this expansion by the passage of resolutions in 1967 and 1976 rather than by altering the canon. After 1979, the commission returned to its previous size. See White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, p. 461.

¹⁴ White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, p. 458; and Standing Liturgical Commission of the Episcopal Church, Prayer Book Study 18: On Baptism and Confirmation (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1970), p. 7.

¹⁵ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Houston, 1970 (New York: General Convention, 1970), pp. 517–21.

¹⁶ Standing Liturgical Commission, ‘Memorial Minute-Leo Malania’, The Blue Book: Reports of the Committees, Commission, Boards, and Agencies of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 1985 (New York: Office of General Convention. 1985), pp. 150–51.

¹⁷ Marvine Howe, ‘H. E. Galley Jr., 64, Editor and Author of Liturgical Books’, New York Times (May 21, 1993) p. B-8.

¹⁸ White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, p. 462. The authors explain the omission of the previous sections 2 and 3 of the canon on the Standing Liturgical Commission as ‘repealed, since much of their subject matter was covered in the general canon on standing commission (Canon I.1.2) adopted by the Convention’. Canon I.1.2 did not, however, make explicit the right to create necessary committees. Whether the General Convention intended to remove permission for drafting committees composed largely of non-liturgical commission members is not clear, but no such committees have been created since 1979, though the liturgical commission routinely uses ‘working committees’ composed of its own members.

¹⁹ Standing Liturgical Commission, Occasional Papers of the Standing Liturgical Commission: Collection Number One (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1987).

²⁰ Standing Liturgical Commission, Liturgical Texts for Evaluation (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1987), p. 1.

²¹ General Convention, Resolution 1994-A051, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 1994 (New York: General Convention, 1995), p. 758. Title IV, Canon 4 of the Constitution and Canons identifies the Executive Council as having the duty ‘to oversee the execution of the program and policies adopted by the General Convention’. See Constitution and Canons (2022), p. 43. Constitution & Canons (episcopalarchives.org), accessed March 27 2023.

²² Ruth A. Meyers, editor for the Standing Liturgical Commission, Liturgical Studies Three: A Prayer Book for the 21st Century (New York: Church Hymnal Corporation, 1996). Howe, Oliver and Alexander would become ex officio members of the Standing Committee by serving in the role of Custodian of the Book of Common Prayer.

²³ The Standing Liturgical Commission issued 29 volumes of the Prayer Book Studies series between 1950 and 1976. The next volume was Supplemental Liturgical Texts, issued in 1989 with the subtitle ‘Prayer Book Studies 30’. This was the final work in the series. Supplemental Liturgical Materials had no series designation, and the title of Enriching Our Worship (1998) would itself become a series title in 2000. The most recent publication in the Liturgical Studies series was in 2003.

²⁴ General Convention did not adopt a canonical provision establishing the Standing Commission on Church Music until 1973. It specified ‘12 members, of whom 2 shall be Bishops, 4 Presbyters, and 6 Lay Persons, of whom at least 4 are professional Church musicians’. See White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, pp. 470 and 476.

²⁵ The Standing Commission on Church Music had 12 members, and the Standing Liturgical Commission had ten. For the 1997 canon that brought the two groups together see Constitution and Canons (1997), pp. 17–8.

²⁶ The Standing Liturgical Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Prayer Book Studies XV: The Problem and Method of Prayer Book Revision (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1961), p. 15. [Emphasis in the original.] The General Conventions of 1961 and 1964 provided the two-convention approval needed to amend the Constitution to allow for trial use.

²⁷ Olver noted that the application of the category of trial use to the inclusive language texts was ‘was the first time that the General Convention authorized trial use when the church was not in a stated process of Prayer Book Revision…. [T]hus we can say that this action in 1985 was a clear divergence from trial use’s intended function’. See Olver, ‘Article X, Trial Use, and the History of Liturgical Authorization in the Episcopal Church’, Anglican Theological Review 105.2 (2023), p. 177.

²⁸ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Phoenix, 1991 (New York: General Convention, 1992), p. 405, and General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 1994 (New York: General Convention, 1995), pp. 634–35.

²⁹ Executive Council: Committee on the Status of Women, ‘Report’, The Blue Book: Reports of the Committees, Commission, Boards, and Agencies of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 1994 (New York: Office of General Convention. 1994), pp. 266–79 and 278–89.

³⁰ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … the Episcopal Church, Minneapolis 1976 (New York: General Convention, 1977), p. C-109; and General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Denver, 1979 (New York: General Convention, 1980), p. C-93.

³¹ Both organizations, however, qualified their initial actions. In 1974, the American Psychiatric Society created a new category of Sexual Orientation Disturbance, for those who were troubled by their homosexual orientation. The title of the disturbance was renamed Ego Dystonic Homosexuality in 1980 and eliminated altogether in 1987. The American Psychological Association amended its note on homosexuality in 2008 to distance itself from the claim commonly made in the 1990s that homosexuality was genetically predetermined and therefore unchangeable by asserting that there was ‘no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a homosexual, bisexual, gay or lesbian orientation’. See Sarah Baughey-Gill, ‘When Gay Was Not Okay with the APA: A Historical Overview of Homosexuality and its Status as Mental Disorder’, Occam’s Razor 1, Article 2 (2011), pp. 5–16 (13–15). The first number range is the page range for the article and the second range is for the specific pages cited. https://cedar.wwu.edu/orwwu/vol1/iss1/2 (accessed March 28 2023); J. J. Conger, ‘Proceedings of the American Psychological Association, Incorporated, for the year 1974: Minutes of the annual meeting of the Council of Representatives’, American Psychologist 30 (1975), pp. 620–51; and American Psychological Association, Answers to Your Questions: For a Better Understanding of Sexual Orientation & Homosexuality (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2008), p. 2.

³² The 1991 resolutions were 1991-A001, 1991-A002, 1991-A003, 1991-A004, 1991-A005, 1991-A006, 1991-A007, 1991-A008, 1991-A009, 1991-A010, 1991-B025 and 1991-D096.

³³ See Carter Heyward, Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989); and Louis William Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex: Sexual Ethics in the New Testament and Their Implications for Today (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988).

³⁴ Williams was vocal about his opposition to monogamy for gay and lesbian persons. Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning (1929–2016) and his Council of Advice adopted a statement of disassociation with Spong’s ordination of Williams to the diaconate. A church court, however, later ruled that Assistant Bishop Walter Righter did not violate Church doctrine by ordaining Williams to the priesthood, opining that sexual morality was not part of the Church’s ‘core doctrine’.

³⁵ Resolution 1994-B012, for example, called for a dialogue committee on sexuality and urged the church to ‘commit itself to dialogue in faith with no expectation of uniformity, but every expectation of unity’. See General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 1994 (New York: General Convention, 1995), p. 135. Resolution 2000-C008 declared that the members of the General Convention would commit themselves ‘to continue the process of mutual sharing, study, and discernment concerning human sexuality, so that we remain open and connected to one another despite our differences, and so we can permit the Holy Spirit to act in our midst’. See General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Denver, 2000 (New York: General Convention, 2001), p. 244.

³⁶ Prior to 1799 the Constitution of the Episcopal Church required approval of both houses of the General Convention for the ordination of any bishop. In 1799, an alternative provision was provided for cases in which there had been an election more than three months before the meeting of the convention: approval by individual diocesan bishops and by diocesan Standing Committees. As a result of negative reaction following the General Convention’s approval of the election of Bishop Robinson, the General Conventions of 2009 and 2012 altered the constitution to make the bishop and Standing Committee approval the only allowable option. See White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, p. 67; and General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 2012 (New York: General Convention, 2012), p. 477.

³⁷ Title I, Canon 7, sections 4 and 5, are often referred to as the ‘Dennis Canon’ because of the name of the person who proposed adding the sections to the canon. Those sections hold that ‘all real and personal property … is held in trust for this Church and the Diocese thereof’.

³⁸ The author of this article was a deputy to the General Convention from 2006 to 2022 and was a member of the Joint Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music in 2006, 2015 and 2018, serving as a secretary of that body on the latter two occasions.

³⁹ See General Convention, The Journal of the General Convention of … the Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City, 2015 (New York: General Convention, 2015), pp. 887–89.

⁴⁰ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Columbus, 2006 (New York: General Convention, 2007), p. 819; and General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 2012 (New York: General Convention, 2013), 845–46.

⁴¹ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Columbus, 2006 (New York: General Convention, 2007), p. 829; and General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Anaheim, 2009 (New York: General Convention, 2009), p. 910.

⁴² General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of… The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 2012 (New York: General Convention, 2012), p. 581.

⁴³ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City, 2015 (New York: General Convention, 2015), pp. 727–29.

⁴⁴ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Anaheim, 2009 (New York: General Convention, 2009), p. 797.

⁴⁵ The convention of 2009 authorized the new material in Holy Women, Holy Men for trial use until 2012. The 2015 convention voted to make A Great Cloud of Witnesses ‘available for publication and distribution’, That of 2018 approved trial use of the new commemorations in Lesser Feasts and Fast 2018. See: General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … the Episcopal Church, Anaheim, 2009 (New York: General Convention, 2009), pp. 318–19; General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of …the Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City, 2015 (New York: General Convention, 2018), pp. 332–33; and General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … the Episcopal Church, Austin 2018 (New York: General Convention, 2018), p. 679. Matthew Olver has argued that the designation of Lesser Feast and Fasts texts for trial use is ‘improper’, since ‘additions to or deletions for the calendar of saints in the BCP need to be passed as a first reading or a revision to the Prayer Book’, but ‘when collects and propers are added to LFF, the General Convention needs simply to pass a resolution that amends LFF, but should not use the language of trial use’. See Olver, ‘Article X, Trial Use, and the History of Liturgical Authorization in the Episcopal Church’, Anglican Theological Review 105.2 (2023), p. 180.

⁴⁶ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City, 2015 (New York: General Convention, 2015), pp. 886–87.

⁴⁷ Constitution and Canons (2015), pp. 13–14.

⁴⁸ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City, 2015 (New York: General Convention, 2015), p. 915.

⁴⁹ Resolution 2022-A145 Amend Constitution Article X [Book of Common Prayer Supplementary Text – Second Reading].

⁵⁰ Scott MacDougall, Ruth A. Meyers and Louis Weil, ‘Revising the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer (1979): Liturgical Theologians in Dialogue’, Anglican Theological Review 99.3 (2017), pp. 499–518.

⁵¹ Robert W. Prichard, ed., Issues in Prayer Book Revision (New York: Church Publishing Incorporated, 2018).

⁵² James W. Farwell, ‘A Reflection on the Eucharistic Prayer in Light of the Possible Revision of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer’, Issues in Prayer Book Revision, p.105.

⁵³ Ruth A. Meyers, ‘Time for Prayer Book Revision?’, Anglican Theological Review 99.3 (2017), p. 504.

⁵⁴ Meyers, ‘Time for Prayer Book Revision?’, Anglican Theological Review 99.3 (2017), p. 507.

⁵⁵ General Convention, Resolution 2018-A078, Acts of Convention: Resolution # 2018-D078 (episcopalarchives.org) (accessed September 26, 2023).

⁵⁶ Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, Sub-Committee on Revision of the Book of Common Prayer, ‘Report’, Reports to the 79th General Convention, Otherwise Known as the Blue Book, 2 vols. (New York: Office of the General Convention, 2018), 1, pp. 193–367 and 194, 197, and 201.

⁵⁷ Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, Sub-Committee on Revision of the Book of Common Prayer, ‘Report’, Reports to the 79th General Convention, Otherwise Known as the Blue Book, 2 vols (New York: Office of the General Convention, 2018), 1, pp. 194, 201 and 206.

⁵⁸ 2015-A169 had been the 2015 resolution calling the SCLM to present a plan for revision. The two resolutions on the matter presented in the SCLM subcommittee report on revision were numbered 2018-A068 (Option One) and 2018-A069 (Option Two).

⁵⁹ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Austin, 2018 (New York: General Convention, 2018), pp. 480–81.

⁶⁰ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of … The Episcopal Church, Austin, 2018 (New York: General Convention, 2018), pp. 480–81.

⁶¹ General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of…The Episcopal Church, Austin, 2018 (New York: General Convention, 2018), pp. 1008–09; and General Convention (2022), Resolution A145, https://www.vbinder.net/resolutions/240 (accessed March 30 2023).

⁶² Task Force on Liturgical & Prayer Book Revision, ‘Report’, Reports to the 80th General Convention, Otherwise Known as the Blue Book, 3 vols. (New York: General Convention Office, 2021), 2, pp. 620–50 and 623–33, 645; and General Convention (2022), Resolution A057, www.vbinder.net/resolutions/57 (accessed March 30 2023).

⁶³ Task Force on Liturgical & Prayer Book Revision, ‘Report’, Reports to the 80th General Convention, Otherwise Known as the Blue Book, 3 vols. (New York: General Convention Office, 2021), 2, pp. 620–50 and 646–47); and General Convention (2022), Resolution A058, www.vbinder.net/resolutions/58 (accessed March 30 2023).

⁶⁴ Task Force on Liturgical & Prayer Book Revision, ‘Report’, Reports to the 80th General Convention, Otherwise Known as the Blue Book, 3 vols. (New York: General Convention Office, 2021), 2, pp. 620–50 and 648–49.

⁶⁵ General Convention (2022), Resolution A059, www.vbinder.net/resolutions/59 (accessed March 30 2023).

⁶⁶ See Olver, ‘Article X, Trial Use, and the History of Liturgical Authorization in the Episcopal Church’, Anglican Theological Review 105.2 (2023), p.191.

⁶⁷ C. Andrew Doyle, ‘The Past and Future Life of 2022-A059’, (unpublished manuscript, 2023). The article is currently being reviewed for publication by a theological journal.

⁶⁸ Doyle, ‘The Past and Future Life of 2022-A059’, p. 6.

⁶⁹ The reference in the 1994 resolution to 2006 as the ‘the thirtieth anniversary of the first approval of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer’ suggests that the movers of that resolution anticipated a new book in 2006 that would gain second and final approval in 2009 – a total completion time of 15 years.

⁷⁰ Robert W. Prichard, ‘William Reed Huntington and the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer in the General Convention of 1886: A Cautionary Tale’, Anglican and Episcopal History 85.4 (2016), pp. 429–48.

⁷¹ White and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons, 1, pp. 458 and 462.

⁷² Constitution and Canons (2022), p. 24.