Edwardine Ordinals

Title page of the 1550 Edwardine Ordinal

The Edwardine Ordinals[note 1] are two ordinals primarily written by Thomas Cranmer as influenced by Martin Bucer and first published under Edward VI, the first in 1550 and the second in 1552, for the Church of England. Both liturgical books were intended to replace the ordination liturgies contained within medieval pontificals in use before the English Reformation.

The 1550 ordinal was authorized the year following the first Book of Common Prayer's introduction. The 1552 ordinal's introduction coincided with that of the second Book of Common Prayer. Both prayer books were also largely prepared by Cranmer. The ordinals provided the basis for most Anglican ordination rites until the 20th century and contributed to the development of the Anglican priesthood from "sacerdotal" and "intercessory" into a "preaching, catechizing, and protestant ministry".[5]: 713  They also formed the basis for both the Vestiarian Controversy and, much later, some of the debate over the validity of Anglican holy orders and the subsequent 1896 papal bull Apostolicae curae where they were declared "absolutely null and utterly void" by the Catholic Church.[6]

  1. ^ Lowndes, Arthur (1897). Vindication of Anglican Orders. Vol. 1. New York City: Edwin S. Gorham. p. 71.
  2. ^ Dart, John Lovering Campbell. Anglican Orders and the Papal Decree of 1948: On the Matter and Form of Holy Orders. London: Church Literature Association – via Project Canterbury.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference EnglishRite1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Puller was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Hayes, Gianetta M. (October 2005). "Ordination Ritual and Practice in the Welsh‐English Frontier, circa 1540–1640". Journal of British Studies. 44 (4). Cambridge University Press: 713–727. doi:10.1086/431938. JSTOR 10.1086/431938. S2CID 145105325.
  6. ^ McCarthy, Timothy G. (2012) [1998]. Catholic Tradition: The Church in the Twentieth Century (2nd ed.). Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock. p. 175. ISBN 978-1-62032-235-2.


Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).