Praying with beads

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  • OblatusOblatus Shipmate
    Ha ha ...

    I must admit, the idea of praying a Rosary in a group setting doesn't appeal to me in the least.

    It's done in my parish once a month after High Mass on Sunday. Not in unison, but call-and-response, each prayer divided up between officiant and people. Used to be done every Saturday morning.

    It's not a prayer style that suits everyone (although of course everyone's welcome), and those participating are a usually small subset of the Mass congregation. I'd attend more often but am usually busy with greeting people at the door (as subdeacon) and then getting out of my vestments.
  • Try going to an RC church (in the US) around noon on a weekday. There's often a group of women* praying the rosary aloud together. (Might want to call the church first to check.)

    IME, tends to be before the midday mass.

    *Men might be included these days, or have their own group and time.

  • I once did a group Jesus prayer with some monks, with one monk saying the prayer aloud. I found that I was simply unable to concentrate because I instinctively time the prayer with my breathing and the monk's rhythm was completely off for me. So I can imagine other people would have a problem with the practice too.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    It reminds me of a disturbing interlude about 40 years ago when I was part of a Pentecostal church, and the pastors (father and son - no nepotism there of course) had bailed me up in a room and were "teaching" me how to speak in tongues. They blabbled away merrily and I recall wondering if DPO (Demonstration [or Drill] Purposes Only) tongues were still a prayer. At that time I wasn't enough of a biblical scholar to suggest to the learned (hah) gentlemen (haha) that "teaching" glossolalia was probably oxymoronic.

    Similarly I know of a recent case where an applicant for a Significant Ecclesiastical Position™ was asked for a DPO sermon to be on a Sunday to be arranged, so the appointment board could evaluate her expertise. She refused: would that sermon be breaking open the word in liturgy or an ersatz sermon performance to impress the committee?

    So I'm guessing Gamma's "corporate clacketty-clack or ropitty-rope" DPO experience would be similar. Is a DPO rosary prayer or drill?
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Try going to an RC church (in the US) around noon on a weekday. There's often a group of women* praying the rosary aloud together. (Might want to call the church first to check.)

    IME, tends to be before the midday mass.

    *Men might be included these days, or have their own group and time.

    Hopefully a bit more devotional than what I have heard referred to, given the clip they can go at, as "Rosary Races."
  • My clicketty-clack or ropitty-rope 'experience' is a putative one as I've never been to a corporate Rosary session.

    As for the Demonstration 'tongues-fest' thing, well aye, seen that many, many times.
  • CyprianCyprian Shipmate
    Ok. I suppose it would depend on how it was done. Other than Mousethief nobody else here has 'sold' me on the idea of corporate clacketty-clack or ropitty-rope ...

    I know what you mean. I've experienced corporate clacketty-clack rosary sessions in the past.

    I have to confess that I never actually experienced corporate prayer of the heart in my Eastern Orthodox days. It didn't feature at all in my parish and even personal adoption of the Jesus Prayer was not encouraged or mentioned very often. It was one of those things that were known about as an Orthodox thing to do but it was never spoken about. One particularly vocal priest in my then diocese actively discouraged it among people who were not monastics.

    It's only in my Western Orthodox experience that I have found it to be at the heart of the everyday Orthodox experience. One of our communities that I visit often has half an hour of corporate prayer of the heart before each office apart from Sundays. Yet the corporate nature of it consists in them all entering personally and in a sense individually into prayer but doing it in the same place at the same time as each other.

    They each take a prayer cushion or mat and find their own place in some part of the chapel or meditation room. They sing "O Heavenly King" together, before retreating into silent meditation with the Jesus Prayer until the gong goes to signal the end. Then the Divine Office begins.

    I try to incorporate something similar at our little mission locally (though this is more like ten minutes than half an hour) as I really think it changes the way we approach the corporate worship. This is especially needful as we do not have our own building, so there is no sense of entering our church and adopting the proper attitude. We have to set church up once we arrive, so something is needed to mark the transition once we have turned it into our worship space.

    I have found the Jesus Prayer a new and exhilarating part of my prayer life, and one that I wish I had been given the opportunity to explore sooner.
  • Interesting, Cyprian. I've heard that they use the Jesus Prayer a great deal at the monastery at Tolleshunt Knights.

    I'm also aware of some Russian Orthodox parishes in the UK which use the Jesus Prayer corporately.

    The Antiochians I know don't seem to particularly promote nor discourage it. They seem to regard it as simply one among several exercises available.
  • Long-standing Orthodox praxis includes many devotions and meditations but a lot of modern orthodox chatter gives the impression that the Jesus prayer is all there is.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    What I was told by the local Orthodox priest was that the habitual use of the Jesus Prayer was discourage for non-monastics, but that there was little spiritual danger in using it among other devotions. I asked him because I use it from time to time as a way of focussing (or rather for focussing on Him) in difficult situations or when my brain is trying to open its seventeenth window and I need to concentrate on what Christ wants me to do for, or say to, the person in front of me.

    Despite being a definite Prod I will use a Rosary, though I find it most profitable spiritually when I can switch off to what I am saying, and meditate on Christ's Nativity or whatever it is I am meant to be contemplating. I have an odd attitude to the intercession of the saints. I do not like it as part of public worship, except in a general sense such as and joining our prayers with those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St John and all the saints..., I am not so fussy when it comes to private devotions. The Reformers on the whole had a fairly positive attitude to Our Lady, but tended to restrain the cultus because of the lack of Scriptural warrant, which is an approach with which I am in tune.
  • From what I can gather - and Cyprian can correct me if I'm wrong - any reticence about the habitual use of the Jesus Prayer among the Orthodox stems from pastoral concern. They are worried that the uninitiated or impressionable could go off into trance-like states, particularly if they do the breathing exercises thing without proper guidance or instruction.

    I've never quite understand how or why monastics would be apparently exempt from such reactions, but perhaps in monasteries things are regulated in such a way as to discourage 'that sort of thing.'

    Although they go in for weeping or myrrh-oozing icons and such, I've always found the Orthodox to be very wary of anything likely to lead to outpourings of religious 'enthusiasm' or altered states of consciousness and so forth.
  • GalilitGalilit Shipmate
    You'd have to be pretty clever to get into an altered state on your first try!
  • Sometimes people talk about the Jesus Prayer like it’s some sort of esoteric yoga for initiates but as St Theophan says, it’s a prayer like any other. There’s no magic in it that makes it more trance-inducing than any other prayer. The danger of delusion and enthusiasm can arise during any spiritual practice.
  • In my experience, the repetitive prayers do not send me into a trance-like state. It more ingrains a pattern of prayer into my psyche, like drops of water continually running over a stone. Now Benediction or even just evening prayer said in a quiet chapel ...
  • Ha ha ha ... yes, Galilit, but those Orthodox who are wary of zealous converts going overboard aren't thinking of the first attempt of course ...

    They're concerned that newbies will get caught up with it all and come out with all kinds of wierd and wonderful impressions and so forth.

    It does amuse me, though, that the Orthodox tend to be quite guarded and 'careful' when, if some ultra-Reformed, hyper-Calvinist critiques are to believed they are all 'high' on incense and hypnotising themselves with repetitive chant ...

    Don't believe me? A quick Google will find you all sorts of observations and accusations along those lines - just as much for the Orthodox as for repetitive chorus-singing or tongues-speaking among charismatics.

    Like Jengie Jon, for my money a highly 'sensible' representative of the Reformed tradition, I don't find repetitive prayers inducing trance-like states. I do think, though, having been involved with full-on charismatic worship in the past, that some of that can become almost trance-inducing with a degree of self-hypnosis involved ... but, as with everything else, the mileage varies.

    I agree with SirPalomides that there is nothing 'magick' about the Jesus Prayer (or any other prayer for that matter) and that any spiritual practice can be subject to delusional or enthusiastic behaviour.

    I do wonder whether the caveats and warnings that appear to be issued by the Orthodox in this case has helped create some kind of mystique that the practice of the Jesus Prayer does not deserve.

    'If these fellas are warning against aspects of it then it must be pretty special ...'

  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Quite by chance, I came across, yesterday evening, this on the Rosary and the various mysteries. It's quite long (50 minutes) and I still have the personal reservations I expressed earlier about trying to pray two things simultaneously. But I thought it was rather good.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    My time within Orthodoxy was one of caution advised by priests, deacons, subdeacons and laity. There is, as with other traditions, a rich history of experience, and my impression, and it is mine only, was that it was quite easy to develop an unhealthy attachment (particularly for the zealous convert, or the cradle Orthodox who "strayed" and "returned" -- Hillsong seemed to grab a few second generation Arabs at some point) to things that could be problematic when taken to excess.

    I recall several discussions with devout lay people who had chanced upon some monastic tome from centuries past and then took it upon themselves to point out all the flaws in the modern church, and this particular parish, that were not inline with its precepts. One could not fault their zeal, but perhaps the execution left somewhat to be desired.

    Anyway...my experiences.
  • @Enoch

    Have you ever tried the scriptural rosary?
  • ECraigRECraigR Castaway
    I habitually pray both the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary. Although spiritually edifying, I’ve yet to find either possessing a special power. I too have often heard of Orthodox people warning about the Jesus Prayer, and have wondered if it’s not a bit of a ploy.
  • The funny thing is that some of the patristic texts about the Jesus prayer, eg Symeon of Thessaloniki, explicitly argue against those who would restrict the prayer, and say that everyone, laity included, should do it. The idea that you need some special initiation to do the Jesus prayer, or that it was somehow dangerous, has been fought against for centuries by various fathers, and to little apparent avail.
  • GalilitGalilit Shipmate
    ECraigR wrote: »
    I habitually pray both the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary. Although spiritually edifying, I’ve yet to find either possessing a special power. I too have often heard of Orthodox people warning about the Jesus Prayer, and have wondered if it’s not a bit of a ploy.

    So do you know of a devotion that does have a special power?
    You can PM me ...
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Jengie Jon wrote: »
    @Enoch

    Have you ever tried the scriptural rosary?
    No. I had not heard of it before. In it's full form, I think it would be a bit too Marian for me. When all's said and done, I've got a bit of a Proddy soul.
  • I've come across the RC scriptural rosary - the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries and so on ... and yes, it is well ... very RC.

    It's strikes me as all very complicated, and I do tend to think that Rome has a tendency to over complicate things.

    Which is why I prefer the Orthodox prayer rope and an Anglican Rosary. They both seem far more straightforward, with all due respect to our RC friends.

    As for the Orthodox caution, I certainly understand why they might be wary given our human propensity to run to extremes. I've certainly come across converts who try to Out Orthodox everyone else or become Hyperdox.

    I sometimes think the rest of us could learn from that caution within our own settings and traditions.
  • Galilit wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    I habitually pray both the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary. Although spiritually edifying, I’ve yet to find either possessing a special power. I too have often heard of Orthodox people warning about the Jesus Prayer, and have wondered if it’s not a bit of a ploy.

    So do you know of a devotion that does have a special power?
    You can PM me ...

    It’s easy- repeat after me: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn
  • CyprianCyprian Shipmate
    Interesting, Cyprian. I've heard that they use the Jesus Prayer a great deal at the monastery at Tolleshunt Knights.

    Incidentally, the monastery at Tolleshunt Knights and the community I was referring to used to have very close links. They would visit each other regularly, and Father Sophrony was spiritual father to the founders of Bethany. I have a recollection that there is a relic of St Silouan there that was a gift from the monastery.

    So the hesychastic tradition at Bethany is very much inherited from the community at Tolleshunt Knights. Sadly, I don't think this link has continued.
  • Galilit wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    I habitually pray both the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary. Although spiritually edifying, I’ve yet to find either possessing a special power. I too have often heard of Orthodox people warning about the Jesus Prayer, and have wondered if it’s not a bit of a ploy.

    So do you know of a devotion that does have a special power?
    You can PM me ...

    It’s easy- repeat after me: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn

    It's easier than that. Within Pentecostal and charismatic circles it was always, 'Sellimahonda, untiemebowtie' and 'aveabicardi'.

    Or even easier, 'Sondera hondera, gondera, deeabba dabba dabba ... Deeashta ta ashta da ba ba ...' etc.

    Rinse and repeat.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    Galilit wrote: »
    ECraigR wrote: »
    I habitually pray both the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary. Although spiritually edifying, I’ve yet to find either possessing a special power. I too have often heard of Orthodox people warning about the Jesus Prayer, and have wondered if it’s not a bit of a ploy.

    So do you know of a devotion that does have a special power?
    You can PM me ...

    It’s easy- repeat after me: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn

    Funnily enough a sister-sentence to that was quoted to me (by a patristics scholar of all things) on my FB feed this week. Though I had referenced Cthulhu in my post I had never before seen the associated linguistic - so Dr Google helped me out.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    As a further aside I encountered in a parish a few years back a woman whose glossolalia, whenever I prayed with her before liturgies, was "Oooh tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch .... "ad infinitum. Not sure what either St Luke or St Paul would have made of that. Fortunately she soon decided that her vicar was unspiritual and left for more fertile fields.
  • Zappa wrote: »
    As a further aside I encountered in a parish a few years back a woman whose glossolalia, whenever I prayed with her before liturgies, was "Oooh tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch tch .... "ad infinitum. Not sure what either St Luke or St Paul would have made of that. Fortunately she soon decided that her vicar was unspiritual and left for more fertile fields.

    “Fertile fields” meaning “Esoteric Order of the Cicada Queen”?
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    Indeed. Planted her own church. Which turned to custard (like cicadas do when they encounter a windscreen).
  • Zappa wrote: »
    Indeed. Planted her own church. Which turned to custard (like cicadas do when they encounter a windscreen).

    Mash perhaps not custard. Unless you want the strained variety when it hits a protective windscreen grid.

  • This isn't a very timely post, but be that as it may: Oblatus' post contained the following:

    "It's done in my parish once a month after High Mass on Sunday. Not in unison, but call-and-response, each prayer divided up between officiant and people. Used to be done every Saturday morning."

    When I was a child (back in the last century) I discovered radio shows on Saturday mornings, from Baltimore, in foreign tongues, with music typical to match. There was a Polish broadcast, a German one, Italian, etc. Mostly dance & beer hall bands and singers. It was great! And the best show was a broadcast from a Catholic church in Balto, of recitation of the rosary. I was transfixed by the breakneck speed and the slight overlapping of the priest's part and the answering ladies. It was in English, and I quickly picked up the words. Being a good little Methodist girl, I had never heard such stuff in church before. It was fascinating & I tried my best to keep up. I had no idea there were beads involved, not knowing what the heck a rosary was. I just loved the speedy loud monotone of the man, and the muffled monotone of the gals.

  • PomonaPomona Shipmate
    It's interesting to me that Protestantism = not Marian in any way seems to be a relatively recent development. I feel like the Reformers kept many more 'Catholic' ideas that many modern Protestants would be very uncomfortable with. High-church Lutheranism, I think, seems to hold 'Protestant and also honouring Mary' without the sense that those ideas are in conflict much more successfully than Anglicans do. Perhaps because the name and heritage means being a Protestant is not something that can be reasonably denied - whereas the Henrician Anglican church was explicitly not Protestant, so there is that denial.
  • The Reformers had certain beliefs about Mary- e.g., ever-virginity- that might seem un-Protestant now but in terms of practice they were consistently against invocation. "Honouring Mary" or any of the saints was restricted to, "We thank you God for the example of your saint X, help us be more like X..." So in that regard they are no different from Tudor/ Stuart Anglicanism.
  • Alan29Alan29 Shipmate
    Whenever I have stumbled across group rosaries it has been a gabble-fest.
    I can find nothing about that to attract me in the slightest.
    I'm sure it has its place as a private thing, but as a RC with an allergic reaction to anything Marian I would need to find different words and themes.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    Invocation of the saints in public worship went at the Reformation, and I assume it disappeared from private prayer shortly thereafter in Protestant circles. The 39As refer to invocation as 'a fond thing, vainly invented.'

    In the main, the attitudes of the main Reformers were more or less traditional - perpetual virginity - yes; Assumption - divided in favour; Immaculate Conception - divided but against. It was really Pietism/Evangelicalism and Rationalism (18th century) that led to the modern Protestant lack of respect for Our Lady. Luther wanted everyone to learn the Hail Mary in its biblical form and clearly still retained a good deal of respect for Our Lady. Bullinger also had pretty traditional views about the BVM, but was against any sort of cultus because it was not warranted in Scripture.
  • Pomona wrote: »
    It's interesting to me that Protestantism = not Marian in any way seems to be a relatively recent development. I feel like the Reformers kept many more 'Catholic' ideas that many modern Protestants would be very uncomfortable with. High-church Lutheranism, I think, seems to hold 'Protestant and also honouring Mary' without the sense that those ideas are in conflict much more successfully than Anglicans do. Perhaps because the name and heritage means being a Protestant is not something that can be reasonably denied - whereas the Henrician Anglican church was explicitly not Protestant, so there is that denial.

    Except that Anglicanism owed a lot more to Elizabeth 1st in the way it developed than it owed to her Dad.

    Her half brother took it in a more Proddy direction and then her half sister Mary whopped it back to Rome ...

    Bess then tried to broker a mid- point between Calvinism and Lutheranism whilst keeping both Puritans and Papists at bay.

    I have a soft-spot for Anglo-Catholicism but they have to do a heck of a lot of limbo dancing to make out that the 39 Articles are anything other than thoroughly Protestant. I suppose that's why I find many ACs very 'self-conscious' in their approach. I'm quite Marian these days but find some RC and AC approaches very hard to take.

    With some ACs you almost get the impression that they are doing it simply to wind up their more Protestant brethren and sisteren.

    I don't think I've ever heard Mary mentioned at all in 'liberal catholic' circles. They seem even less Marian than evangelical Protestants.
  • I think at this point, anyone in the Anglican communion has to do some limbo dancing to pretend they uphold the 39 articles. I think, by the time he wrote it, Newman's Tract 90 was as fair an interpretation of the articles as any.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    I think, by the time he wrote it, Newman's Tract 90 was as fair an interpretation of the articles as any.

    Not according the bishops on the bench in 1841-43 it wasn't. See to recall that twenty-five our of the twenty-seven condemned it to a greater or lesser extent, and the other two did not make the effort because they thought it condemned itself. This is why Tract XC's cool reception marked the commencement of the real deathbed stage of Newman's relationship with Anglicanism. He had turned his bishop into a living oracle, and then found out that said oracle was a High Church Protestant!

  • Well, right, people reacted furiously to the tract, but that doesn't invalidate the points he makes- his opponents were also revisionists.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    @SirPalomides - To which opponents do you refer? The bishops with a couple of exceptions - chiefly the two Sumner brothers who were Clapham Sect Evangelicals - were Old High Churchmen, and thus heir to a couple of hundred years of tradition. Their most vocal Oxford opponents were, of course, heading for Liberalism, but not the bishops - yet!
  • The old high church tradition had quietly shifted on several points over the centuries. Bishop Gilbert Burnet, in the 17th century, said that no one should assent to the 35th article except he agrees with the assertion, forcefully made throughout the books of homilies, that the Church of Rome is idolatrous. Newman brings up the homilies' assertion that the Pope is antichrist, though his argument is that the article does not demand a wholesale subscription to the homilies. I don't believe either opinion was widely held by high churchmen in Newman's time and I would be surprised if any held it now.

    The homily on peril of idolatry, which presents an utterly uncompromising opposition to any images in church whatsoever, seems to be basically ignored by high churchmen at least since the Caroline period (not to mention Queen Elizabeth's disregard of it). Nowadays even evangelicals ignore it.

    Richard Montagu, who was closely connected to Laud, made an argument "against" invocation of saints that puritans (rightly, IMO) saw as a backhanded defense of the practice and widely censured. King James, Laud, et al, backed Montagu up.
  • If I'm not mistaken the Evangelical Church (USA) doesn't even pretend to uphold the 39. They're in the back of the BCP and noted as an Historical Document, but not presented as part of the beliefs of the church.
  • The Episcopal Church's 1979 BCP does have them in the "historical documents" section though the import of this is a matter of interpretation. In the same section are the definition of Chalcedon, the Athanasian creed, and the Chicago-Lambeth quadrilateral, and I'm sure a lot of people would argue that at least the first two are not merely of historical interest.
  • No church that I know of actually officially subscribes to the Athanasian creed.
  • RC's recite in the daily office, so that would seem to indicate some kind of subscription to me. Lutherans include it in their Book of Concord so it would in theory be binding for them as well.

    I'm not a huge fan of it myself. And honestly, while I think the council of Chalcedon was orthodox in its definition, I think it did more harm than good.
  • No accounting for taste, I guess.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    I'm sorry, @SirPalomides and @Pomona but @Gamma Gamaliel and @PDR are right, and I'm afraid you are not. Any awareness or feel for how members of the established church thought and felt between the reign of Elizabeth, or even the Restoration and 1833, would recognise that not only were the Tracts shocking, but they were saying things that until then, nobody, had either considered or been interested in. To argue otherwise is either to project back into the past what one would like to see there, or to assume that past generations were as we are except in funny clothes.

    The bishops' objections to Tract 90 etc were that Newman, for his own purposes, was twisting the Articles and the Prayer Book to give them meanings they clearly did not have.


    If you get a chance to look at "A Companion to the Altar", a very popular work often found bound into eighteenth century prayer books, you'll find it's the devotional outworking of an implicit spirituality very much as @Gamma Gamaliel and @PDR describe. By late nineteenth century evangelical opposition to Anglo-Catholicism innovations, it's perhaps a bit high church, but if it is, it's definitely high and dry. Indeed, it's somewhat austere. It's unmistakably and worthily Protestant. By modern standards, it's quite a long way down the candle. It's probably a bit further down the candle than even Lancelot Andrewes might have preferred. There's not a trace of Marian devotion. It doesn't question the 39 Articles. It's speaking from a consensus that was largely unchallenged throughout the eighteenth century and down until the Oxford Movement rather suddenly rocked the boat. Disagreements in the previous 150 years had often been pretty acrimonious, but except for Methodism, because they were about things we've forgotten or don't care about, we tend not to be able to see them.


    On the 39 Articles, as I've said on these boards before, I'm puzzled how or why non-English Anglicans are so keen to argue that they don't apply to them. I suspect it's become a bit of a slogan for people who haven't actually read them. If you do, there's not actually a great deal that a person might understandably take exception to.

    I agree Article 35 is more or less obsolete. Nobody uses the Book of Homilies any more and hasn't done for a very long time. What congregation would accept being read to from a somewhat stodgy book in Elizabeth English in place of a sermon. They were only intended for use in the first place for clergy who weren't good enough at preaching to be authorised to preach their own sermons. Article 35 doesn't endorse their contents as an extra 21 articles.

    Personally, I've a problem with Article 39, but even that says 'doth not prohibit' not 'requireth'. I'd also agree with anyone who were to argue that Article 17 that it doesn't seem to make up its mind, but bearing in mind the difficulty of its subject matter, that's prudent, humble and wise.

    And again, I agree over the last 100 years we've all gradually stopped reciting the Athanasian Creed, but apart from its last line where it seems to preclude God from being merciful to those who are in error, what else is there actually to disagree with? Or is it just that last line which is the issue?
  • My point was not that Tract 90 is the correct interpretation of the articles, especially in light of how their authors would explain them, but that, by Newman's time, the articles had already been drawn away from their original intent, including by the old high churchmen. Authorial intent was pretty well out the window by that time. You say the 35th article does not endorse the homilies as an extra 21 articles, but it was certainly interpreted as giving them some degree of doctrinal weight. Bishop Burnet considered them weighty enough that no man could in good conscience assent to the 39 articles unless he agreed with the homilies that the Church of Rome was idolatrous.

    And were the Oxford movement really the first to breach a consensus in the Church of England? Couldn't the same be said e.g., of Laud and company?

    As for which of the articles I would object to, apart from 35 I would especially take issue with the rejection of invocation of saints and "worship" of images. Of course the literal and grammatical reading of article 22 would apply it only to "the Romish doctrine" though of course Cranmer et al did not intend that reading. I'm not a fan of the eucharistic doctrine either but the language can be read in various ways.
  • PDRPDR Shipmate
    That doesn't quite work. Laud did not play games with the Articles the way Newman did, but pointed out that they did not necessarily support the Calvinist orthodoxy that had somewhat shakily been erected upon them. Newman was trying to import an alien system - that of Trent - wholesale.
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