The 1989 Kenyan eucharistic text has had much publicity, including its use at the opening service of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, but has had little in the way of introduction or commentary. These two authors, with much Kenyan experience and with encouragement from the key persons in Kenya, here provide the text with a valuable contextual exposition.

Whereas many studies suggest or presuppose some link between Christian liturgical origins and the practices of Judaism the Jewish sources are hard to find and understand for Christian students without any background in early Judaism and its literature. This book presents some of the relevant sources in clear English, with accompanying material which sets the sources in their context and introduces the student to the debate about the relationship between Jewish and early Christian liturgy.

The letter comes from the fourth century and is therefore very significant for studies of early Roman liturgical history - and is frequently quoted. Here the series provides the full text with translation and notes.

A thorough look at the meaning of administering and receiving communion away from the place of a true celebration of the eucharist. Well-based theological reflections give rise to some very awkward questions for the rite and its practitioners.

The records of the Savoy Conference come from seventeenth century sources, and they were edited and reproduced in two nineteenth century volumes: E.Cardwell's A History of Conferences and Other Proceedings connected with the Revision of The Book of Common Prayer; from the year 1558 to the year 1690 (1841, and 2nd ed. 1849) and G.Gould, Documents relating to the Settlement of the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity of 1662 (London, 1862). Both present the Presbyterians' 'Exceptions' tabled at the Savoy Conference in 1661, and the Bishops' (somewhat unyielding) Answers to the Exceptions - but neither editor brings the texts together. This Joint Study presents the General Exceptions in parallel column with their respective Answers.

In the Anglican Communion, the medieval practice, which certainly had some earlier roots, continued—that ordination came to any one individual in this 'sequence': deacon, presbyter, bishop. The Anglican ordinal was so committed to this pattern at the Reformation that Cranmer's text prayed that deacons 'may so well use themselves in this inferior office, that they may be found worthy to be called unto higher ministries in thy Church.' Latterly, however, Anglicans have not only sought to develop the calling of a deacon in his or her own right, but have in some places and cases promoted the idea that the true calling of a deacon and of a presbyter would be best clarified by a separate 'direct' ordination. John Gibaut, a liturgical theologian of the Anglican Church of Canada, presents the case for 'direct' ordination—rooting it in the patristic era, and spelling out its implications in the present day.

The communion of infants is different from the admission of children at, say, seven or eight. Both practices traditionally require baptism, and either may require confimation/chrysmation as well. But infant communion never requires a measure of 'understanding', whereas child communion does. As yet there is no comprehensive history of infant communion. Several learned attempts were made during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but there were major gaps in their treatment and much that today needs amending. Thanks to the work of JDC Fisher and DR Holeton, many of these gaps have now been filled. I have drawn significantly on their work, as well as on an article of my own in CQR in 1966, but I have also sought to fill in more of the gaps.

The liturgy of the Church of England is primarily located in The Book of Common Prayer (1662), but from the mid-20th century it has been enriched and supplemented by a range of authorized alternative services. Most of these were initially collected in The Alternative Service Book 1980 (ASB). From 1986 to 2005 there was a comprehensive revision and enlargement in the scope of alternative services. These, combined with the main elements of the 1662 tradition, are now published in Common Worship. The planning, drafting and processing of this work lay with the Liturgical Commission of the Church of England, and JLS 57 charts the separate but interlocking processes which this involved from the perspective of the Commission's Secretary and chronicler throughout the period 1984-2002.

This Liturgical Study is dedicated to the memory of Michael Vasey, liturgy tutor at St John's College, Durham (1975-1998), and a member of the Church of England's Liturgical Commission (1985-1998), who died in June 1998. It reproduces the text which he originally drafted for the Commission in the early 1990s, as amended both by the Commission and by the House of Bishops, on which discussion was effectively suspended in 1995. At that stage the Commission propsed to further the discussion on penitence and reconciliation in the church by publishing its proposed text together with some background essays, but the project, which Michael was to have edited, was halted by his untimely death.

An intellectual exploration of language and liturgy and how both of them participate in the articulation of meaning.