Modern Communion Version

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31041, 22 April 1966, Page 3

Modern Communion Version

(N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, April 21. A modern language version of the Holy Communion service will be tried by Anglican churches in New Zealand, the General Synod decided in Dunedin today.

The Ten Commandments have been omitted from the new service on the grounds that when taken out of context they did not "adequately express the Christian emphasis on love and grace, which are the basic presuppositions of this service.” The second reading of the

bill introducing the new liturgy was passed by Synod today after exhaustive discussion.

The Rt. Rev. G. R. Monteith, assistant Bishop at Auckland, and chairman of the commission, presented the commission’s report to the Synod. “This is the first official attempt to produce a service in modern language within the English speaking part of the Anglican community, and we have not been entirely successful.” he said. “I would be very unhappy to put this liturgy forward as the final form, to serve us for the next 300 years. “We believe that after a period of experimental use. we shall have sufficient information to tidy it up sub-i stantially, and make the Eng-'

lish very much better than it is at the moment.” Mr Monteith moved the second.

Mr D. M. Wylie, supporting the bill, said there were three main answers to the question why the church was engaged on this work at a time when union was being negotiated. These were that union is not yet a foregone conclusion; the Anglican Church must bring twentieth century liturgy to union; and “to enter a united church, we must ourselves be renewed.” “1 commend this to Synod All I ask is that criticism be based on the use of the new liturgy—we have designed it for this generation, and not for the next 300 to 400 years —and I believe that all liturgy 'should be revised by each

generation. It should certainly not become crystallised as it has done over the years.”

Mr H. G. Miller (Wellington) said he would not oppose the bill, but felt bound to say he regarded it as “just one more exercise in the vain object of trying to catch up with modern man.”

“Man today does not find it easy to regard himself as a person talking to his Creator. “He is proud of himself and his achievements, and it does not come easily to him to address his creator as ‘you.’ just as he addresses his fellow creatures.

“As for the archaicness of common -prayer, I doubt very much if it ever was contemporary. I think it was always a special language,” he said.