Impressions of General Synod 2025
(By the Revd. Canon Dr. Gordon Maitland, National Chairman of the PBSC)
As most of our readers are aware, the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada took place this past June in London, Ontario. What follows in this article is not a systematic recounting of all that happened at Synod. The Anglican Journal has published a good report relating what events took place and what legislation was considered. What I want to offer here are my own reflections as to what was important in relation to the Book of Common Prayer and to the Church’s worship in general, and what may be intuited regarding our future as an institution or denomination.
However, before relating these reflections, I want to thank everyone who helped to contribute to the production of new display materials to enhance our booth at General Synod: a table cloth, a backdrop curtain, and a standing banner. Our own Kerry Dickson (our website custodian) designed these items and we are most thankful for her work. I also want to thank Fr. Chris Dow, Mtr. Allie McDougall, and her husband Davis Whittington-Heeney, for their assistance in staffing the PBSC booth. These three coworkers are much younger than I am, and thus projected the positive optic that the PBSC was not just for geezers such as myself.
Our display booth was in a prime location at this Synod. We were facing the tables at which the delegates ate their meals and so we had a “captive audience” so to speak. We had some busy traffic at meal times – everyone from youth delegates to bishops. We did not have any hostile encounters from people who stopped by, which is a contrast to many years ago when some delegates would berate us for being a “backward” influence in the church. It would appear that we are now an accepted part of the ecclesiastical landscape for those who attend General Synod. The display item that people were most intrigued by were the sample copies of The One-Year Lectionary, a project initiated by National Counsellor Fr. Ben von Bredow and just published last year. The idea of having a book with Old Testament lections added to the existing epistles and gospels in the BCP eucharistic lectionary appears to have been attractive to a number of people, especially clergy. One cleric even ordered his copy from Amazon as we were speaking to him!
One of the most remarkable exchanges that I had was with a youth delegate, who asked if we were selling copies of These Our Prayers which was compiled by Fr. Robert Mitchell of St. Olave’s Church in Toronto. This book is a compilation of collects from the BCP (and a few other sources) arranged topically for people to use on an occasional basis. He informed me that “all the youth delegates” had copies of this book and were enthusiastic about using it! While this may have been hyperbole, I was still fascinated to discover that more than a few of the youth delegates would be interested in using a book of traditional language prayers. Although we did not have copies of this book to sell (it is still available online) I did tell this young person that the PBSC had contributed financially to its production. I can only hope that knowledge of what is contained in These Our Prayers will lead these young people to look at the source of most of these prayers, which is of course our Book of Common Prayer.
I was privileged to be asked by the worship planning committee of General Synod to celebrate one of the early morning Eucharists during Synod using the BCP. Thus, at 7:30 am on the morning of June 24 (The Nativity of St. John the Baptist) the Eucharist was celebrated (eastward facing no less!) using the Prayer Book. I thought for sure there would be some controversy or pushback for doing this, but not a single voice was raised in protest. Perhaps because attendance at these early morning celebrations was voluntary, those who might have been opposed simply stayed away. It is worth mentioning that a second early morning Eucharist using the BCP was celebrated several days after the one I presided at. It is certainly heartening to see the BCP actually used at our national Synod, and not simply ignored altogether as it has been at some previous General Synods.
I think everyone is aware that one of the chief items of business at this General Synod was the election of a new Primate. It was a truly electrifying moment during this procedure when, at the instigation of a youth delegate from the Diocese of Ontario, a request was made to add a new name to the list of nominees when it was apparent that none of the four initial candidates was garnering the support of the majority of delegates. As you know, this resulted in the election of the Rt. Revd. Shane Parker of the Diocese of Ottawa as the 15th Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada. Although I don’t know Bishop Parker’s views on the Book of Common Prayer, I do not get the impression from those I have spoken to that he is in any way hostile to the BCP. He certainly needs our prayers as he faces the unenviable task of reorganizing and downsizing the National Office, while at the same time dealing with the mess left to us by the previous General Secretary of the ACC.
There were relatively few motions that were related to the Church’s liturgical rites at this General Synod. The Anglican Church of Canada has committed to the idea of adding to the Church Calendar a “Feast of Creation” on the first of September (or on the nearest Sunday to that date) which was an ecumenical idea first floated by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, earlier this year. It remains to be seen how much traction this proposal will receive. The only other liturgical matter was the authorization of a second stream of Old Testament lessons in the post-Pentecostal season of the Church Year which are to be found in the Revised Common Lectionary. The ACC initially endorsed only one stream of OT lections in the post-Pentecostal season, but this motion gave approval to both streams of lections. In a future article I hope to address the question of how “Common” the Revised Common Lectionary really is in light of the many options that are available when using it.
I believe that our presence as a Society at the latest General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada was helpful and edifying for many of the delegates. We are pleased that there are people who are discovering the variety of things that we have to offer to Anglicans of all stripes in Canada. It is yet another hopeful sign of better things that may come to pass.