Anglican Patrimony has sprung alive with two back to back posts

First Fr. Andrew Bartus wrote on the English Baroque:

On the latest post about Bl. John’s on the New Liturgical Movement, some of the commenters ask why some of us in the Anglican Use (particularly in the Ordinariates, as opposed to the couple diocesan parishes) use “Roman” vestments instead of something supposedly “Anglican.”

The assumption is, of course, that anything Baroque cannot be English, as opposed to Gothic which is. This is more of an American assumption it should be noted. Very few Anglicans or Ordinariate Catholics in England share this assumption, in my experience.

But there is a very fine and long history of English Baroque, which was revived and updated following the Oxford Movement, known today as the Ritualist Movement. In the Church of England (and elsewhere too), the revival of the Baroque was indeed to demonstrate liturgically the ecclesiology: that Roman Catholicism was the true form of the faith. This produced the fine heritage of Anglo-Papalists who followed the Oxford Movement in those early days in seeking corporate reunion with the Church, today fulfilled in the Ordinariates.

Without the English Baroque, I would argue, we would not have the Ordinariates today. The Gothic – with many fine counter-examples, largely did not do this. Notice that the majority of the bishops and hierarchy who composed and led the “groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately” were in fact men who wore lace, fiddlebacks, and who were Anglo-Papalists.

A point that I feel must be repeated again and again is that liturgy is important because it is the greatest living expression of our theology. And this, of course, includes the associated ritual, architecture, vestments, and even culture surrounding it. Thus, for many of us, the English Baroque is more than just “aping Rome” for we are now Roman, though we continue our Anglican heritage in full communion.

 Then Fr. Matthew Venuti responded, and posted some lovely pictures, too:

Given the prevalence of the English Baroque style in the Ordinariate, I have made a conscious attempt to preserve the “English Use” in my Ordinariate community along with many of the distinctive “low church” elements of the Anglican Patrimony such as tippets and academic hoods.  You will, however, find elements of the Baroque in our worship.  I have plenty of fiddlebacks, because on a limited budget you can get traditional looking fiddlebacks with ancient  symbols or some pretty ugly gothic chasubles.  I have altar cards because I need all the help I can get keeping the words straight switching between the Book of Divine Worship and the Roman Missal on a daily basis.

We will be one of the few “English Use” groups around, but that doesn’t make us the most Anglican of the Ordinariate parishes, it just means we are a different side of the same coin that was the Catholic revival in Anglicanism.

Interesting, because a while back one of our readers sent me a long email about vestments and so on that will be part of the Anglican Use and whether we should look at distinctively Anglican vestments instead of Roman ones.

Anyway,  Fr. Chadwick responded on his blog to Fr. Venuti’s post, also with some nice pictures:

I am happy that an Ordinariate priest in America is gently pushing for more “medieval” English ways.

I am quite puzzled to read that the Eastern liturgies are a key to understanding some of the less clear rubrics. It is true that we use a rood screen (when we have one) and there is a procession with the Oblata. I see the roots of the Sarum liturgy over this side of the English Channel, and they are apparent in many medieval churches in our Norman countryside and in the city of Rouen. The Norman liturgical tradition extended all the way through the Evreux area to Paris, over the other side of the Seine to the Pays d’Auge and the Bessin. The essential of the Sarum Use was taken over to England with the Norman Conquest. Our English culture is Norman more than anything else, with a smattering with what is vaguely Germanic in us.