Reginald Maxwell Woolley

The liturgy of the primitive Church Reginald Maxwell Woolley

The history of the Liturgical uses of the Church must always be a matter of interest to all churchmen. It has, perhaps, a special interest to us in these days when we are hearing so much of proposals for the revision of the Liturgy of the Church of England.
In the consideration of our English Liturgy with a view to such revision we turn very naturally to the Latin use which was the immediate parent of our Prayer Book, and at the same time we are deeply interested in the Liturgies of the Eastern Churches. It may, however, perhaps be questioned as to whether we are not inclined to neglect too much for these-comparatively speaking-late developments of the Liturgy in East and West, the more homely and less rigid Liturgical uses of the earliest centuries of the Church, those centuries in which the Church was more in touch than she has ever been since with the general life and the every day needs of her members.