Lutherans: How many Catholic practices and rites were maintained in the early Lutheran Church?
Did he keep anything?
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)The traditional Lutheran Communion service is based on the Roman Catholic Mass, with the Kyrie ("Lord Have Mercy" , the Gloria in Excelsis ("Glory to God in the Highest" , the Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God" , and the Sanctus ("Holy, Holy, Holy Lord" intact. He removed the requirement for private confession and added a group confession.
He removed reverence for the saints and the Virgin Mary and the use of Latin, believing that the entire service should be in the language of the people so that they could be active participants instead of just spectators at an event they couldn't understand.
He added congregational singing, participation in the responses, and the people receiving wine as well as bread at Communion. As in the Roman Catholic Mass, Communion remained the focal point of worship.
Luther was originally an Augustinian monk, and he had no intention of forming a new church, only to reform the Roman Catholic church.
The Calvinist churches represented a more decisive break with Roman Catholic tradition. They had no set order of worship, and the focal point of the service was the sermon. They had Communion only four times a year.
When we visited Germany many years ago, my father, a Lutheran pastor and church history buff, told us that when Germany was united in 1870, the Kaiser required the Lutheran and Calvinist churches to unite to form the Evangelical United Church, which is still the state church of many provinces in Germany. (Needless to say, it is nothing like what we think of as "evangelical" churches.) However, you can tell which churches were originally Lutheran and which ones were originally Calvinist. The formerly Lutheran churches have the altar as the focal point and may have crucifixes. The Lutherans also kept the statuary and stained glass windows. The formerly Calvinist churches have the pulpit as the focal point, only plain crosses instead of crucifixes, and no statuary or stained glass windows, although some of the Lutheran churches lost their stained glass windows in the bombing raids of World War II, so this is no longer a foolproof clue.
Hope this answers your question.
Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)Kidding. Good summary, though.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)Lydia Leftcoast
(48,217 posts)but it went through an initial modification in England in the form of the Book of Common Prayer, which was written as a deliberate compromise between the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions after years of the two sides persecuting each other.
All Anglican/Episcopal churches use the forms in their country's version of the Book of Common Prayer, but they have a lot of leeway on the matter of how often to celebrate Communion (the less formal parishes have Morning Prayer three Sundays a month and Communion once a month; the more formal parishes have Communion every Sunday), whether to have the texts set to music, and if so, which music to use, and in general, how ritualistic to be. The fanciest services are put on by the so-called Anglo-Catholic wing. Except for the fact that everything is in English, they're almost like pre-Vatican II Catholics, lots of genuflecting, fancy vestments, incense, bells rung at certain times (hence the nickname "smells and bells" , chanting, side altars dedicated to the Virgin Mary and/or other saints, adoration of the consecrated Host, etc. Other Episcopal churches have gone all folk mass.
So if I attend an unfamiliar Episcopal church, I'll be assured of two things: they will use one of two versions (old language or modern language) of one of the Book of Common Prayer services, and in most places, they will be on the liberal end of their local spectrum. The rest is up for grabs.
47of74
(18,470 posts)Some of the wording is different, and some of it is in a different order than the Catholic mass. Otherwise it's very similar to the post Vatican II mass up until the Catholics got that new translation foisted on them by Rome. It made the transition from Catholic to Episcopal a bit easier for me - being comfortable and familiar instead of tongue twisting, cold, and aloof.
Freddie
(9,687 posts)I am Lutheran from birth but when DH joined my church he often commented on how similar the elements of the service are. It's actually more foreign to my son-in-law who was raised Southern Baptist.