Apostles' Creed in Anglican Morning and Evening Prayer

The Apostles' Creed in Anglican Morning and Evening Prayer is the regular profession of baptismal faith within the Daily Office of the Book of Common Prayer. In the classical Anglican offices it follows the appointed psalms, lessons, and canticles, and precedes the lesser litany, the Lord's Prayer, and the collects. Its placement gives the Creed a distinctive devotional function: the congregation hears Scripture, answers with biblical praise, and then confesses the faith into which Christians are baptized. In this way the Apostles' Creed serves both as a doctrinal summary and as an act of common prayer within Anglicanism.

Liturgical placement

In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the Apostles' Creed is appointed in both Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer after the canticles that respond to the readings. At Morning Prayer it normally follows the second canticle, whether the Benedictus or another appointed text. At Evening Prayer it follows the Nunc dimittis or its substitute. The rubric directs minister and people to say the Creed together, standing.

This position is significant. The Creed does not function as an isolated doctrinal recital, but as the congregation's response to the proclamation of Scripture. The lessons present the works and promises of God; the canticles praise God in biblical language; the Creed then gathers the Church's faith in a concise Trinitarian form. The movement is characteristic of Anglican common prayer, where doctrine is expressed through repeated public worship as well as through formal articles and homilies.

The Creed is followed by the versicles, responses, and collects. This sequence links confession of faith with intercession and petition. The worshipping congregation does not merely state Christian belief, but prays as a people formed by that belief.

Theological role

The Apostles' Creed is one of the ancient Western baptismal creeds. Although not composed by the apostles themselves, it is called apostolic because it summarizes the apostolic faith confessed by the Church. Anglican formularies have generally treated it as a basic and sufficient outline of Christian belief for catechesis, baptismal identity, and ordinary congregational worship.

In Morning and Evening Prayer the Creed reinforces several theological themes. First, it is explicitly Trinitarian, confessing faith in God the Father, Jesus Christ his only Son, and the Holy Ghost. Secondly, it places the saving work of Christ at the center: incarnation, passion, death, descent to the dead, resurrection, ascension, heavenly session, and future judgment. Thirdly, it joins personal faith to ecclesial faith by confessing the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and everlasting life.

The daily repetition of the Creed also reflects the Anglican conviction that prayer and belief are mutually formative. The maxim often summarized as lex orandi, lex credendi is not a formal Anglican article, but it describes an important feature of Prayer Book religion. The faith confessed in the Creed is learned, remembered, and inhabited through regular worship.

Historical development in Anglican use

The Apostles' Creed appeared in the daily offices of the early English Prayer Books and was retained in the later classical forms of the rite. The English Reformers did not remove the ancient creeds from public worship. Instead, they translated and ordered them for congregational use in the vernacular, placing them within a simplified pattern of Scripture, praise, confession, and prayer.

The 1549 Book of Common Prayer included the Creed in the offices of Mattins and Evensong. The 1552 revision, and the later Elizabethan and Stuart books, continued to make the Creed a regular feature of the offices. This continuity shows that the Reformation of the English liturgy was not a rejection of the creedal inheritance of the undivided Church. Rather, Anglican worship received that inheritance in a form intended for the whole parish congregation.

Later Anglican provinces have sometimes provided alternatives or permitted seasonal variation, especially in modern liturgies influenced by ecumenical revision. Nevertheless, the Apostles' Creed remains closely associated with the daily offices, especially in Prayer Book forms shaped by the 1662 tradition. It continues to serve as a concise statement of catholic and reformed Christian faith within Anglican devotion.