A SERIES of events at Chester Cathedral will celebrate 350 years of the Book of Common Prayer.
They will take place on Saturday, September 8, as part of a year long festival by the Prayer Book Society to mark the 350th anniversary of the prayer book, printed in 1662. It was compiled by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury to King Henry VIII, who was later burned at the stake for treason.
The programme for the day will see a sung eucharist at 11.30am, led by the Dean of Chester, the Very Rev Prof Gordon McPhate, at which the Bishop of Chester, the Rt Rev Dr Peter Forster, will preach.
At 2pm in the chapter house, former foreign secretary Lord Hurd of Westwell, a lay patron of the Prayer Book Society, will give a talk on the prayer book while at 4.15pm there will be a service of evensong.
A tour of an exhibition in the cathedral library, which includes an original 1662 copy, is already fully booked but there will also be an exhibition in the cloister.
The Prayer Book Society says the book has been familiar to generations of men and women for worship, baptisms, marriages and deaths.
Together with the authorised version of the bible, it has shaped the English language and inspired musical settings from some of the best church composers.
