The Theory and Practice of Prayer Book Revision in South Africa

Abstract

The Provincial Synod of the Church of the Province of South Africa met for the first time in 1870. A long controversy, of which the Colenso law-suits were the core, had made it plain that the Anglican Church was not, and could not be, an established Church in South Africa. The chief task of the synod was to provide some alternative machinery of government and a constitution which could legally serve as a contractual basis for the exercise of the Church's discipline. There were before the synod two documents of primary importance—the draft constitution which the South African bishops had been preparing since 1861, and the report of the first Lambeth Conference.