Things generally move move rather ponderously in the Anglican Church and never more so than in matters of liturgy, for the long process of revision, virtually initiated in 1904 by the appointment of the ‘Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline’, with the joint objectives of satisfying and yet controlling the Anglo-Catholic tradition, did not reach fulfilment until the Alternative Service Book was finally published in 1980. The 1927 and 1928 attempts at Prayer Book revision, after being accepted by the Church, were defeated by the will of the people voiced in Parliament but it was to take another thirty-seven years before further attempts at the production of a new Book were initiated in the Prayer Book Measure of 1965.

A Liturgical Commission had been established in 1955 and for fifteen years following the Measure of 1965, the Convocations and the House of Laity, then the General Synod, from its formation in 1970, were occupied with a long programme of liturgical business.

It is important to emphasise that only an alternative book of liturgy was being provided and that the Book of Common Prayer, 1662, retained its authority as a doctrinal standard. Similarly the Thirty-nine Articles, although not included in the A.S.B., were retained by the Church. It was insisted by the Church that the new services did not in the least alter the doctrinal position of the Church founded, as ever, on Holy Scripture.