Met. Anthony of Blessed Memory on WRITE

From an article on converting Anglican buildings for Russian Orthodox use in Australia, this small paragraph from Fr. Michael Protopopov.

"During the 1920’s, the Anglicans were writing the New Book of Common Prayer; it was very Orthodox in its approach. Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky of blessed memory had even said that if the Anglicans were to accept the New Book of Common Prayer there would be very little separating the Orthodox and the Anglicans, and perhaps they could even be recognized as equal to ourselves. Unfortunately, they never did accept the New Book of Common Prayer, and therefore the unity between the two Churches never went ahead. However, the Anglicans still retained a great fondness for the Orthodox and supported us all the way through until Warrnambool 10 years ago."

The New Book of Common Prayer referred to was the English 1928 Proposed Book of Common Prayer (also called the Deposited Book.) This book was partly updated from the 1662 English BCP by members of the Alcuin Club following the Russian Observations Upon the American Prayer Book which was "a report drawn up by order of the committee appointed by the Holy Synod on Old Catholic and Anglican questions." This BCP, as Fr. Michael Protopopov noted, was approved by the Church of England, but rejected by the House of Commons (a failure in ecclesiology that has led to the present state of the Anglican Communion.) That is a 'could have been' - but still could be: there are still those Continuing Anglicans (APCK, HCC-AR, ACC, etc.) and Traditional Anglicans (the newly formed ACNA, or the PEV dioceses in the COE) that have members, clergy and even parishes that could bridge that "very little" that separates.

(It should be noted, the Saint Colman Prayer Book approved for use in most of ROCOR goes beyond those requirements being based on traditional English translations of the Sarum Day Hours (the Breviary excepting Nocturnes), and the Sarum Missal.)