What is High Church, and Low Church?

[ChessCastle]

This is yet another term I've come across as I try learning from past threads. Would someone please explain what High Chhurch and Low Church means?


CC

 

[benedictine]

High Church is more "smells and bells", for example, incensce, organ music, chant, and the high point of the service is probably the Eucharistic Canon. Low Church is more contemplative, and has less music, probably with a piano if there is any. The High opoint would most likely be the sermon.

Don't confuse "High Church" with "Anglo-Catholic", becouse while many anglo-catholics are high church, many are not. I will vouch for the beauty of a low mass, even though I myself am high church.

 

[pmcleanj]

This is yet another term I've come across as I try learning from past threads. Would someone please explain what High Chhurch and Low Church means?


CC

All Anglicans are both Catholic and Reformed. All use essentially the same liturgical forms. But the "look and feel" of the liturgy can range from indistinguishable-from-Roman-Catholic to indistinguishable-from-Evangelical, according to the customs of the parish. Both of these extremes are later developments (nineteenth and twentieth century). But even within the very traditional Anglican practices of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was a range between styles of worship that emphasized formal division of roles between clergy and laity with formal and precisely-defined vestments and accessories, to styles that emphasized lay participation, equality within the church, and integration of worship life with daily life. People can get very attached to particular forms, such that they can't abide having, or not having, some particular practice -- I know a man who left the Church rather than face the introduction of <gasp>candles! into the sanctuary. Some churches adopt a variety of different practices, and eschew others, to keep the peace and allow as broad a range of people as possible to feel at home in the parish.

To help out people who might walk into an Anglican Church expecting one thing, and get another, we've developed these labels that help us discuss what "look and feel" of worship is taking place:

• indistinguishable-from-Roman-Catholic --> Anglo-Catholic
• indistinguishable-from-Evangelical-->reformed
• formal division of roles, precisely-defined vestments and accessories --> High Church
• lay participation, equality within the church, rector wears street-clothes or plain cassock-and-surplice-->Low Church
• Varying practices for the sake of the people's varying needs --> Broad Church.

The definitions aren't precise, and they don't represent actual divisions in the church. What's "Low Church" from one person's perspective might be "Broad Church" from the perspective of someone who's even "Lower Church".

In our self-deprecating Anglican style of definition-by-aphorism, we say "High and Crazy, Low and Lazy, Broad and Hazy". That misrepresents the whole spectrum of liturgical preference equally!

 

[Timothy]

indistinguishable-from-Roman-Catholic

Well, in many cases, indistinguishable-from-pre-Vat2-Roman-Catholic-yet-in-english...

Timothy

 

[PaladinValer]

High, Broad, and Low are various forms of "churchship." It is basically a preference to how a church service should be like.

High Churchers prefer a traditional Mass/Divine Liturgy, with smells and bells, Eucharistic adoration, etc.
Low Churchers prefer a more contemporary service, often utilizing just the bare minimums.
Broad Churchers prefer a balance of the two.

 

[AngCath]

High Church and Anglo-Catholic, I think, are the two most often confused so here are two definitions that I think separate the two nicely:

Anglo-Catholicism: a dogmatic and sacramental position within Anglicanism emphasizing the continuity of links with the early Church, displaying an affinity with medieval Christianity, and rejecting the label "Protestant." Its immediate forebear was the Oxford Movement, of which it was a late phase.

High-Church: Laudianism; also more generally, any emphasis on ritual, order, and pre-Reformation church practice within the Protestant Churches.

-from The Study of Anglicanism by Stephen Sykes, John Booty, and Jonathan Knight

 

[Naomi4Christ]

An alternative view based on benifaces within my own deanery and diocese

High Church = dwindling congregations
Low Church = bursting at the seams

The churches with a higher style are not attracting young people, and consequently their congregation is slowly dying off. Meanwhile, the two low/evangelical churches are planting new congregations.

In practice, many churches with multiple congregations embrace worship styles and liturgy from both ends of the spectrum, although they would stick to one theological point of view.

 

[Timothy]

High Church = dwindling congregations
Low Church = bursting at the seams

Depends how moderate they are. I know of an ultra-reformed low-church in the UK which is... well, somewhat smaller than it was before their new Vicar came in. I know more moderate ones which are bursting at the seams.

Timothy

 

[AngCath]

High Church = dwindling congregations
Low Church = bursting at the seams

in my diocese, there are plenty of examples to the contrary.

 

[holyshe]

i go to a high church bursting at its seems !!!!

 

[romaneagle13]

i go to a high church bursting at its seems !!!!

I have yet to see an Episcopal Church in my area that is bursting at the seams....would be nice though.

 

[ChessCastle]

High, Broad, and Low are various forms of "churchship." It is basically a preference to how a church service should be like.

High Churchers prefer a traditional Mass/Divine Liturgy, with smells and bells, Eucharistic adoration, etc.
Low Churchers prefer a more contemporary service, often utilizing just the bare minimums.
Broad Churchers prefer a balance of the two.

What is Eucharistic adoration? I understand the Eucharist is communion is that just another term?

 

[thejesusfish90]

So given the difference between high church and anglo-catholic... would it be concievable that someone should be a low church anglo-catholic... or a high church protestant?... *better question could be does anyone fit those groupings here... I can imagine that a person could easily be a low church anglo-catholic (a person with catholic beliefs at a church which maintains the bare minimums)... but I've yet to come across a high church protestant (in terms of theological positioning)...

Low Church=Bursting at it seems

lol... I wish

YBIC

Chris

 

[Timothy]

would it be concievable that someone should be a low church anglo-catholic... or a high church protestant?... *better question could be does anyone fit those groupings here... I can imagine that a person could easily be a low church anglo-catholic (a person with catholic beliefs at a church which maintains the bare minimums)... but I've yet to come across a high church protestant (in terms of theological positioning)...

Yes. I would class myself as low-church with anglo-catholic leanings. Colabomb (who sadly left the AC) was a low-church anglo-catholic, who became low-church luthero-catholic.

Timothy

 

[karen freeinchristman]

What is Eucharistic adoration? I understand the Eucharist is communion is that just another term?

Isn't that where the consecrated bread and wine are worshipped? They are kept in a special container and people worship them (they believe (as in the Roman Catholic tradition) that the consecrated bread and wine are actually turned into the real body and blood of Jesus Christ).

 

[PaladinValer]

What is Eucharistic adoration? I understand the Eucharist is communion is that just another term?

It can take different forms.

At simplest, it can simply be the raising of the consecrates Elements high while the cleric states "Christ (the Elements) our Passover is sacrificed for us," etc.

For Anglo-Catholics or any Anglican who holds a Eucharistic belief either that of Vatican Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, it is the worship of Christ, who has now come physically and spiritually into the Elements.

 

[gtsecc]

An alternative view:

High Church = dwindling congregations
Low Church = bursting at the seams

Muslims are growing even faster.
Do you want to go there?

 

[Naomi4Christ]

snip

 

[gtsecc]

OK, so cliques of men in nighties are a good thing...but unfortunately against what Christ commanded us to do. Go..................

I am simply pointing out that growth does not not equal truth.

 

[Naomi4Christ]

But the two aren't mutually exclusive