The Archbishop of Canterbury has at last published the Order of Service for the Coronation of King Charles III. The coronation will take place tomorrow, Saturday 6th May 2023.
We shall be holding our monthly prayer meeting at Canning Road, West Ham, London E15 3ND, from 10.30aqm to 12.30pm. Find full details HERE. Come if you can, but best bring an umbrella.
On the other hand, you may be watching the Coronation on TV. If so, I hope this very brief article will bless you and inspire you to pray and proclaim ‘the lively oracles of God’.
How does it compare?
So how does the service compare to the Order of Service, one month short of seventy years ago, for her late majesty, Queen Elizabeth II? In what particulars is it the same? And where does it differ?
Last month Christian Voice published a Coronation Special newsletter. We went through the 1953 Order of Service. In particular we set out the form of the Coronation Oath and carried out a Biblical exposition of the four main scriptures.
You will find links to the 2023 Order of Service and a downloadable PDF of our Coronation Special Newsletter below to compare for yourself. (All links open on a laptop in a new tab.)
Coronation Special Newsletter →
What is the same?
The presentation and acceptance of the monarch remains. It will however be repeated four times. The Moderator of the Church of Scotland will present the Bible to the king. His prayer is unchanged: ‘Sir: to keep you ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, receive this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; This is the royal Law; These are the lively Oracles of God.
The Coronation Oath remains the same. That is because it is set in statute law. It will be introduced by the Archbishop. His spin will be that it is rather more to do with the Church and freedom of religion than affairs of state. However, in case anyone is tempted to meddle with it, he will say it has ‘stood for centuries’ and is ‘enshrined in law’.
The most holy part of the service, the anointing of the king to rule under God, remains.
The prayer as the king receives the sword is still based on Rom. 13:1-7. The king will still receive the regalia.
What has changed?
You will see a different form of words on the presentation of the Orb, but one which still declares Christ rules over all earthly dominions. Why the change? Answers please in the comments below!
The readings from Scripture are different. In 1953 we heard 1Pet. 2:13-17 as the Epistle and Matt 22:15-22 as the Gospel. Remember the service is an Anglican communion rite.
The I Peter text urges submission to the governing authorities and liberty under the law. The Matthew text places the earthly governments of ‘Caesar’ firmly under God.
In 2023 for the Anglican Epistle reading we have Colossians 1:9-17. The Authorised or King James version will be used. Rishi Sunak is due to read it. The Gospel is Luke 4:16-21. There is a ‘sung Alleluia’ either side of the Gospel, from Psalm 47:1-2 & Psalm 47:6-7.
The Colossians reading concludes by stating that creation was founded by and is sustained by Christ Jesus. It includes: ‘thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.’
The Luke reading is the account of our Lord in the synagogue in Nazareth. In it, the Lord proclaimed himself as Messiah. We shall see what the Archbishop will make of it when he gives his sermon.
Prayers of blessing
The king wanted leaders of non-Christian faiths to be involved in the service. That will not happen. People of other faiths will present him with regalia. ‘Faith leaders’ will process in and take their seats. Neither carries the same spiritual significance as participation in the liturgy, in my view. Some may take exception to our Hindu Prime Minister reading the Epistle, but all sorts reading the Bible is allowed under Canon Law.
A departure from 1953, perhaps the only possible nod to the king’s request, is the leaders of two of the UK’s non-Protestant denominations giving prayers of blessing. They will be the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Thyateira & Great Britain.
Charles wanted to be ‘defender of faith’. But the Archbishop in his promise of homage will address him firmly as ‘Defender of the Faith’, that title bestowed on King Henry VIII by the pope of his time.
Lastly, the king will declare himself ‘solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God’ … ‘that I am a faithful Protestant, and that I will, according to the true intent of the enactments which secure the Protestant succession to the Throne, uphold and maintain the said enactments to the best of my powers according to law.’
Make of that what you will, but remember in the comments below to be generous and to call no man a liar.
Prayers
The Coronation Ritual is the most solemn and rare moment of our national life. Pray this United Kingdom will remain a nation under God. May he use the Coronation to bring many to faith in our risen, ascended, glorified Lord Jesus, and to revive us as a Christian nation again.
Read our previous article on why publication of the Order of Service was delayed :
Coronation Service in disarray →
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On the whole, much better than I feared. I am encouraged by the readings selected, making clear the pre-eminence of Christ as the Annointed. Col 1:9-12 is a wonderful prayer for Charles himself. But do we swear “true allegiance” to him? I don’t think allegiance to him interferes with the supremacy of Christ, so long as he is obedient to God.
It has been said that the only reason we bow to the king is because he bows to the King of kings.
Thank you
I would disagree regarding swearing allegiance to the king and his heirs and successors
Harry and Andrew come to mind
bigger than that is the fact Charles denies the deity of Christ he sees religion with a small g and that all religions are of equal value
this spells disaster for us as a nation we are in danger of being ruled by a king who worships God with his lips anointed by archbishops who deny the authority of the Bible
I rest my case but like you pray
GOD SAVE THE KING
I pray every evening for God to guide and advise King Charles particularly away from the Climate Cult. I am pleased that the CofE showed some backbone. Charles like many of his era are seduced by the New Age that is coming and he needs to understand that the Age of the Church is at its end. Charles is an End Time King and needs to be defender of the faith because no other faith promises to save us. The timing of the end is found in Revelation where we are told to be wise and calculate the number of the beast which is the number of man 6. Revelation gives us 666 and when numbers are depicted like this it means the calculation is always a multiplication. 6x6x6 = 216 which is a derivative of 2160. The ancients would use the celestial timepiece, the stars, to calculate the timing of future events. This is what we call the zodiac but is not astrology, it is astronomy. There are 12 signs we are given, each sign reigns in heaven for 2160 years. Revelation gave the calculation and told us to look for the symbol of man. The New Age is Aquarius the symbol is of a man. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius is when the Antichrist will come which is exactly 2160 years after the birth of Christ. The Wise Men used the stars to find his time and place of birth, Jesus was born at the dawn of the Age of Pisces, he was known by the fish. Pisces shows two fish, one descends to hell as he did after he died, the other fish ascends to heaven as he did after the resurrection. Pisces replaced Aries, the prophecy was depicted when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son to show loyalty to God. If you remember before he plunged the knife he was told to stop and heard rustling in a bush. God had provided an animal for sacrifice caught in the bush, it was a ram. Not a lamb but a ram. Aries is the ram. The prophecy was Abraham did not have to provide his much loved son for sacrifice because on the death of Aries (ram) God would send his beloved son Jesus at the change of the age to be sacrificed for us.
They have about 120 to 140 years to set the world up for the Antichrist to rule. Interestingly Yuval Noah Harari has said that in 120 years humanity will be replaced by their transhuman cyborgs. Those beings without souls or genders who are promised eternal life providing they accept the new god.
God not only told us what is to come, he told us when it is to come as well.
I had the impression that the service assumes that everyone is saved. This is consistent with the assumption that infant baptism saves the infant. It is a dangerous assumption and may underlie things that are wrong with the C of E.
Well, John, it certainly assumes everyone agrees with the UK and I guess the Realms having a Christian constitution!