Testing Flexibility: The Ritual Controversy in the Nineteenth-century Church of England

The next four chapters will examine practical examples of times when a flexible approach to legal regulation was exercised within the Church of England, or (in the case of Chapter 10) relating to the Church of England with the hallmarks of dispensation and economy, whether or not the terms themselves were specifically used. The first two examples are connected; the proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer (examined in Chapter 9) was prompted by the legal tangle in which the Church found itself in the nineteenth century, to which we turn in this chapter. The third and fourth examples are also connected and concern ecumenical relations. Chapter 10 examines the specific use of economy in attempts to seek rapprochement between Anglican and Orthodox Churches in the inter-war period. Chapter 11 seeks to provide an intellectual rationale based on the concepts of dispensation or (more likely) economy for the flexibility adopted by those in authority when faced with a tension between the letter of the law and the perceived higher calling to promote the unity of the Church.