Jls 74 Rites Surrounding Death

The International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (IALC) has since 1985 brought together liturgists from around the worldwide Anglican Communion to ref lect together on common issues, and to assist their respective provinces to stay broadly in line with each other in decades of liturgical revision and renewal. The Consultations have been held in different parts of the world at two- or four-year intervals, and have furthered their own purposes by agreeing Statements on the themes they have considered. Thus they have published groundbreaking Statements on inculturation of the liturgy, on initiation, on the Eucharist, and on ordination.IALC-8, meeting at Palermo in Sicily in 2007, worked on 'Rites surrounding Death'. The 53 participants worked for the inside of a week, and then reckoned that, although their drafting was very nearly sufficiently worded for publication, yet it was in some need of further re-touching and integrating. Thus the international Steering Committee asked three scholars to edit the draft, and this, when completed, became in principle the Palermo Statement. As, however, the original Consultation could not be convened to agree it, and as the next two Consultations had other urgent tasks to address, the Steering Committee then commissioned Trevor Lloyd, one of the three editors, to take responsibility for the further editorial work of bringing the Statement to publication with an Introduction and Commentary. This Study thus presents his work in fulfilling this charge. The Statement itself is strongly pastoral in its style, for the participants at Palermo recognized from the outset the extraordinary combination of requirements in a Christian funeral - objectively setting out Christ's victory over death, yet sensitively meeting mourners at a great point of emotional and spiritual need. Trevor Lloyd has been for more than 40 years among the leaders of liturgical revision in the Church of England, being one of the originators of Grove Booklets on Worship and Ministry. He joined the Church of England Liturgical Commission in 1980, and had a large and creative hand in the forming of the range of material surrounding death in the Church of England Common Worship provision. He has participated in IALCs since 1989, and has been a member of the Joint Editorial Board for the Alcuin/GROW Joint Liturgical Studies from the outset in 1986. He was from 1989 to 2002 Archdeacon of Barnstaple in the Diocese of Exeter, and lives in North Devon in retirement. The Rev Dr Eileen Scully, currently chair of the IALC Steering Committee, gives an appropriate 'Commendatory Note' to explain the origins and status of the Statement, and to affirm the Committee's confidence in the work Trevor Lloyd has fulfilled.