It might seem persnickety, but it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem.
On the one hand, we have a report to our General Synod Te Hinota Whanui (GSTHW) that our Church suffers from “lack of training and resourcing of clergy in liturgy“. [My response to this was: Why does GSTHW not do something significant about this?! You have the power/authority/finances…]
On the other hand, we have chaotic, confusing, and contradictory “agreements” (and “formularies“). It is often very difficult to find what we have actually agreed to as a church, and then what to do when we find two conflicting directives…
Now to the possibly-fastidious example.
Our New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa (all the way to the 2024 edition, NZPBHKMA page 7) says that The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple is NOT a ‘Principal Feasts’ (which would mean it would trump any Sunday Epiphany/Ordinary Time), and Epiphany/Ordinary Sunday 4 may be celebrated this Sunday.
That is how our blogging bishop, Peter Carrell, understands our Church agreement: it is “likely many parishes will celebrate the Presentation” this coming Sunday. I.e. many other parishes could be expected to celebrate Epiphany/Ordinary Sunday 4.
Another document, however, called “Liturgical Precedence (updated 2014)”, would have that The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple IS a Principal Feast which is to be observed (hence trumping Epiphany/Ordinary Sunday 4!).
The 2025 NZ Lectionary booklet gives no choice – the only option provided is: The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple
I had mistakenly thought that the document titled Liturgical Precedence (updated 2014) had some sort of status within our Church. But, according to our Church’s “formularies as at 2024” it is not even listed as having been received by GSTHW – the lowest (and non-binding) status in our Church!
What is happening in our Church is a constant chaotic conflation, a continual patching of one piece onto another (warned against by someone in Luke 5:36!) The Church of England or The Episcopal Church (as just two examples) think through to a systematic, logical way of covering this time of year. NZ Anglicanism is taking mother CofE’s rediscovered infatuation with an Epiphany Season ending at Candlemas (appropriate for the Northern Hemisphere bleak mid-winter) and patches it onto Romanophilia for Ordinary Time…. so that the Church of England’s “Ordinary Time” {as per Liturgical Precedence (updated 2014)} beginning after Candlemas suddenly leaps 4 Sundays in NZ Anglicanism to catch up with Roman Catholicism!
All this doesn’t matter until it does.
There are now non-formulary services in ANZPBHKMA. This year every diocesan synod and Hui Amorangi will vote that those parts aren’t binding on us – and change our Constitution to unbind them. Good luck trying to work out which bits of our Prayer Book are formularies and which bits aren’t!!!
In the midst of all this chaos, in which it continues to be unclear what we have agreed is required, what is allowed, and what is forbidden, we changed the Constitution to allow bishops to authorise services – but it is completely unclear: can a bishop authorise a different service if there is already an agreed formula rite for the event? Can a bishop authorise an ordination service different to the agreed ordination formulary? Does a bishop by using a rite differing from our agreed formulary thereby authorise it?
We live in interesting times…
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