Anglican Swahili Prayer Books: Tanzania (1995) and Congo (1998)
Fergus King2008, Mission Studies
Ian Tarrant, senior chaplain at Nottingham University, is well placed to write this study of Anglican prayer books. A Kiswahili-speaker and canon of Boga Cathedral in eastern Congo, he is long-acquainted with Anglican liturgics in Africa and knows the personalities involved in both Tanzanian and Congolese liturgical reform. Th is point needs to be made, as writing on these topics depends on the ability to contact those involved, records and paperwork being limited or restricted in availability. Tarrant participated in the composition of the Congolese prayer book and is well acquainted with the key personalities involved in the formation of its Tanzanian counterpart. Th is slim volume provides a brief historical introduction to the formation of the two prayer books, noting previous liturgical publications. Tarrant admits there is some diffi culty in identifying prayer books that were actually used. In fact, a Tanzanian Eucharistic rite was produced in 1979 and used into the 1990s. In some places it has yet to be superseded by the offi cial prayer book, though that may well change with the increased availability of a smaller and cheaper volume entitled Liturgia na Sala ya Asubuhi (Th e Liturgy and Morning Prayer). An English version of the 1979 rite was also produced and was being used up to 2003 at St. Alban's Church, now a cathedral, in Dar es Salaam. Tarrant compares the diff erent orders for morning prayer, Eucharist, baptism, marriages, funerals, and ordinals, highlighting the degree to which the Congolese rites have been contextualized compared to their Tanzanian counterparts. He also notes that the distinctive history of Tanzania, which saw the merging of low church (Church Mission Society) and high church (Universities' Mission to Central Africa, or UMCA) Anglican dioceses into a cohesive province, also intrudes in the 1995 book, particularly in the funeral rites. Th e work fi nishes with a short section summarizing the diff erences between the two prayer books (44). It is worth dwelling on some of these and suggesting why diff erences may appear. In Tarrant's conclusion, he notes that the Tanzanian prayer book omits a number of prayers for particular occasions found in the Congolese volume. Yet a number of these, such as those for visiting the sick, do appear elsewhere in a volume known as Sala II: Kitabu cha Sala, which is still widely used in former UMCA dioceses. Sala II also includes orders for sacramental confession, communion from the reserved sacrament, and other liturgical practices of the UMCA tradition. Th us these exist within the life of the province even if they do not appear to have made the fi nal cut into the provincial prayer-book. Anglo-Catholic rites are still used inasmuch as a number of UMCA dioceses continue to use the lectionaries and Eucharistic forms found in the Kiswahili missal, or Zanzibar rite. It is worth remembering in studies of liturgy and practice that the liturgical life of an Anglican province is not neatly reducible to its prayer-book. Th is volume will be useful for students of Anglican ritual as a global phenomenon, not least because it provides translations of the Eucharistic prayers into English. It is a comprehensive overview of the prayer-books for those who may not be able to access the originals in a language that they know. It thus provides a valuable service in getting the voices of