Seventy scholars from across the Anglican Communion met in Dublin for the fifth International Anglican Liturgical Consultation. Their topic was the Holy Eucharist. In this volume, consultation members survey the state of the Eucharist in contemporary Anglicanism and look at current eucharistic concerns.

From the perspective of Anglican identity, the fourth of the Consultation's nine Principles and Recommendations appears especially significant: "In the future, Anglican unity will find its liturgical expression not so much in uniform texts as in a common approach to eucharistic celebration and a structure which will ensure a balance of word, prayer, and sacrament, and which bears witness to the catholic calling of the Anglican Communion." A look around the Anglican Communion, or even at diversity within particular provinces, suggests that in many places this development has already come about.

These papers repeatedly assert that it is the community which celebrates the Eucharist. Yet the community must not listen only to its own leaders and liturgists. Elizabeth I. Smith, an Australian priest, remarks that "to see those in whom the Spirit is chiefly at work for the renewal of the church's worship, it is important to look away from the centre and towards the margins of the church."

(The Very Rev.) Charles Hoffacker

Port Huron, Mich.