1979 U. S. Book of Common Prayer:

ASCII Version

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer for the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) is available on the Web in ASCII text form - that is, as simple text just as if it was typed on a typewriter - at a number of locations.

• It can be found as a single large text file at Wiretap. (Size is about a megabyte)
• It can also be found as a single large file, compressed, at the Online Book Initiative . You will need the program gzip or uncompress (not PKUNZIP) to uncompress it. (Size is about 350 Kbytes). You should access this site by ftp, not a browser, as your browser probably won't be able to save the file properly. Point your ftp program to: ftp.std.com/obi and look in the Religion directory for the file Book.of.Common.Prayer.Z. This site is mirrored in the U. K. and in the Czech Republic.
• Additionally, the text file is available here ZIP compressed (size is 314K).
• It is also available in eleven parts, all about 100 KBytes in size, at American Univ. They are, specifically:
• BCPINFO.TXT -- the "Readme" with duplicate Table of Contents
• BCPOFFCE.TXT -- the Daily Office and front matter (p. 1 - 155)
• BCPCOLCT.TXT -- the Collects (p. 157 - 263)
• BCPSPECL.TXT -- Special services and Baptism (p. 264 - 314)
• BCPEUCHR.TXT -- The Eucharist (p. 315 - 409)
• BCPASTRL.TXT -- Pastoral Offices (Marriage, Burial) (p. 411 - 507)
• BCPEPSCL.TXT -- Episcopal Offices (Ordinations, etc.) (p. 509 - 579)
• BCPSALT1.TXT -- The Psalter, Psalms 1 - 75 (p. 581 - 691)
• BCPSALT2.TXT -- The Psalter, Psalms 76 - 150 (p. 692 - 808)
• BCPPRAYR.TXT -- Prayers and Thanksgivings, Catechism, Historical Documents, Tables (p. 809 - 885)
• BCPLECTN.TXT -- Lectionary (p. 887 - 1001)

Once you have one of the parts on-screen, click on File/Save As... on your browser's menu and it will be saved onto your disk drive.

The above files may also be obtained via anonymous FTP at ftp://listserv.american.edu. They are found in the directory /pub/anglican. If you're familiar with FTP, this is probably a faster and more efficient way to obtain them.

And, finally, you can get them by e-mail. Simply send the message GET BCPINFO.TXT to listserv@american.edu and the first section will be forwarded to you by e-mail. You may obtain the other files, as named above, in a similar way.

Webmaster: Charles Wohlers

Return to: Book of Common Prayer Home Page

Last updated: 18 November 1997