PROVISIONAL OFFICES
 

OF THE
 

MEXICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH
 

OR
 

CHURCH OF JESUS.

The Mexican Episcopal Church, or Igelsia de Jesús (Church of Jesus) was initially started by former Roman Catholic clergy in the 1850's, who then joined with American Episcopal missionaries in 1874 to formally found the Church. This Church has long been closely associated with the American Episcopal Church: it was a missionary district of the Episcopal Church from 1904, and long has had both English-speaking expatriate and Spanish-speaking native congregations. It became an independent province of the Anglican Communion in 1995.
 

The text presented here is the first and only Prayer Book of the Mexican Church. It was first published in 1894, reprinted as a diglot (English & Spanish) edition the following year, and again reprinted in 1901. Since that time this Church apparently has used the Spanish and English editions of the Prayer Books of the American Episcopal Church.

This Prayer Book is particularly noteable as it is not a simple translation of either the English or American Books of Common Prayer, but rather is an independent composition drawing heavily on the traditional Mozarabic liturgy of Spain. The Book was actually composed in the United States, apparently originally in English, by the Rev. Charles Hale, later Bishop of Springfield, and John Peters. It was then translated into Spanish under the direction of the Bishop Henry Forrester in Mexico. More detailed information may be found in The Book of Common Prayer among the Nations of the World.

The particular book used here is the English / Spanish diglot edition of 1895, listed in David Griffiths' Bibliography of the Book of Common Prayer as 162:14. It has the English and Spanish versions on facing pages, Spanish on the left and English on the right. It only contains a portion of the Book of Common Prayer. We present here the entire book as PDF graphics, and the English portion additionally as HTML text.

Oficio Matutino
Morning Prayer