The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) is the foundational liturgical book of Anglicanism. The first edition was compiled by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1549, replacing the Latin liturgy of the pre-Reformation Church with a single, unified service book in English — making worship accessible to ordinary worshippers for the first time.
The Prayer Book was revised in 1552 under Cranmer, briefly set aside during the Catholic restoration under Mary I, and then restored and revised again in 1559 as part of the Elizabethan Settlement, with a further significant revision in 1662 that remains the official Prayer Book of the Church of England.
As Anglicanism spread worldwide, most provinces of the Anglican Communion developed their own prayer books, adapted to local language and context, but tracing their structure — Morning and Evening Prayer, Holy Communion, baptism, marriage, and more — back to Cranmer's original work.