On the May 23 edition of his Via Media podcast, the Rev. Gerald R. McDermott welcomes the Rev. Matthew Olver, assistant professor of liturgics and pastoral theology at Nashotah House Theological Seminary.
McDermott is Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., and leads its Institute of Anglican Studies.
McDermott and Olver discuss the differences in Roman Catholic, Cranmerian, and Scottish traditions of celebrating Holy Communion, and how those traditions appear in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and the 2019 prayer book of the Anglican Church in North America.
They then discuss the thinking of Pope Benedict XVI, who may help resolve some of the tensions within Protestant theology about the nature of the Eucharist.
Matthew Townsend is a Halifax-based freelance journalist and volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual misconduct in Anglican settings. He served as editor of the Anglican Journal from 2019 to 2021 and communications missioner for the Anglican Diocese of Quebec from 2019 to 2022. He and his wife recently entered catechism class in the Orthodox Church in America.
