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Book of Common Prayer

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   The Book of Common Prayer is the foundational prayer book of the Church
   of England (and hence Anglicanism). It was one of the instruments of
   the English Reformation and was later to be adapted and revised in
   other countries where Anglicanism became established. The BCP replaced
   the various 'uses' or rites in Latin that had been used in different
   parts of the country with a single compact volume in English so that
   "now from henceforth all the Realm shall have but one use". First
   produced in 1549, it was drastically revised in 1552 and more subtly
   changed in 1559 and 1662. It remains, in law, the primary liturgical
   prayer book of the Church of England, although it has, in practice,
   been largely replaced by more modern prayer books, the most recent of
   which is Common Worship. The Book of Common Prayer is also the name of
   the current liturgical book in the Episcopal Church of America as well
   as some Methodist churches.

History

The Prayer Books of Edward VI

   The work of producing English language books for use in the liturgy was
   largely the work of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury at first
   under the reign of Henry VIII, only more radically under his son
   Edward. Cranmer was not one of the "advanced thinkers" and was not
   initially in touch with contemporary German reform. Nevetheless, his
   first work, the Exhortation and Litany, the earliest English-language
   service book of the Church of England, was no mere translation: its
   Protestant character is made clear by the drastic reduction of the
   place of saints, compressing what had been the major part into three
   petitions. Published in 1544 it borrowed greatly from Martin Luther's
   Litany and Myles Coverdale's New Testament and was the only service
   that might be considered to be " Protestant" to be finished within the
   lifetime of King Henry VIII.

   It was not until Henry's death in 1547 and the accession of Edward VI
   that revision could proceed faster. Cranmer finished his work on an
   English Communion rite in 1548, obeying an order of Parliament that
   Communion was to be given as both bread and wine. The service existed
   as an addition to the pre-existing Latin Mass.

   It was included, one year later, in 1549, in a full prayer book, set
   out with a daily office, readings for Sundays and Holy Days, the
   Communion Service, Public Baptism, of Confirmation, of Matrimony, The
   Visitation of the Sick, At a Burial and the Ordinal (added in 1550).
   The Preface to this edition, which contained Cranmer's explanation as
   to why a new prayer book was necessary, began: "There was never any
   thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which
   in continuance of time hath not been corrupted." The original version
   was only used until 1552, when a further revision was published.

   The 1549 introduction of the Book of Common Prayer was widely unpopular
   especially in places such as Cornwall where traditional religious
   processions and pilgrimages were banned and commissioners sent out to
   remove all symbols of Roman Catholicism. At the time the Cornish only
   spoke their native Cornish language and the forced introduction of the
   English Book of Common Prayer resulted in the 1549 Prayer Book
   Rebellion. Proposals to translate the Prayer Book into Cornish were
   suppressed and in total some 4,000 people lost their lives in the
   rebellion. (Ironically, one of the Articles of Religion was to read:
   "It is a thing plainly repugnant to the word of God and the custom of
   the primitive Church, to have public prayer in the Church, or to
   minister the sacraments in a tongue not understanded of the people.")

   The 1552 prayer book marked a considerable change. In response to
   criticisms by such as Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer deliberate steps
   were taken to excise Catholic practices and more fully realize the
   Calvinist theological project in England. In the Eucharist, gone were
   the words Mass and altar; the ' Lord have mercy' was inserted into a
   recitation of the Ten Commandments; removed to the end was the Gloria;
   gone was any reference to an offering of a 'Sacrifice of praise and
   thanksgiving' in the Eucharistic prayer, which ended with the words of
   institution (This is my Body..This is my blood...in remembrance of me.)
   The elevation of the host and all other manual acts were omitted. The
   part of the prayer which followed, the Prayer of Oblation, was
   transferred, much changed, to a position after the congregation had
   received communion. The words at the administration of communion which,
   in the prayer book of 1549 described the eucharistic species as 'The
   body of our Lorde Jesus Christe...', 'The blood of our Lorde Jesus
   Christe...' were replaced with the words 'Take, eat, in remembrance
   that Christ died for thee..' etc. The Peace, at which in earlier times
   the congregation had exchanged a greeting, was removed altogether.
   Vestments such as the stole, chasuble and cope were no longer to be
   worn, but only a surplice. It was the final stage of Cranmer's work of
   removing all elements of sacrifice from the Latin Mass. In the Baptism
   service the signing with the cross was moved until after the baptism
   and the exorcism, the anointing, the putting on of the chrysom robe and
   the triple immersion were omitted. Most drastic of all was the removal
   of the Burial service from church: it was to take place at the
   graveside. In 1549, there had been provision for a Requiem (not so
   called) and prayers of commendation and committal, the first addressed
   to the deceased. All that remained was a single reference to the
   deceased, giving thanks for their delivery from 'the myseryes of this
   sinneful world'. This new Order for the Burial of the Dead was a
   drastically stripped-down memorial service designed to definitively
   undermine the whole complex of traditional beliefs about Purgatory and
   intercessory prayer.

   Before the book was in general use, however, Edward VI died. In 1553,
   Mary, upon her succession to the throne, restored the old religion. The
   Mass was re-established, altars, roods and statues were re-instated; an
   attempt was made to restore the Church to its Roman affiliation.
   Cranmer was punished for his work in the Protestant reformation by
   being burned at the stake on March 21, 1556. Nevertheless, the 1552
   book was to survive. After Mary's death in 1558, it became the primary
   source for the Elizabethan Book of Common Prayer, with subtle if
   significant changes only.

The 1559 prayer book

   Thus, under Elizabeth, a more permanent enforcement of the Reformed
   religion was undertaken, and the 1552 book was republished in 1559,
   along with laws requiring conformity to the new standards. In its
   Elizabethan form, scarcely altered, it was used for nearly 100 years,
   thus being the official prayer book under the Stuarts as well as being
   the first Anglican service in the American colonies. This was the
   prayer book of Queen Elizabeth I, John Donne, and Richard Hooker. It
   was also at the core of English liturgical life throughout the lifetime
   of Shakespeare.

   The alterations of the 1559 Prayer Book from its 1552 precursor, though
   minor, were to cast a long shadow. One related to what was worn.
   Instead of the banning of all vestments save the rochet (for bishops)
   and the surplice for parish clergy, it permitted 'such ornaments...as
   were in use...in the second year of K. Edward VI'. This allowed
   substantial leeway for more traditionalist clergy to retain at least
   some of the vestments which they felt were appropriate to liturgical
   celebration. It was also to be the basis of claims in the 19th. century
   that vestments such as chasubles, albs and stoles were legal. At the
   Communion the words 'the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ' etc. were
   combined with the words of Edward's second book, 'Take eat in
   remembrance..' etc. The prohibition on kneeling at the Communion was
   omitted. The conservative nature of these changes underlines the fact
   that Elizabeth's Protestantism was by no means universally popular, a
   fact which she herself recognised; her revived Act of Supremacy, giving
   her the ambiguous title of Supreme Governor passed without difficulty,
   but the Act of Uniformity passed through Parliament by only three
   votes.

   Still, the 1559 Prayer Book offered enough to both traditionalists and
   radical reformers to establish it at the heart of the first relatively
   stable Protestant state in Europe -- the "Elizabethan settlement."
   However, on her death in 1603, this book, substantially the book of
   1552, having been regarded as offensive by the likes of Bishop Stephen
   Gardiner in the sixteenth century as being a break with the tradition
   of the Western church, as it was, by the seventeenth century had come
   to be regarded as unduly Catholic. On the accession of James I,
   following the so-called Millenary Petition, the Hampton Court
   conference of 1604, a meeting of bishops and Puritan divines, resisted
   the pressure for change (save to the catechism). By the reign of
   Charles I (1625-1649) the Puritan pressure, exercised through a much
   changed Parliament, had increased. Government-inspired petitions for
   the removal of the prayer book and episcopacy 'root and branch'
   resulted in local disquiet in many places and eventually the production
   of locally organised counter petitions. The government had its way but
   it became clear that the division was not between Catholics and
   Protestants, but between Puritans and those who valued the Elizabethan
   settlement. The 1559 book was finally outlawed by Parliament in 1645 to
   be replaced by the Directory of Public Worship which was more a set of
   instructions than a prayer book. How widely the Directory was used is
   not certain; there is some evidence of its having been purchased, in
   churchwardens' accounts, but not widely. The Prayer Book certainly was
   used clandestinely in some places, not least because the Directory made
   no provision at all for burial services. Following the execution of
   Charles I in 1649 and the establishment of the Commonwealth under Lord
   Protector Cromwell, it would not be reinstated until shortly after the
   restoration of the monarchy to England.

The Prayer Book in Scotland

   Laud's abortive 1637 Prayer book
   Laud's abortive 1637 Prayer book

   With the uniting of the two thrones, King Charles I, with the
   assistance of Archbishop Laud, had sought to impose the prayer book on
   Scotland. The book concerned was not, however, the 1559 book but very
   much that of 1549,the first book of Edward VI. First used in 1637, it
   was never accepted, having been violently rejected by the Scots.
   Following the English Civil war, the Church of Scotland was
   re-established on a presbyterian basis but by the Act of Comprehension
   1690, the rump of Episcopalians were allowed to hold onto their
   benefices. For liturgy they looked to Laud's book and in 1724 the first
   of the 'Wee Bookies' was published, containing, for the sake of
   economy, the central part of the Communion beginning with the
   Offertory. Between then and 1764, when a more formal revised version
   was published, a number of things happened which were to separate the
   Scottish liturgy more firmly from either the English books of 1549 or
   1559. First, informal changes were made to the order of the various
   parts of the service and inserting words indicating a sacrificial
   intent to the eucharist; secondly, as a result of Bishop Rattray's
   researches into the liturgies of St. James and St. Clement, published
   in 1744, the form of the invocation was changed. These changes were
   incorporated into the 1764 book which was to be the liturgy of the
   Scottish Episcopal Church (until 1911 when it was revised) but it was
   also to influence the liturgy of the Episcopal Church in the United
   States (See below). (A completely new revision was finished in 1929,
   and several revisions to the communion service have been prepared since
   then.)

The 1662 prayer book

   The 1662 prayer book was printed only two years after the restoration
   of the monarchy, following the Savoy Conference convened by Royal
   Warrant to review the book of 1559. Attempts by Presbyterians led by
   Richard Baxter to gain approval for an alternative service book were in
   vain. In reply to the Presbyterian Exceptions to the book only fifteen
   'trivial' changes were made to the book of 1559, some of which were the
   opposite of what they wanted. Among them was the inclusion of the
   Offertory. This was achieved by the insertion of the words 'and
   oblations' into the prayer for the Church and the revision of the
   rubric so as to require the monetary offerings to be brought to the
   Table (instead of being put in the poor box) and the bread and wine
   placed upon the Table. Previously it had not been clear when and how
   bread and wine got onto the altar. The so-called manual acts, whereby
   the priest elevated the bread and the cup during the prayer of
   consecration, which had been deleted in 1552, were restored. After the
   communion the unused but consecrated bread and wine were to be
   reverently consumed in church rather than being taken away and used for
   any other occasion. By such subtle means were Cranmer's purposes
   further subverted, leaving it for generations to argue over the precise
   theology of the rite. One change was made that constituted somewhat of
   a reversion to Cranmerian theology was the re-insertion of the
   so-called Black Rubric, which had been removed in 1559. This declared
   that kneeling in order the receive the communion did not imply
   adoration of the species of the Eucharist nor 'to any Corporal Presence
   of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood' - which, said the rubric, were in
   heaven, not here.

   Unable to accept the new book 2,000 Presbyterians were deprived of
   their livings. This revision survives today as the "standard"
   Parliament-approved Book of Common Prayer in England, with only minor
   revisions since its publication (mostly due the changes in the monarchy
   and in the dominion of the former Empire). Many parishes still use it,
   but usually only for an early morning Sunday communion, or evensong.
   Most services in the Church of England are from Common Worship,
   approved by General Synod in 2000, following nearly forty years of
   experiment.

   The actual language of the 1662 revision was little changed from that
   of Cranmer, with the exception of the modernization of only the most
   archaic words and phrases. This book was the one which had existed as
   the official Book of Common Prayer during the most monumental periods
   of growth of the British empire, and, as a result, has been a great
   influence on the prayer books of Anglican churches worldwide, liturgies
   of other denominations in English, and of the English language as a
   whole.

Further developments

   After the 1662 prayer book, development ceased in England until the
   twentieth century; that it did was, however, a bit of a close run
   thing. On the death of Charles II his brother, a Roman Catholic, became
   James II. James wished to achieve toleration for those of his own Roman
   Catholic faith, whose practices were still banned. This, however, drew
   the Presbyterians closer to the Church of England in their common
   desire to resist 'popery'; talk of reconciliation and liturgical
   compromise was thus in the air. But with the flight of James in 1688
   and the arrival of the Calvinist William of Orange the position of the
   parties changed. The Presbyterians could achieve toleration of their
   practices without such a right being given to Roman Catholics and
   without, therefore, their having to submit to the Church of England,
   even with a liturgy more acceptable to them. They were now in a much
   stronger position to demand even more radical changes to the forms of
   worship. John Tillotson, Dean of St. Paul's pressed the king to set up
   a Commission to produce such a revision The so-called Liturgy of
   Comprehension of 1689, which was the result, conceded two thirds of the
   Presbyterian demands of 1661; but when it came to Convocation the
   members, now more fearful of William's perceived agenda, did not even
   discuss it and its contents were, for a long time, not even accessible.
   This work, however, did go on to influence the prayer books of many
   British colonies.

   By the 19th century other pressures upon the book of 1662 had arisen.
   Adherents of the Oxford Movement, begun in 1833, raised questions about
   the relationship of the Church of England to the apostolic church and
   thus about its forms of worship. Known as Tractarians after their
   production of 'Tracts for the Times' on theological issues, they
   advanced the case for the Church of England being essentially a part of
   the 'Western Church', of which the Roman Catholic Church was the chief
   representative. The illegal use of elements of the Roman rite, the use
   of candles, vestments and incense, practices known as Ritualism, had
   become widespread and led to the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874
   which established a new system of discipline, intending to bring the
   'Romanisers' into conformity. The Act had no effect on illegal
   practices: five clergy were imprisoned for contempt of court and after
   the trial of the much loved Bishop Edward King of Lincoln, it became
   clear that some revision of the liturgy had to be embarked upon.
   Following a Royal Commission report in 1906, work began on a new prayer
   book, work that was to take twenty years.

   In 1927, this proposed prayer book was finished. It was decided, during
   development, that the use of the services therein would be decided on
   by each given congregation, so as to avoid as much conflict as possible
   with traditionalists. With these open guidelines the book was granted
   approval by the Church of England Convocations and Church Assembly.
   Since the Church of England is a state church, a further step—sending
   the proposed revision to Parliament—was required, and the book was
   rejected in December of that year when the MP William Joynson-Hicks
   argued strongly against it on the grounds that the proposed book was
   "papistical" and insufficiently Protestant. The next year was spent
   revising the book to make it more suitable for Parliament, but it was
   rejected yet again in 1928. However Convocation declared a state of
   emergency and authorised bishops to use the revised Book throughout
   that emergency.

   The effect of the failure of the 1928 book was salutary: no further
   attempts were made to change the book, other than those required for
   the changes to the monarchy. Instead a different process, that of
   producing an alternative book, led to the publication of Series 1, 2
   and 3 in the 1960s, the 1980 Alternative Service Book and subsequently
   to the 2000 Common Worship series of books. Both differ substantially
   from the Book of Common Prayer, though the latter includes in the Order
   Two form of the Holy Communion a very slight revision of the prayer
   book service altering only one or two words and allowing the insertion
   of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) before Communion. Order One follows the
   pattern of modern liturgical scholarship.

   In 2003, a Roman Catholic adaptation of the BCP was published called
   the Book of Divine Worship. It is a compromise of material drawn from
   the proposed 1928 book, the 1979 ECUSA book, and the Roman Missal. It
   was published primarily for use by Catholic converts from Anglicanism
   within the Anglican Use.

The Prayer book in the Anglican Communion

   With British colonial expansion from the seventeenth century onwards,
   the Anglican church was planted across the globe. These churches at
   first used and then revised the use of the Prayer Book, until they,
   like their parent, produced prayer books which took into account the
   developments in liturgical study and practice in the nineteenth and
   twentieth centuries, which come under the general heading of the
   Liturgical Movement.

USA

   The Episcopal Church in the United States of America separated itself
   from the Church of England in 1789, having been established in the
   United States in 1607. Its prayer book, published in 1790, had as its
   sources, the 1662 English book and the 1764 Scottish Liturgy (see
   above) which Bishop Seabury of Connecticut has brought over following
   his consecration in Aberdeen in 1784, containing elements of each.. The
   preface to the 1789 Book of Common Prayer says that "this Church is far
   from intending to depart from the Church of England in any essential
   point of doctrine, discipline, or worship...further than local
   circumstances require." There were some notable differences. For
   example, after the words of institution there follows a Prayer of
   Oblation from 1549, but into which were inserted the words 'which we
   now offer unto thee' (in small caps) with reference to the 'holy gifts'
   An epiclesis was included, as in the Scottish book, though modified to
   meet reformist objections. On the whole the book was modelled in the
   English Prayer Book, the Convention having resisted attempts at
   deletion and revision and modified the Scottish Liturgy to bring it
   substantially into line with the English.

   Further revisions occurred in 1892 and 1928, in which minor changes
   were made, removing, for instance, some of Cranmer's Exhortations and
   introducing such innovations as prayers for the dead.

   In 1979, a more substantial revision was made. There were now two rites
   for the most common services, the first which kept most of the language
   of 1928, and the second using only contemporary language (some of it
   newly composed, and some adapted from the older language). Many changes
   were made in the rubrics and the shapes of the services, which were
   generally made for both the traditional and contemporary language
   versions. However, there was arguably a greater degree of continuity
   than was the case in England, which may account for the fact that all
   the books of the series, from 1790 to 1979 retain the same title. The
   1979 book owes a good deal to the Liturgical Movement and to the 19th
   century Catholic revival.

   Even so the revision caused some controversy and in 2000 an apology was
   issued by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to those
   "offended or alienated during the time of liturgical transition to the
   1979 Book of Common Prayer".

Australia

   The Anglican Church of Australia, until 1981 officially known as the
   Church of England in Australia and Tasmania, became self-governing in
   1961. Among other things the General Synod agreed that the Book of
   Common Prayer was to '... be regarded as the authorised standard of
   worship and doctrine in this Church ...'. In 1978 An Australian Prayer
   Book was produced which sought to adhere to this principle, so that
   where the Liturgical Committee could not agree on a formulation, the
   words or expressions of the BCP were to be used. The result was
   conservative revision.

   In 1995 a similar process could be observed as elsewhere with the
   production of A Prayer Book for Australia which departed from both the
   structure and wording of the BCP. The process was accompanied by
   numerous objections, notably from the deeply conservatively Evangelical
   Diocese of Sydney which noted the loss of BCP wording and of an
   explicit 'biblical doctrine of substitutionary atonement'. On the other
   hand, the rest of the Australian church has not proved as difficult as
   prayer book revisers might have supposed. The Diocese of Sydney has
   developed its own small prayer book, called Sunday Services, to
   supplement the existing prayer book and preserve the original theology
   which the Sydney diocese asserts has been changed.

Canada

   The Anglican Church of Canada developed its first Book of Common Prayer
   separate from the English version in 1918. The revision of 1962 was
   much more substantial, bearing a family relationship to that of the
   abortive 1928 book in England: the language was conservatively
   modernised, and additional seasonal material was added but, as in
   England, whilst many prayers were retained the structure of Communion
   service was altered: a Prayer of Oblation was added to the Eucharistic
   prayer after the 'words of institution', thus reflecting the rejection
   of Cranmer's theology in liturgical developments across the Anglican
   Communion. A French translation, Le Recueil des Prières de la
   Communauté Chrétienne, was published in 1967.

   After a period of experimentation with the publication of various
   supplements, the Book of Alternative Services was published in 1985.
   This book (which owes much to Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican and
   other sources) has widely supplanted the 1962 book, though the latter
   remains authorised. As in other places there has been a reaction and
   the Canadian version of the Book of Common Prayer has found supporters.

India

   The Church of South India was the first episcopal uniting church of our
   age, consisting as it did, from its foundation in 1947, at the time of
   Indian independence, of Anglicans, Methodists, Congregationists,
   Presbyterians and Reformed Christians. Its liturgy, from the first,
   combined the free use of Cranmer's language with an adherence to the
   principles of congregational participation and the centrality of the
   Eucharist, much in line with the Liturgical Movement. Because it was a
   minority church of widely differing traditions in a non-Christian
   culture, practice varied wildly but the retention of Cranmerian
   language, and a sympathy with his theology, in the 2004 revision, is a
   reminder of both the richness of his language and the breadth of his
   influence.

Religious influence

   The Book of Common Prayer has had a great influence on a number of
   other denominations. While theologically different, the language and
   flow of the service of many other churches owes a great debt to the
   prayer book.

   John Wesley, an Anglican priest whose revivalist preaching led to the
   creation of Methodism wrote, "I believe there is no Liturgy in the
   world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a
   solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church
   of England." Many Methodist churches in England continued to use a
   slightly revised version of the book for communion services well into
   the 20th century.

   In the 1960s, when Roman Catholicism adopted a vernacular revised mass,
   many translations of the English prayers followed the form of Cranmer's
   translation.

Literary influence

   Together with the King James Version of the Bible and the works of
   Shakespeare, the Book of Common Prayer has been one of the three
   fundamental underpinnings of modern English. As it has been in regular
   use for centuries, many phrases from its services have passed into the
   English language, either as deliberate quotations or as unconscious
   borrowings. They are used in non-liturgical ways. For example, many
   authors have used quotes from the prayer book as titles for their
   books.

   Some examples of well-known phrases from the Book of Common Prayer are:
     * "Speak now or forever hold your peace" from the marriage liturgy.
     * "Till death us do part", from the marriage liturgy.
     * "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust" from the funeral
       service.
     * "From all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil" from
       the litany.

   The phrase "till death us do part" has been changed to "till death do
   us part" in some more recent prayer books, such as the 1962 Canadian
   Book of Common Prayer.

Copyright status

   In most of the world the Book of Common Prayer can be freely reproduced
   as it is long out of copyright. This is not the case in the United
   Kingdom itself.

   In the United Kingdom, the rights to the Book of Common Prayer are held
   by the British Crown. The rights fall outside the scope of copyright as
   defined in statute law. Instead they fall under the purview of the
   royal prerogative and as such they are perpetual in subsistence.
   Publishers are licensed to reproduce the Book of Common Prayer under
   letters patent. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the letters
   patent are held by the Queen's Printer, and in Scotland by the Scottish
   Bible Board. The office of Queen's Printer has been associated with the
   right to reproduce the Bible for many years, with the earliest known
   reference coming in 1577. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the
   Queen's Printer is Cambridge University Press. CUP inherited the right
   of being Queen's Printer when they took over the firm of Eyre &
   Spottiswoode in the late 20th century. Eyre & Spottiswoode had been
   Queen's Printer since 1901. Other letters patent of similar antiquity
   grant Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press the right
   to produce the Book of Common Prayer independently of the Queen's
   Printer.

   The terms of the letters patent prohibit those other than the holders,
   or those authorised by the holders from printing, publishing or
   importing the Book of Common Prayer into the United Kingdom. The
   protection that the Book of Common Prayer, and also the Authorised
   Version, enjoy is the last remnant of the time when the Crown held a
   monopoly over all printing and publishing in the United Kingdom.

   It is common misconception that the Controller of Her Majesty's
   Stationery Office holds letters patent for being Queen's Printer. The
   Controller of HMSO holds a separate set of letters patent which cover
   the office Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament. The Scotland Act 1998
   defines the position of Queen's Printer for Scotland as also being held
   by the Queen's Printer of Acts of Parliament. The position of
   Government Printer for Northern Ireland is also held by the Controller
   of HMSO.

   As mentioned above, the ECUSA book is always released into the public
   domain. Trial use and supplemental liturgies are however copyrighted by
   Church Publishing, the official publishing arm of the church.

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