“We have come to expect from Paul Bradshaw the very best in critical historical studies of Christian liturgical practice and the most accurate and balanced accounts of the diversities of current Christian liturgical meaning. Both gifts are brilliantly present in this book. No future consideration of the history or the meaning of the appointment to leadership in Christian communities will be able responsibly to ignore this important book. Even more, the excellent questions that Bradshaw puts to every period of this history—including our own—will be able to form the basis for a lively conversation between the churches, a conversation that may move toward both mutual recognition of ministries and mutual admonition about their potential misuses. This is a fair, honest, important, and genuinely ecumenical book.”

— Gordon W. Lathrop

Professor of Liturgy Emeritus

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia