In 1870, disestablishment suddenly turned the Church of Ireland from a state church into a democracy, governed by its “parliament,” the General Synod. The empowerment of the laity left it with a distinctive, indeed unique, feature among the churches of the Anglican communion—a set of disciplinary canons designed to exclude high-church ritualism from its worship. Passed in 1871, these canons, the most radical of which included a ban on the use of the cross, were used by evangelical pressure-groups to prosecute high-church clergy in the church courts. For the dominant low-church lay party, determined to defend the “Reformation heritage” of the Church of Ireland, they represented an essential bulwark against the threat of English high-church ritualism and a “slide towards Rome.” For many clergy and bishops, anxious to allow for a broader range of Anglican churchmanship, the canons unduly narrowed and impoverished the worship of the Church of Ireland. Because of the General Synod's majority voting mechanism, efforts to amend the canons proved fruitless. It was only in 1964 that the ban on the cross was removed, and not until 1974 that the canons as a whole were revised, ending over a hundred years of contention and division.

This article examines South Africa’s contribution to the spread of Anglican ritualism in the mid-nineteenth century and seeks to add a South African voice to the growing contemporary scholarship in this area. It begins by examining the role of South Africa’s first Anglican bishop in fostering a climate conducive to ritualism. This is followed by an examination of some of the early developments which were considered ‘popish’ by colonist congregations. The second part of the study focuses on two examples of advanced ritualist parishes paying attention to ‘signs’ of medievalist revivals and the confident manner in which ritualism was discussed. The author finds that after an initial period of fairly robust antagonism towards ritualism by colonists, a general movement towards ritualist practices began to emerge. The sources consulted for this article include letters, newspaper and periodical articles, archival material and a couple of unpublished theses.

This article examines the themes emerging from the engagement of African states with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanisms of the UN Human Rights Council. The underlying principles of universality, cooperation and dialogue that guide the review have given African states a renewed sense of engagement with the international human rights institution. Despite the universality of the process, regionalism and cultural relativism are important aspects in the engagement of African states with the UPR mechanism. This article considers the extent to which regionalism and cultural relativism may prevent UPR from acting as an effective mechanism for human rights enforcement. It examines the potential for UPR to complement other national, regional and international human rights mechanisms, and the danger of state ritualism. These have ramifications for the extent to which UPR can achieve its goal of improving the human rights situation on the ground in Africa.

The first silent preached retreat in the Anglican Communion was held in 1858. The exercise quickly aroused suspicions because it appeared to be dangerously close to Roman Catholic practice. Based upon original printed sources, this paper reviews arguments put forward during the next ten years by three advocates of the led retreat, to counter such fears. Far from being part of a Roman plot, they claimed that the retreats were an expression of a fundamental spiritual principle, which was not limited to any particular denomination and party.