The Church confesses one Eucharist, not four. What varies among the rites contained here is not the substance of the Sacrament, but the received grammar of prayer by which the Church gives thanks, invokes the Holy Spirit, and offers the holy gifts in obedience to Christ’s command.
This Missal therefore gathers four rites that arise from distinct apostolic traditions of the undivided Church—Western and Eastern—each simplified and disciplined for use within the Ordinariate’s pastoral and missionary context, yet each retaining its own theological voice and internal coherence.
What follows is a brief orientation to these rites as they are, not as approximations of something else.
Rite I — The Classical Western Rite
Rite I represents the classical Roman eucharistic tradition as received through the Old Catholic churches of Old Catholics of Utrecht and England, with light Anglican influence in language and pastoral expression.
This rite is marked by sobriety, sacrificial clarity, and a strong sense of ordered progression toward the Canon. Its prayers presume a theology of offering shaped by the Western Latin tradition, expressed with restraint rather than elaboration. The influence of Anglicanism here is not structural but tonal—tempering the rite’s austerity with pastoral intelligibility.
Rite I is particularly well suited to contexts where continuity with the historic Western Church must be made visible, and where the Church’s worship is intended to stand firmly within the classical Roman inheritance without replicating later medieval accretions.
Rite I teaches confidence through stability.
Rite II — A Contemporary Western Rite
Rite II is a contemporary Western Eucharistic rite intentionally crafted for ecumenical accessibility without theological compromise. It draws substantively from Roman, Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist sources, while also receiving insights from the Christian East—particularly in its epiclesis and corporate sense of offering.
The language of this rite is modern, direct, and communal, yet it remains sacramentally serious and structurally disciplined. Its prayers are shaped to be readily intelligible across denominational backgrounds, making it especially suitable for chaplaincies, institutional ministries, mixed congregations, and missionary contexts.
Rite II does not flatten tradition; it listens to it broadly. It demonstrates that fidelity to the Eucharist need not require confessional insularity, and that clarity of language can coexist with depth of theology.
Rite II excels where hospitality and doctrinal integrity must walk together.
Rite III — A Byzantine Rite
Rite III is a simplified form of the Byzantine Eucharistic tradition, preserving its essential theological contours while adapting its length and ceremonial density for use in non-parochial and specialized ministry settings.
Rooted in the ethos of the Byzantine Rite, this rite emphasizes doxology, the sanctification of time, and the cosmic scope of salvation. Its prayers are expansive, its theology explicitly Trinitarian, and its eucharistic action inseparable from praise.
The simplification of the rite does not diminish its Eastern character. Rather, it allows the Church to pray with a genuinely Byzantine voice in contexts where the full ceremonial expression would be pastorally impractical.
Rite III reminds the Church that the Eucharist is not only an offering made, but a mystery entered.
Rite IV — A Syriac Rite
Rite IV draws from the Syriac liturgical tradition, with particular resonance from the Maronite Rite, itself rooted in the wider Syriac Rite.
This rite is poetic, biblical, and deeply incarnational. Its prayers are marked by rich imagery, typology, and a strong sense of God’s saving action unfolding through history. The language of offering is less juridical than relational, emphasizing healing, mercy, and divine compassion.
As with the Byzantine rite, this Syriac form has been simplified for pastoral use while retaining its theological soul. It is particularly resonant in contexts of suffering, illness, and vulnerability, where its imagery of light, medicine, and restoration speaks with quiet power.
Rite IV teaches the Church to pray not only with the mind, but with the heart and memory.
A Eucharistic Unity That Is Not Uniform
The inclusion of four rites within this Missal does not invite preference-based selection or liturgical experimentation. The choice of rite is a pastoral and episcopal responsibility, exercised in view of the people gathered, the setting of ministry, and the tradition being received.
What unites these rites is decisive: the same proclamation of the Word, the same invocation of the Holy Spirit, the same offering of bread and wine, the same communion in the Body and Blood of Christ. Their diversity is not a problem to be managed, but a gift to be stewarded.