Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi

The Venerable Canon Jason Constantine / November 16, 2025

A cursory glance through almost any edition of the Book of Common Prayer will reveal two tid-bits of insight into Anglicans.  First, we prefer our liturgy to be in English.  Second, we prefer the titles of our liturgy’s subsections to be in Latin.  There’s just something about Latin that Anglicans still love even after nearly 500 years of liturgy in the English language.  If you ask my parishioners, or any of my children for that matter, what is my favorite phrase, they will respond in a reflex-quick manner, lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.  It rolls off the tongue with a noble dignity and the same gravitas as Julius Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered).  So, what does lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi mean?

The law of prayer is the law of belief is the law of life.

The literal translation is a bit clunky in my opinion.  After all, what is meant by the laws of prayer, belief, and life and why connect them?  So, I generally prefer a less direct translation; how we pray informs what we believe and shapes how we live. 

In this model, prayer is far more than simply bowing one’s head, closing one’s eyes, and lifting desires to the Almighty.  It includes the manner by which we worship and interact with God.  It’s liturgy, both in our corporate worship as well as our private devotion.  It’s set prayers as well as extemporaneous, hymns and anthems, verbal proclamations and physical gestures.  It’s all acts of piety and every practice of religion.  Belief are those concepts we hold as truth.  These include both corporate proclamations like the Nicene Creed as well as those thoughts and ideas we hold individually and sometimes secretly.  Belief forms the basis of character; and our character is made evident in our corporeal actions.  One’s character is the rule or law of one’s life. 

It’s tempting to see this model as being simply lineal; prayer leads to belief that then leads to life.  This is certainly one manner by which this model works.  It’s also the pattern I usually offer to highlight the importance of adhering to the rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer.  The words, gestures, and patterns inherent in liturgy all shape our belief.  Thus to change liturgy is to shape belief.  Such liturgical changes can be very good if our belief needs reforming but can be very dangerous if such changes result in the erosion of orthodoxy.  That is why any change to liturgy must be made carefully and under appropriate authority.  These beliefs shaped by prayer then influence our living.  If the changes to our belief reinforces orthodoxy, we find that our life delves deeper into prayer which then results in further developed belief and a life further conformed to God’s will.  Of course if our belief changes, the manner by which we pray and live changes.  Likewise, how we live our lives will influence our belief and the manner in which we pray.  Our corporeal actions influence our belief as much as our belief influences our actions.  Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi is not so much a cycle as it is a synergistic relationship.

Often the totality of a person is described as body, mind, and spirit.  Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi encapsulates this entirety.  To pray is a function of the spirit.  To believe is a function of the mind.  To live one’s life is a function of the body.  Modern science is rife with studies that show correlations between mind, body, and spirit.  Again, we see a synergistic relationship; these three parts of our being coming together and forming something far larger than simply their combined sum; they form a person, a human being, the image of God.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, Saint Paul directs us to pray without ceasing; a seemingly impossible task.  How are we to ceaselessly pray?  Is this a matter of constant multitasking?  Are we to pray while we think or go about the activities of life?  This is a perplexing task if we conceive of mind, body, and spirit as being separate and largely independent of each other.  However, remember the literal translation of lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi; the law of prayer is the law of belief is the law of life.  In the literal translation, we see not simply a correlation between prayer, belief, and life, but a unity.  So too is the case of mind, body, and spirit unifying into the image of God.  Notice what Saint Paul tells us following his direction to pray without ceasing; he then points out that this is the will of God in Christ for us.  In this final section of 1 Thessalonians we see images of prayer, belief, and corporeal actions aligning with each other and conforming us to God’s will.  In this manner, we transform from a creature that prays into a creature that is prayer.  When our very being is prayer, our prayer is ceaseless.  In this manner, we may become those for whom God is looking, those who worship Him in spirit and truth.