Gregory Dix

Dix was born on 4 October 1901 in Woolwich, south London.{{sfn|Bailey|1995|p=7}} He was the son of Mary Jane Dix, a Methodist, and George Henry Dix, a schoolmaster and Anglo-Catholic priest{{sfn|Fuller|2014|p=13}} who served as the first principal of the College of St Mark and St John, Chelsea.{{citation needed|date=January 2018}} He was educated at Westminster School and became an exhibitioner at Merton College, Oxford.{{sfn|Levens|1964|p=135}} His modest degree did not reflect his real ability{{citation needed|date=January 2018}} and from 1924 {{citation needed span |date=January 2018 |text=to 1926}} he was appointed lecturer in modern history at Keble College, Oxford,{{sfn|Bailey|1995|p=22}} while studying at Wells Theological College.{{Cite web|url=https://www.anglicanhistory.org/england/gdix/mabry1952.html|title=Project Canterbury: God's Courtier: A Memoir of Dom Gregory Dix, OSB|access-date=11 January 2021|archive-date=12 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512115410/http://anglicanhistory.org/england/gdix/mabry1952.html|url-status=dead}} He was made deacon on 5 October 1924 and was ordained priest on 4 October 1925.{{sfn|Bailey|1995|p=22}} He entered Nashdom the following year and was sent to the Gold Coast as a novice until his health broke down in 1929.

Returning to Nashdom he became an intern oblate{{citation needed|date=January 2018}} and took his final vows only in 1940.{{sfn|Bailey|1995|pp=48, 61}} During the Second World War he lived for a while in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, and looked after the Anglo-Catholic daughter church of St Michael whilst his brother Ronald, who was the priest there, served as a military chaplain. With another monk he lived in the parsonage, kept the round of monastic offices and cared for the parish. On his return to Nashdom he was succeeded in Beaconsfield by Augustine Morris, who was to become Abbot of Nashdom in 1948. Dix was elected to the Convocation{{Cite web|url=https://www.anglicanhistory.org/england/gdix/mabry1952.html|title=Project Canterbury: God's Courtier: A Memoir of Dom Gregory Dix, OSB|access-date=11 January 2021|archive-date=12 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220512115410/http://anglicanhistory.org/england/gdix/mabry1952.html|url-status=dead}} in 1945 and prior of his abbey in 1948.{{sfn|Bailey|1995|pp=74, 117–118}}

As a scholar, Dix worked primarily in the field of liturgical studies. He produced an edition of the Apostolic Tradition in 1935. In The Shape of the Liturgy, first published in 1945, he argued that it was not so much the words of the liturgy but its "shape" which mattered.{{citation needed|date=January 2018}} His study of the liturgy's historical development led him to formulate what is called the four-action shape of the liturgy: offertory, prayer, fraction, communion.{{sfn|Fuller|2014|pp=71–72, 76}} Dix's work then influenced liturgical revision in the Anglican Communion. More recent scholars, however, have criticised it as lacking historical accuracy. Dix's conclusion that "Cranmer in his eucharistic doctrine was a devout and theologically founded Zwinglian, and that his Prayer Books were exactly framed to express his convictions" also proved controversial.{{sfn|Dix|1948|p=2}}

In particular, Dix's claims for the "shape" of the liturgy, which laid emphasis on the significance of the offertory, have been argued to rest on weak evidence historically. On the other hand, Dix's thesis was defended by members of the English Parish Communion movement, such as Gabriel Hebert and Donald Gray, who saw the offertory as representing the bringing of the world into the eucharistic action. This is also the traditional Eastern Orthodox perspective on the offertory.{{sfn|Schmemann|pp=2:7}}{{verification needed|date=January 2018}}

Dix was an Anglican Papalist,{{sfn|Bailey|1995|p=92}} who sought reunion with the Holy See and was against any developments which might make such a union impossible. He therefore campaigned against the projected church union in South India, which he saw as a possible model for similar schemes in England, and which in his view equated Anglican and free church ordinations. "If these proposals were to be put into practice, the whole ground for believing in the Church of England which I have outlined would have ceased to exist."{{sfn|Dix|1944|p=92}} A by-product of his campaign was the book of essays entitled The Apostolic Ministry, published in 1946 and edited by Kenneth Kirk with a contribution by Dix.

In 1944 Dix defended Anglican orders against Roman Catholic critics. Believing that "Unless we are 'Catholics' inasmuch and because we are 'Anglicans', then we are not being 'Catholics'", he stated that "For three centuries the C. of E. taught the essentials of the Catholic Faith and ministered the essential Catholic Sacraments to the ordinary English people, when no one else could, or would have been allowed by the state to do. That is her title to exist, and I think a man could and should love her for that, even if he felt that he must leave her now."{{sfn|Dix|1944|p=91}} In explaining his oft-repeated description of the Anglican episcopate as Edwardian, he commented "Strictly Edward VI in theology; strictly Edward VII in mental equipment and strictly Edward VIII in their views on marriage."{{sfn|Williamson|1957|p=144}}

Dix died of intestinal cancer on 12 May 1952 at Grovefield House (near Nashdom).{{sfnm |1a1=Fuller |1y=2014 |1p=13 |2a1=Jones |2y=2007 |2p=xx}} He was described by Kenneth Kirk, Bishop of Oxford, as "my closest and oldest friend, and the most brilliant man in the Church of England".{{sfn|Kemp|1959|p=204}} He was buried at Nashdom Abbey.{{sfn|Jones|2007|p=xx}}

Gregory Dix is remembered in the Church of England with a commemoration on 12 May.{{Cite web|title=The Calendar|url=https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/churchs-year/calendar|access-date=2021-03-27|website=The Church of England|language=en}}

{{reflist|22em}}

{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}

• {{cite book

|last=Arguile

|first=Roger

|year=1986

|title=The Offering of the People

|location=London

|publisher=Jubilee Group

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Bailey

|first=Simon

|year=1995

|title=A Tactful God

|location=Leominster, England

|publisher=Gracewing

|publication-date=2002

|isbn=978-0-85244-304-0

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Buchanan

|first=Colin

|author-link=Colin Buchanan (bishop)

|year=1978

|title=The End of the Offertory: An Anglican Study

|location=Bramcote, England

|publisher=Grove Books

|isbn=978-0-905422-35-0

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Dix

|first=Gregory

|year=1944

|title=The Question of Anglican Orders: Letters to a Layman

|location=Westminster, England

|publisher=Dacre Press

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Dix

|first=Gregory

|author-mask={{long dash}}

|year=1945

|title=The Shape of the Liturgy

|location=London

|publisher=Dacre Press

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Dix

|first=Gregory

|author-mask={{long dash}}

|year=1948

|title=Dixit Cranmer Et Non Timuit

|location=London

|publisher=Dacre Press

}}

• {{cite thesis

|last=Fuller

|first=David John

|year=2014

|title=Homo Eucharisticus: Dom Gregory Dix Reshaped

|url=http://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/5144

|degree=PhD

|location=Glasgow

|publisher=University of Glasgow

|oclc=883446226

|access-date=22 January 2018

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Gray

|first=Donald

|author-link=Donald Gray (priest)

|year=1986

|title=Earth and Altar: The Evolution of the Parish Communion in the Church of England to 1945

|location=Norwich, England

|publisher=Canterbury Press

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Hebert

|first=A. G.

|author-link=Gabriel Hebert

|year=1951

|title=Liturgy and Society: The Function of the Church in the Modern World

|location=London

|publisher=Faber and Faber

}}

• {{cite book

|year=2007

|editor-last=Jones

|editor-first=Simon

|title=The Sacramental Life: Gregory Dix and His Writings

|location=Norwich, England

|publisher=Canterbury Press

|isbn=978-1-85311-717-6

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Kemp

|first=E. W.

|author-link=Eric Kemp

|year=1959

|title=The Life and Letters of Kenneth Escott Kirk, Bishop of Oxford, 1937–1954

|location=London

|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton

}}

• {{cite book

|year=1964

|editor-last=Levens

|editor-first=R. G. C.

|title=Merton College Register, 1900–1964

|location=Oxford

|publisher=Basil Blackwell

}}

• {{cite book

|last=MacCulloch

|first=Diarmaid

|author-link=Diarmaid MacCulloch

|year=

|title=Thomas Cranmer: A Life

|publisher=Yale University Press

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Schmemann

|first=Alexander

|author-link=Alexander Schmemann

|title=For the Life of the World

}}

• {{cite book

|last=Williamson

|first=H. R.

|year=1957

|orig-year=1956

|title=The Walled Garden: An Autobiography

|location=New York

|publisher=Macmillan

}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin|35em|indent=yes}}

• {{cite thesis

|last=Leachman

|first=James G.

|year=1993

|title=Dom Gregory Dix, 1901–1952: An Introduction to His Liturgical Writings on Christian Initiation and the Eucharist

|degree=SLD

|location=Rome

|publisher=Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm

|oclc=30788340

}}

• {{cite journal

|last=Spinks

|first=Bryan D.

|year=1990

|title=Mis-Shapen: Gregory Dix and the Four-Action Shape of the Liturgy

|journal=Lutheran Quarterly

|volume=4

|pages=161–177

|issn=2470-5616

}}

{{refend}}

{{Portal|Christianity}}

• [http://anglicanhistory.org/england/gdix/ Bibliographic directory] from Project Canterbury

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dix, Gregory}}

Category:1902 births

Category:1952 deaths

Category:20th-century English Anglican priests

Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford

Category:Anglican liturgists

Category:Anglican monks

Category:Anglo-Catholic clergy

Category:Anglo-Catholic theologians

Category:English Anglican theologians

Category:English Anglo-Catholics

Category:English Christian monks

Category:People educated at Westminster School, London

Category:People from Woolwich

Category:Anglican saints