The Anglican Church of Canada has authorized trial liturgies for euthanasia deaths, giving clergy a prayer book for the bedside when doctors are ending a patient’s life.

The Council of General Synod in June 2026 commended “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying” for use “where permitted by the Ordinary,” extending a process that began with General Synod’s pastoral statement In Sure and Certain Hope in 2017 and continued with the 2024 essay collection Faith Seeking Understanding: Medical Assistance in Dying. The new rites are billed as pastoral care, not ethics. In practice, they wrap euthanasia in familiar Anglican sacramental language.

The introduction says the purpose is “to provide liturgical and pastoral guidelines… when they are called to accompany the dying, specifically with those who have opted to use Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD),” and adds: “It is not our intent to enter into the ethical arguments regarding MAiD, nor to provide a moral argument for or against MAiD.”

The church, the authors say, has a “duty of pastoral care” to all who are dying, and “when someone reaches out for pastoral care, the church responds.” Those who choose MAiD are “creatures of a loving God,” whose baptismal dignity makes them “worthy to receive the ministry of the church.”

The booklet offers a cornucopia of death rites. The main bedside service, “Ministry at the Time of Medical Assisted Dying,” is designed “for use on the day and in the moments before and after the person dies.” It includes Scripture, general confession and absolution, intercessions, laying on of hands and anointing, Holy Communion—either a full Eucharist or communion from the Reserved Sacrament—and prayers at the time of death. At the moment when the medical team is preparing its syringes, the priest may say one of the traditional commendations: “Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world… May your rest be this day in peace, and your dwelling place in the paradise of God,” or “Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant N… Receive them into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace.”

There is a rite of individual confession and absolution, “Reconciliation of a Penitent,” intended for private use before the bedside service. The priest declares: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to the Father, and who conferred power on his Church to forgive sins, absolve you through my ministry by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and restore you in the perfect peace of the Church.”

A separate “Liturgy of Preparation for Death” uses similar elements for those gathered in advance of the procedure. For parishioners who cannot be present at the bedside, there is a “Service for Those Unable to Attend in Person” to be used “when the time for the administration of MAiD is to happen,” with psalms, the Nunc Dimittis, litanies, and the Lord’s Prayer.

The theological framing leans heavily on dignity, conscience, and “thin space.” The text criticizes secular talk of “a good death” that makes autonomy the highest value, insisting instead that “Human dignity… rests in our being created by a loving God… God has given us dignity and worth as part of who we are as God’s creatures.” It stresses that “faithful decision making… is not about a simple autonomous act, but about faith being exercised in free will” in communion with God and others. At the same time, the authors speak of euthanasia as, in some cases, “a potentially faithful, conscience-led turn towards death.”

It is “a privilege,” they write, “to minister to the sick and dying and to be present with them in their last moments of life. When death is near we enter a Thin Space, or Holy Ground, where Heaven and Earth intersect as we, through prayer and sacrament, accompany the transition from this world to the next.” This is explicitly applied to those who choose euthanasia: “People undergoing a death by medical assistance are also accompanied by God. God’s church can be present in this ultimate passage.”

Under the heading “Being Ready to Go,” the narrative is sympathetic and straightforward: “People who choose MAiD freely and without coercion may indeed be ready to go. They have been living with and suffering through complex health challenges and they want the pain to stop… They have exhausted all medical options, and they know, everyone knows, that there is no cure… Some… desire not to be alone at the time of their death, and to die well, and with the grace and blessing of God and with the presence of the Church at their side. These resources offer… clergy resources to assist the dying in a holy death, one grounded in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.”

Pastoral guidance acknowledges that MAiD “evokes strong and opposing views,” and that “The Anglican Church of Canada is not of one voice on the topic.” Bishops are urged to state their policies clearly; clergy are told to “assess their own feelings” and to seek alternative pastoral support if they cannot in conscience pray at a MAiD bedside.

The guidance warns that “individual autonomy is not a Gospel value neither are coercion and manipulation,” and decries “systems that make MAiD an option where it ought not to be where there is poor access to proper health care.” Yet it also tells pastors to be ready for “approximately a decade of experience with medically assisted dying in Canada,” and to treat these deaths as one more part of their work.

One paragraph tries to separate blessing the person from blessing the act: “A critical consideration for some pastors will be the question of whether or not in pronouncing God’s blessing on the person who is dying, they are blessing the act of the decision towards MAiD, or blessing the procedure itself… It will be important to… choose and adapt prayers… that do not imply that the procedure… and the decision to employ MAiD, are… being given God’s blessing. It is, however, a normal part of pastoral care to be praying for and to offer God’s and the Church’s blessing on the person who is dying.”

On paper, that distinction exists. At the bedside, with the oil, the chalice, the commendation, and the doctor’s syringe in hand, it will be nearly invisible.

From an Evangelical Anglican standpoint, several problems stand out.

First, the claim to ethical neutrality does not survive contact with the rites. Authorizing clergy to celebrate Eucharist, pronounce absolution, anoint, and commend at the moment of a planned euthanasia death is not neutral. It treats a doctor-assisted killing as an ordinary Christian death to be enfolded in the church’s sacramental hope.

Historically, Anglican teaching has spoken of suicide and euthanasia as grave sins against God’s sovereignty over life and death. The trial liturgies never call euthanasia killing. They consistently use the government’s language of “medical assistance in dying,” “turn towards death,” and “ready to go.”

Second, conscience is set on too loose a leash. Conscience is central in Anglican ethics, but it must be formed by Scripture and the church’s teaching. Here, MAiD is described as “a potentially faithful, conscience-led turn towards death,” and prayers for discernment ask God to “reveal your blessing to us in these decisions” about life and death, and to grant that “all our decisions may be made in faith, in hope, and in love, with reverence for your gift of life.” The clear implication is that a euthanasia decision can, in some circumstances, be a faithful Christian choice. Faithful Christians will say plainly: deliberately ending innocent human life is wrong. No amount of sincere conscience can make it right.

Third, suffering is treated as a problem to be fixed by euthanasia, not as a mystery to be borne under the cross. The narrative of “Being Ready to Go” is honest and compassionate about the desire “for the pain to stop” and the exhaustion of treatment options. But the solution offered is a “holy death” by lethal injection accompanied by liturgy, rather than the traditional Christian calling to endure suffering in union with Christ, trusting that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed.” The cross is cited in prayers; it is not allowed to challenge the basic premise that, once medicine can no longer cure, death may be chosen.

Fourth, the deployment of Scripture will raise eyebrows. Romans 14:7–8—“We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves… whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s”—is quoted in the pastoral reflections on MAiD. Ecclesiastes 3 (“a time to be born, and a time to die… a time to kill, and a time to heal”) appears among the suggested readings. These texts speak of God’s timing, not ours. To read them alongside prayers that expect God to “reveal your blessing… in these decisions” risks baptizing human choice over the moment of death with biblical language meant to glorify God’s sovereignty.

Finally, the public witness is at stake. Canada’s MAiD regime has continually widened, with proposals to extend euthanasia to people whose sole underlying condition is mental illness and persistent worries about vulnerable people choosing death because they lack care. The trial liturgies do note “concerns about the potentials for abuse of the practice through coercion” and warn against systems that push MAiD as a substitute for proper care. But by giving the church’s rites to sit comfortably beside euthanasia, they send a different signal: that, whatever the law does, the church will be there to make it look and sound like a holy death.

Evangelical Anglicans will not refuse to pray for the dying. Many will continue to visit, to preach repentance and comfort, to commend the departed to God’s mercy after the fact, and to support grieving families. What they are unlikely to do is adopt liturgies that treat euthanasia as an acceptable mode of Christian dying. For them, the question is not whether the church should be present at the bedside. It is whether the church can speak of “thin space,” “holy ground,” and “holy death” at the moment a doctor intentionally ends a life, and still be faithful to its own teaching.

This rite is not recognizably Christian. It takes the language of the Gospel—dignity, mercy, thin places, holy death—and pours it over a doctor’s syringe. It never names euthanasia as killing. It never calls suicide sin. Instead it offers absolution, Eucharist, and commendation as liturgical camouflage for an act Scripture and the historic church have condemned. A church that can stand at a planned euthanasia, speak of “a potentially faithful, conscience-led turn towards death,” and bless the bedside without ever saying no has forgotten how to sound like the apostles. Whatever pastoral intentions lie behind these prayers, they mark a church more eager to keep company with the culture of death than to bear the offense of the cross.

The Council of General Synod has put these prayers out for trial use, evaluation and feedback. Evangelical Anglicans will have plenty to say.