Religion and Printing: From the Gutenberg Bible to the Order of Service

The first major book to come off a printing press in Europe was a Bible. Religious print hasn't stopped since, and most of it takes a form we still produce today: not bound volumes, but booklets.

The First Printed Book Was Scripture

Johannes Gutenberg's 42-line Bible, produced in Mainz around 1454–1455 in roughly 180 copies, was the book that proved a printing press could reproduce a serious text accurately and at scale. Everything that followed in European print, religious or otherwise, traces back to that first run. See our History of the Printing Press for the fuller story.

Scripture in English

Vernacular translation is what actually spread religious print to ordinary readers: Tyndale's English New Testament in the 1520s, Luther's German Bible in 1534, and the King James Version in 1611, produced by the royal printer Robert Barker. Martin Luther's 95 Theses, printed and circulated from 1517, spread faster than almost anything printed before it — an early demonstration of how quickly a printed idea could travel once the technology existed to reproduce it cheaply.

Most Religious Print Is a Booklet

Strip away the theology and most everyday religious print — hymn books, prayer books, order of service sheets, parish newsletters — is the same physical object: a short, bound or folded booklet, printed in a run sized to one congregation or one occasion rather than a mass edition. That's precisely the product category we print every week, just usually for a different occasion.

Where This Shows Up in What We Print

Funeral orders of service are, in physical form, exactly this kind of religious booklet — hymns, readings and prayers set out for a congregation, printed for one specific service. Our order of service copyright guide covers what can and can't be reproduced from hymns and scripture, and our funeral & memorial printing hub covers the booklets themselves. For church, parish or community group booklets more broadly, see our booklet printing range.

Frequently asked questions

What was the first major printed book?

Gutenberg's 42-line Bible, produced in Mainz around 1454 to 1455 in roughly 180 copies.

Can hymns and scripture be printed freely in an order of service?

It depends on the material — most hymns are covered by a church's CCLI licence, but poems and readings generally aren't. See our copyright guide for the detail.

Do you print religious or parish booklets outside of funerals?

Yes — hymn sheets, order of service booklets and parish newsletters use the same wiro-bound, perfect-bound or stapled formats as our general booklet printing.

Older Than Gutenberg: A Buddhist Scroll from 868

Europe did not invent religious printing. The oldest known dated printed book is a copy of the Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist text, dated 11 May 868. It was discovered in 1900 among manuscripts sealed in the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang by a Daoist monk, Wang Yuanlu, was bought by Aurel Stein in 1907, and is now held by the British Library. Some earlier printed material on paper exists, so the claim is usually made carefully as "oldest dated". It is a reminder that putting a sacred text into many hands was an aim of printing long before movable type reached Europe.

The Talmud in Venice

Among the great monuments of Jewish printing is the edition of the Babylonian Talmud published in Venice by Daniel Bomberg, a Christian Hebraist described as the first non-Jewish printer of Hebrew books. His 1523 pagination is still used by scholars and students: when a modern edition cites a page of the Talmud, it is following the layout of that printing. Few decisions made by a printer have lasted as long.

Prayer Books and Uniformity in England

The English Reformation turned print into an instrument of worship. Parliament passed an Act of Uniformity in January 1549 requiring the first Book of Common Prayer, edited under Thomas Cranmer, to be used from Whitsunday that year. The 1662 version, printed two years after the restoration of the monarchy, remains the official prayer book of the Church of England. Behind that sentence lies a practical fact: for the first time, every parish needed the same printed book at the same moment.

A Printed Bible for Wales

In 1588 William Morgan published the whole Bible in Welsh, translated from the original Greek and Hebrew. A revised edition followed in 1620 and served as the standard Welsh Bible until the twentieth century. Morgan is remembered as a key figure in the history of the Welsh language, which shows how a single printed text can shape a language as well as a faith.

Societies, Not Just Presses

In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded to make the Bible available throughout the world, a charity whose entire purpose was printing and distribution. Many congregations, mosques, temples, gurdwaras, synagogues and mandirs rely on volunteers in the same way today, producing newsletters, rotas, festival posters and children's activity sheets with whatever skills are available in the community.

Printing for a Faith Community Today

These are the jobs we hear about most in this area, shown here as general examples rather than as claims about any particular place of worship:

• A festival or fundraising banner for the front of a hall or a street stall.
• Matching T-shirts or hoodies for volunteers, youth groups, pilgrimage walks or charity runs, so stewards are easy to find in a crowd. For stewarding at larger events, our workwear and hi-vis page lists what we can print.
• Orders of service, hymn sheets, programmes and booklets, covered on our funeral order of service page, which also applies to other occasions such as christenings and memorial services.
• Posters and flyers for classes, open days and community meals.

Respectful Printing: A Short Checklist

Religious material needs more care than most because mistakes can cause real offence. Our practical advice:

• Check every character. Text in Arabic, Hebrew, Gurmukhi, Devanagari or any other script should be proofread by a fluent reader before printing, particularly right-to-left text and scripts with joined letters. We print artwork as supplied and cannot proofread languages for you.
• Ask your community first. Some traditions have views about where scripture, names of God or sacred symbols may appear, for example on clothing that is worn low on the body or on items that may be discarded. If in doubt, ask a leader or elder before ordering.
• Respect copyright. Hymns, modern translations and many images are protected. Our order of service copyright guide explains how to find out who owns what.
• Use your own artwork. Do not copy a logo or emblem belonging to another organisation without asking.
• Plan ahead. Festivals and services have fixed dates. Give your deadline when you request a quote and order early.

Choosing the Right Format

For a one-off ceremony a folded A5 sheet or a short stapled booklet is usually enough. For a seasonal programme with a longer calendar, a larger booklet may suit better. For a banner outdoors, think about wind, brightness and legibility from a distance, and keep the main message short. We are happy to talk through options by WhatsApp, phone or email, and proofs are shown before printing, so you can show the draft to your committee or a trusted reader and request any change before anything is produced.

What is the oldest printed book?

The oldest known dated printed book is a copy of the Buddhist Diamond Sutra dated 868, now in the British Library. Gutenberg's Bible came nearly six centuries later.

Why is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer still mentioned?

It remains the official prayer book of the Church of England, although other authorised services are now used in most parishes.

Can you print text in non-Latin scripts?

We print the artwork you supply, but you must check the proof for accuracy, including letter order and direction, because we cannot proofread every language.