Among the ecclesial communities of Anglicans and Lutherans various levels of inter-communion (i.c.) currently exists.
In the US & Canada, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canda and the Evangelcal Lutheran Church of America & Evangelcal Lutheran Church of Canada are all in communion. The Episcopalians/Canadian Anglicans are in turn i.c. with the wider Anglican Communion, a portion of which in turn is i.c. with the Lutheran Churches in Northern Europe, which are, in turn, i.c. with the Evangelcal Lutheran Church of America & Evangelcal Lutheran Church of Canada.
As it stands now, the result of these working agreements is that with the consecration of any new Episcopal or Lutheran bishop here in North America or in Europe among the above noted parites, bishops from each group take part. Ostensibly this is done to “restore apostolic succession” to the episcopate of Lutherans… It also seems to be a move made to answer the objections of some in the AC who have concearns about the validity of Lutheran orders…
I guess in the mean time, with the Porvoo, Called to Common Mission and Waterloo agreements that bind or at least bring together these various communions at various levels, Anglican parties holding to the necessity of Apostolic Succession will roundly ignore the lack (some would propose) thereof in the Lutheran bodies they now work with. Conversely Lutherans with serious reservation about “yoking extra-scriptural concepts of Apostolic Succession” to episcopacy are hoped (I can only guess) to not push the issue to a confrontation.
(Interestingly, many Lutheran bodies - including the Synod set up by Swedes in America - now part of the ELCA - did not use episcopacy for governance, and had a generally more congregational or presbyterian outlook on the nature and theology of ministry, government and ordination.)
To confuse the issue further, Anglican communion intercommunion agreements extend to most Ultrajectine bodies, Moravians and a handful of ecclesial communities that were formed through mergers that included Anglicans (Church of North India, Church of South India). In turn what understanding those bodies have of each other, or of the Lutherans, seems to vary, though from what I can gather, it is unclear that much consideration of how these inter-communion agreements carry over to different bodies that aren’t signatories of inter-communion agreements.
While certain evangelical elements in the Anglican communion have been upset with TEC for the consecration of openly gay, practicing and promoting homosexuals, it has already been the case that they were (on paper) already i.c. with Ultrajectines (Bonn Agreement, 1931) who already bless same sex unions and have no impediement on the ordination of practicing and promoting homosexual men and women.
As it stands right now…
… the Church of England is i.c. with the
… Church of Sweden which is i.c. with the
… ELCA which is i.c. with the
… Episcopal Church which is i.c. with the
… Moravian Church which is i.c. with the
… United Methodist church which is i.c. with the
… African Methodist Episcopal Church which is i.c. with the
… African Methodist Episcopal Church which is i.c. with the
… Disciples of Christ which is i.c. with the
… United Church of Christ which is i.c. with the
… International Council of Community Churches which mostly seem to have open communion, but I don’t know that they would be conisdered i.c. with
… the Church of England.
What does it mean to be “in communion” to begin with?
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February 11, 2008 at 7:07 pm
What does it mean to be “in communion” to begin with?
Great question. As usual, Simple Sinner, your interests and questions run parallel with my own.
To complicate matters, the Anglicans used to be i.c.w. the Old Catholic Churches of Utrecht beginning sometime in the 1930’s from which they drew the “blue smoke” legitimate apostolic succession. This communion was ended by the Old Catholic churches since the ordination of women by Anglicans in the 70’s. So, the supposedly legitimate apostolic succession (in the eyes of Rome according to Anglicans) which Anglicans are purveying among new Lutheran ordinands is something borrowed from a church communion which itself has broken communion with them.
Most Anglican priest converts to Catholicism are just outright ordained as Catholic priests without regard to their prior ordination as Anglicans. Still, at the very best in certain limited cases the Catholic Church will conditionally ordain an Anglican priest convert to Catholicism. Conditional ordination, which is employed in cases of doubt, indicates Catholic suspicion that one cannot ordain with succession into a body which itself does not already enjoy succession or whose teachings are incompatible with the ancient faith.
Back to your question, which I will answer with a question: Why even bother speaking of being i.c.w. or intercommunion when as a church you already practice open communion?
As usual, Anglicans want to have it both ways without seeking a systematic or consistent practice or theology. In Anglican churches one may receive communion if one is baptized without regard to one’s personal beliefs or which church one is a member of. I once visited the historic local TEC church to check out its architectural design. They happened to be having a weekday afternoon communion service for about 6 people so out of deference I slipped into a pew and prayed with them. At communion the priest kept waiving for me to come forward and I waived him off twice. Without asking me about membership or faith afterward he came to me and assured me that I really could receive and that I was very, very welcome and that it really really was perfectly fine.
So, I suspect that intercommunion or being i.c.w. has less to do with actually receiving communion or even exchangeability of clergy (none of these churches has a shortage) than it does with mutual affirmation of each church’s “ok-ness” with the other. It certainly does not mirror in any way what the Catholic Church means by being i.c.w. To be in communion with Rome is also to have juridictional, doctrinal and canonical ties (though some Melkites might partially disagree). The Catholic Church is both a single Church and a communion of Churches i.c.w. Rome.
Sorry for the dissertation and thanks for the great post.
February 11, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Father J.. RE: ” This communion was ended by the Old Catholic churches since the ordination of women by Anglicans in the 70’s.”
Partly correct!
(BTW, “Ultrajectines” is my preferred term for “Old Catholics”, which are neither old nor Catholic… :))
The PNCC (Polish Nationals Ultrajectines in the US) dropped PECUSA from intercommunion in the 70s when that happened but for a time stayed i.c.w. world Anglicanism otherwise….
Today the Old Catholics are still i.c.w. with the Anglican Communion… But have expelled the Polish National Catholic from the Utrecht Union for not ordaining women! (How do you like them apples, eh?)
Today the PNCC is not in communion with anyone per se (though they have helped to erect a set of parishes in Sweden which, if considered a church on its own, I suppose they would be said to be i.c.w. with them!)
Methinks that Rome’s efforts and allowance for PNCC faithful to take communion in the RCC is a gentle overture to the grandkids of today’s PNCC members. That is to say, they are shrinking fast enough, and their clerical ranks have been swelled by ex-RC priests who married. So as corporate reunion is mostly out, the door is left open for the last parties standing to just register at the local RC parish…
I think you are dead-on with your comment on “OK-ness”!
Interestingly, TEC & ELCA may be in communion and recognize each other’s clergy, but in fact not everyone in the ELCA charged with presiding over eucharist services would be able to do so in TEC. In the past few years, the ELCA has allowed for “lay presidership”…
Which brings us to a point you make in passing about both having plenty of clergy. Mostly true, BUT…
They are “thick on the ground” near the clubhouse, but not so much in the heartland. Given the raw data, one would think every ELCA and TEC parish had 6 clergy-persons… In fact, staffing rural and small parishes has been such a difficulty, some pragmatic critics have charged the “inter-communion” agreement as being one of convienance for the benifit of puplit & communion table sharing…
…between the ELCA and TEC which (to be VERY generous) has a combined membership of 4M. Well between the two of them with membership less than the Archdiosese of LA, they have well over 31,000 rostered clergy. Again, with virtually no impediment to ordination, they have “plenty to go round” but they aren’t going round very much. And have fewer and fewer people to go round to.
If you were especially cynical you might even suggest that idealogically driven ordination to “stack the clergy” may be one reason why this is the case…
If you were cynical that is!
See, Father J, this IS more fun than ByzCath! (Where incidentally one of your prime interlocutors has started in again on “the treasury of merit”… nothing changes much there!)
February 11, 2008 at 8:27 pm
-Why even bother speaking of being i.c.w. or intercommunion when as a church you already practice open communion?-
There’s a question that cuts to the quick! It all seems like a cute little show some children are putting on for their own enjoyment, but which, like some children’s games, lacks any internal logic.
February 11, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Thanks for this.
Never saw the Dutch touch (Old Catholic orders given to Anglicans) described as blue smoke before.
When I found out the presiding bishop of ELCA, Mark Hanson, can claim apostolic succession (thanks to Dutch-touch Episcopal orders), like the little ecclesiastical scene of people ordained by people ordained by ex-Old Catholics (and who rabbit on about their ‘lines of succession’), it made me question how far the Western Catholic view of valid orders can go!
All ex-Anglican priests accepted for RC service are at least conditionally ordained by the RCs.
I always wondered why the Swedes, once the most Catholic of the Lutheran churches, never brought episcopacy to America with them. An Anglo-Catholic priest explained to me years ago that although the Swedes claim apostolic succession they don’t think it’s necessary.
Thanks for the news about the Old Catholics: so those four liberal churches are where many Episcopal dioceses are, having ’same-sex blessings’, gay weddings in all but name, and that as well as WO was behind the break with the PNCC.
The PNCC gave its orders to a church in Norway, the Nordic Catholic Church (den nordisk-katolske kirke i Norge), a group of their equivalent of Anglo-Catholics who recently had broken with the liberal state church there. I think these Norwegians approached the Nats not the other way round.
Why even bother speaking of being i.c.w. or intercommunion when as a church you already practice open communion?
I suspect that intercommunion or being i.c.w. has less to do with actually receiving communion or even exchangeability of clergy (none of these churches has a shortage) than it does with mutual affirmation of each church’s “ok-ness” with the other. It certainly does not mirror in any way what the Catholic Church means by being i.c.w. To be in communion with Rome is also to have juridictional, doctrinal and canonical ties…
Well put, Father.
February 11, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Well apostolic succession is not magic (not that anyone was implying it was, of course).
Anglicans lost their orders to begin with because (besides changing the wording in the ritual slighty) one has to have the right frame of mind when ordaining a bishop, by the time of James I the Anglican clergy, being throughly protestant (disagree? read the 39 articles, better yet read the Irish version - it is far more low church than the English version) no longer intended to ordain bishops for the Catholic Faith, but for a protestant religion which rejected the sacrificial character of the Mass and the real presence and most of all they rejected the priesthood!
*gasps for air*
The Anglican bishops of old who were doing the ordaining had no intention whatsoever in making bishops that followed the Catholic or any other Apostolic faith that adhered to “popish” dogams like the priesthood and the Sacrificial nature of the Divine Liturgy.
It was not until the Oxford movement of the early 19th century that Anglicans begain to adhere to Catholic dogmas like the priesthood. Heck, the first time a Church of England bishop wore a mitre since the reformtion was around 1905! (1905 as in right before World War 1)
(no offense to any Anglicans- I am just presenting the Catholic perpsective of things, I really to like you CofE folk, really!)
So the all leads down to our discussion about orders in the modern lutheran Church. Modern day Lutherans do not hold any apostolic succession in the Catholic/Orthodox sense because (like the Anglicans of the late 16th-18th centuries) they have no intention of having a priesthood and no intention of having sacrificial Liturgies.
On the otherhand Old Catholics like the PNCC still have valid orders, but the Old Catholic groups who ordain women imo put the validity of their apostolic succession into question IMO - same goes any Anglican bishop that can trace themselves back to the Dutch, again because of female ordination. So I think any Anglican/Old Catholic priest coverting to the Church would have to be conditionally ordained if he wished to countinue as a priest in the Catholic Church.
February 11, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Ex-Anglicans accepted for service as RC clergy are always at least conditionally ordained.
Rome has always recognised Old Catholic orders (which is why the Dutch touch gave Anglo-Catholics hope) and so such men weren’t/aren’t reordained to serve as RC priests if they’re approved for that service.
AFAIK that recognition hasn’t been lost but may one day if/when the Old Catholics have women bishops.
February 12, 2008 at 12:38 am
Holding up his Prayer Book against all the heavy incoming ant-Anglican artillery, he dares to respond simply with…
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgbmxd/saepius.htm
As someone once said, “Perspective, a funny thing.”
Peace
February 12, 2008 at 2:11 am
Zan - with all respect and affection, this post had nothing at all to do with the validity of orders question.
O’Foge - Of course, the Norwegian Catholic Church. I was feeling too lazy to google. I think the error in my memory is from confusing Wm. Tighe’s story on them with his interviews of Swedish lutherans in a similar boat of disastisfaction witht he CoS.
+Fick - Saepius Officio largely seemed to satisfy its authors… Evangelical parties in Anglicanism didn’t care much, Anglo-Catholics in turn later scrambled to bolster their orders as a way around. Rome, Orthodoxy and the Oriental Orthodox largely came to the same conclusion for slightly different reasons. The Assyrian Church of the East seems to have allowed some intercommunion at times in times past… Even the venerable CEC sought non-Anglican orders (wink)
Then again, as stated earlier, the point was about communion agreements, NOT validity of orders. Certainly some mentioned would assert they are valid ministers, and deny it has anything to do with apostolic succession or holy orders…
February 12, 2008 at 2:26 am
Dear Fick,
It was not my intention to inflame Apostolicae Curae battles but highlight some of the inconsistencies which have developed in Anglican ecumenical relationships in the contemporary period since WO.
I am an avid Anglican watcher. As stated in other comboxes, I hold classical Anglicanism in high esteem and am personally indebted to it. But that does not place Anglicanism above criticism in my estimation. The conversation here has been cool headed and based on principle and has not resorted to the derisive language which I have read with regularity against the Catholic Church on Stand Firm or T19 where folks like David Ould and other commenters have often dished out scathing and unwarranted anti-Catholic commentary.
Indeed, if you have a perspective to share on anything Anglican, or Catholic, by all means you are absolutely welcome to do so.
I apologize if I have given offense and would welcome correction of anything I have said. Simple Sinner is generous in his corrections of things I write, and I am very appreciative. (I only wish I could return the favor from time to time, but he is so much brighter than I.)
And, Fick, if you feel you have to raise your BCP to shield yourself, please tell us which version it is. Inquiring minds want to know!!
Peace.
BTW Zan, thanks for the bit about the return of the Anglicans to the mitre in 1905! Fascinating. (Insert appropriate “mitre envy” line here. I once read on T19 an Anglican joking that half of the Anglican Communion would convert if the Catholics would just purchase their vestments from Autom!)
February 12, 2008 at 2:35 am
Simple Sinner, make no mistake, YOU are our combox hero!! I bow humbly before you awesome stores of knowledge on matters so dear to you and I and PC’s 3.5 readers!! For lent I am working on giving up coveting your brilliance!
Oh, and I guess you noticed how I stepped around the Melkite affair (barely). You are right; this IS so much more fun than byzcath!! I owe you huge.
February 12, 2008 at 2:45 am
Simple: thanks for saying it. The post was about the silliness that 6 degrees of separation gets folk in inter communion agreements. It’s not much better in Orthodoxy either, but that’s another story.
Inquiring minds? That answer would be off topic as well. But, yes, I have strong opinions.
Tracing down the inter communion agreements, (getting back on topic) it is understandable, really. It is much like the friendship structure that one can trace in Junior High School. From most popular girl (boy) who cliques with the next and on down. However, Popular girls #1 wouldn’t be caught dead walking to her locker with girl #4.
February 12, 2008 at 3:00 am
Oh, one does wonder from where the original apostles ordered their miters? Wonder if that confirmation rite up in Samaria really “took” without one? hmmmm….
Peace
February 12, 2008 at 3:07 am
young fogey: Great name!
When I found out the presiding bishop of ELCA, Mark Hanson, can claim apostolic succession (thanks to Dutch-touch Episcopal orders), like the little ecclesiastical scene of people ordained by people ordained by ex-Old Catholics (and who rabbit on about their ‘lines of succession’), it made me question how far the Western Catholic view of valid orders can go!
Good point, Fogey. As I understand it, contemporary Catholic thought on succession is moving away from the merely mechanical explanation of succession which crudely put, almost allows for the ordination of an atheist if certain bases are covered. From the mechanical model, the Church seems to be moving toward a more organic account of ordination. That is, ordination and therefore succession occurs only within the ancient churches holding the ancient faith in its fullness. Valid ordination cannot occur outside these churches even should the proper rite be followed by the proper minister with the proper intention. So, for instance, a line of succession is meaningless if one belongs to a church that practices WO which teaching is a matter of ordinary universal magisterium and binding on all Catholics.
February 12, 2008 at 4:04 am
“Zan - with all respect and affection, this post had nothing at all to do with the validity of orders question.”
oops, sorry, :) you know how it goes thinking about one thing then end up wirtting 6 paragraphes on something completely different and making a fool of myself..
Again to our Anglican brothers, no disrespect to your faith and espiecially no offense was intended, if so then I fully apologize. I have no connection with Anglicanism but have an interest and hold, as Fr. J puts it, classical Anglicanism in very high respect.
(ps Bishop Fick, it is really cool to have a bishop posting here, please keep doing so!)
February 12, 2008 at 4:58 am
I apologize if my remark offended ANglicans. I really do appreciate those ANglicans who seek to adhere to the ancient traditions in a very trying time for them.
It’s all this fasting, sometimes I just start babbling.
February 12, 2008 at 5:28 am
The fact of the matter on “validity” is that Romans are not as Augustinian and Orthodox are not as Cyprianic as they are made out to be…
Truly at some point Latins will simply say “enough is enough” no amount of pedigree documentation is going to force thier hand.
Alternately, blustery talk of “he who has cleaved himself from Church is anathema and graceless” in Eastern circles sort of begins to break down when in fact reconciliation of Old Calendarist and parties that were involved in ethno-nationalist schisms experience healing… (We won’t bother with the various, sundry and disparate fashions in which Catholics - laity and clergy - are recieved into different Orthodox jurisidictions!)
At the end of the day the party line amongs both Catholics and Orthodox is once again, roughly and roundly similar! (How DOES this keep happening?!?!?) That is to say a good rule of thumb among both is “don’t stray too far off the reservation!”
As much as my Serbian Ortho buddy insists the Macedonian Orthodox are graceless schismatics, when the day comes for them to be reconciled to their brother and sister Orthodox it WILL happen, and pedantic foolishness about recognition restoring grace is just silly. Conversely someone coming from the “Libearal Catholic Patriarchate of San Diego” is not going to have the doors thrown wide open for him when he pulls out a pedigree chart either.
In the end the Orthodox are NOT going to say “Well who cares about the past you are Orthodox now, come in!!!” and Catholics are NOT going to say “Well all the right people touched your episcopal heads, its all good!!!”
February 12, 2008 at 5:44 am
“When I found out the presiding bishop of ELCA, Mark Hanson, can claim apostolic succession (thanks to Dutch-touch Episcopal orders), like the little ecclesiastical scene of people ordained by people ordained by ex-Old Catholics (and who rabbit on about their ‘lines of succession’), it made me question how far the Western Catholic view of valid orders can go!”
See above…
BUT I had never heard Hanson claims this for himself. If he mentions it at all I would wonder if it isn’t in the same fashion as people mention other personal geneological oddities and pedigree curiosities at cocktail parties…
Really if it is mentioned at all, I would suspect it would be by folks who valiantly and dilligently attempt to prove and demonstrate these things to others doing the same… Hanson has issue enough as it is in his ecclesial community without adding to it by strutting his credentials. I suspect the preponderance of his co-religionists (the senior membership of which would be largely made up of Lutherans who pre-date the use of episcopacy!) would largely be indifferent and unexcited by such pedigree… If he even brought it up!
February 12, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Not wishing to hijack the thread, nor put any undo light on persons but to maintain the focus simply on the topic, I wait until now to respond to the many personal questions posed by others above.
Thank you for your various welcomes. Apologies to us Anglicans is not necessary, nor are proclamations that “some of my best friends are Anglicans”, etc.
Our skin, at least concerning this fellow’s, is not thin. I am neither afraid of Roman Catholics, for pity’s sake, having been educated at a Polish RC seminary, nor do I find it particularly helpful to fawn at all things Roman. But because one cannot ignore, it is better to engage.
Because I was asked, my Prayer Book affections lean toward the 1549 and the Scottish Communion Rite of 1764.
I have lurked here for a very long time. I find the discussion oft time rabid, sometimes pedantic, but almost always enlightening. For the cause of Christ and the Kingdom, let us co-labor.
In all things, charity.
February 12, 2008 at 3:10 pm
IIRC the Episcopal Church’s Bishop of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Charles Grafton, brought back the mitre in 1905. He was an Anglo-Catholic but not a papalist; like an old Tory he thought Anglicanism was THE canonical church in his land though he was sincerely friendly with the Orthodox; St Tikhon went to his cathedral’s consecration and imagined corporate union with the Anglican Communion - see below. There is a photo of St T with Anglican bishops and an Old Catholic bishop (Kozlowski - after he died the PNCC became the Old Catholic representative in America; Kozlowski’s churches joined it) outside the cathedral - that was the first time Anglican bishops had worn mitres since the mid-1500s.
ASimpleSinner wrote:
The fact of the matter on “validity” is that Romans are not as Augustinian and Orthodox are not as Cyprianic as they are made out to be… (cut for brevity)
All correct (schisms like the Old Believers, Old Calendarist sectarians and nationalist ones like the Macedonians aren’t Orthodox but still in the Orthodox family; Western liberal vagante pseuds obviously aren’t no matter their ‘lines’) but:
In the end the Orthodox are NOT going to say “Well who cares about the past you are Orthodox now, come in!!!”
The Orthodox view on Anglican orders is functionally like Rome’s but the argument behind it is different as you’ve mentioned: several patriarchs (Constantinople and Bucharest for example) and other leaders (the founding first hierarch of ROCOR, Metropolitan Anthony - tsarist-bred Russians weren’t particularly hostile to other Christians) have said Anglican orders have valid form; all they’d have to do is as a whole church unprotestantise and join the Orthodox communion and they’d be received in their orders. Not the same as recognition as they are, outside Orthodoxy. As that condition hasn’t been met ex-Anglican clergy accepted for service as Orthodox clergy are always reordained.
I understand that Bishop Hanson was one of (if not the) first ELCA bishops co-consecrated by Episcopalians hence the claim. From then on all ELCA ordinations have had to have the Episcopal connexion to pass on the claim.
Thanks, Fr J. (Here is what the name means.) Actually the Church of France (including the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre) has apostolic succession thanks to a bishop who was an atheist, Talleyrand. It’s said he repented before he died but the whole French episcopate comes from bishops consecrated by him while he was a thoroughgoing unbeliever privately. It doesn’t matter because he was acting in the church and in the name of the church (strictly following the Roman books) not of himself.
The big question is can one claim that for somebody ordained for the Lutherans, the Charismatic Episcopal Church, its breakaway church whose name I don’t remember, churches i.c.w. non-episcopal churches or others in heresy, or the fringy vagantes!
February 12, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Summing up for those new readers who may not know, ISTM Rome with its Augustinian view has three criteria for valid orders:
• Very basic credal orthodoxy (which is why the Oriental communion and Assyrians are recognised even though they were long thought heretics, Monophysites and Nestorians respectively).
• A line of tactile succession of bishops.
• Unbroken sound teaching and practice about the Eucharist (Real Presence as a complete change in the elements: you don’t have to use Aristotle and Aquinas to explain it).
More or less my/Anglo-Catholic criteria for what’s Catholic.
The Orthodox add to these ‘being in the church’ which they define as themselves - the Cyprianic view - so they flat-out say no to the Western pretenders of the past century claiming ‘lines of succession’ from them. (But not, as ASimpleSinner pointed out, to those obviously related to them and ’still in the family’: true-believer and nationalist schisms of real Easterners. This is historically true of Greek Catholics: in the Middle East there’s intercommunion but not concelebration/clergy exchange and the priests in the Toth and Chornock splits weren’t reordained!) The Oriental communion and old-fashioned Assyrians (the breakaway Ancient Assyrian Church of the East not the relatively liberal patriarchate which has open Communion with Romans and Anglicans) may believe the same.
The mainline episcopal churches that claim apostolic succession (because of Anglo-Catholicism I won’t say Protestant) seem, like the vagantes, to put all their stock in lines of succession, who touched whom. (But Anglicans like Romans and Easterners don’t bring up first nor talk incessantly about their lines. They’re secure in belonging to a church; they’ve got nothing to prove.) Which as you can see with the vagantes and now with intercommunion with non-episcopal Protestants seems to degenerate into a kind of magic.
Good rule of thumb, applicable if you’re Catholic or not: if a clergyperson first talks about services and activities at a church, about the congregation and Sunday attendance, it’s something real and trustworthy. (Leaving aside doctrine and its ramifications - like belief on the episcopate, the Real Presence, WO or gay weddings - for the purpose of this illustration.) If on the other hand the first thing you see (as a page on a website for example) or hear is a claim to ‘valid lines of succession’ and an attempt to prove it, then run, run, run!
February 12, 2008 at 4:48 pm
One more thing: when all else seems equal THIS, church infallibility, separates Catholics from high-church Protestants. The other issues - WO, teaching and practice on homosexuality, i.c.w. - are only symptoms of this big divide.
February 12, 2008 at 6:07 pm
YF, well said, and as a point of clarification - not disagreement - the Constantinople/Bucharest assesments of Anglican order (for lack of a better word) potentiality seems to have been confined to paper.
Apologists for AO and a select, select few EO contra-distinctionists of the West make effort to point to an isolated example one or two Anglican ministers being recognized as priests… But laregely the theorizing offered on the matter has never played out.
One intrepid contr-distinctive com-box warrior from ROCOR who served as one of my primary interlocutors in another forum insisted that Rome was wrong about the reasons and pointed to Orthodox position statements on AO as having potentiality… Well when pressed to offer the details of how it could work today - would a whole parish, a whole deanery, a whole diocese (heck maybe San Joacqin!) re-adopting ortho-praxis to fulfill sufficiently this theory? He was at a loss to respond.
Moving from theory to actual practice, we see a little different approach being taken…
For example, the seeds of Sub-saharan Orthodoxy among the native people (as opposed to say the ethnic Greeks that lived in Johanesburgh) is rooted in the reception (and subsequent Orthodox chrismation & ordination of the clergy) of a group of Africans in Uganda (and maybe Kenya?) who had been professing the Orthodox faith for decades. Problem was, at the roots of their movement were orders from Joseph Villatte who had consecrated an American Black nationalist that had a vision to create an African Orthodox church (Alex. McGarvey).
McGarvey helped establish missions of his auto-genic church in Africa and the believers there had largely believed and saw themselves as canonical Orthodox just the same as Russians, Greeks, etc. When they DID come become aware of the deficiency in their canonical status was when real live Greeks showed up at their door…
The Greeks were enthusisastic about the African Orthodox and took them in when they sought canonical ties and protection, but only after chrismation and (re)ordination of their clergy.
If the “position paper” theory of AO potentiality had gained widespread acceptence it would seem that the re-ordination of the clergy of that church would not have been needed or undertaken. Considering how much closer the AOC was in history to canonical Christian Orthodoxy, and considering how they were already observing the Orthodox faith (As opposed to the 400+ year divisin of Anglicanism and the Protestantism and self-created liturgy therein…) on paper they should have simply been brought into the fold without re-ordination. They weren’t.
February 12, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Thanks.
…the Constantinople/Bucharest assessments of Anglican orders’ (for lack of a better word) potentiality seems to have been confined to paper.
Of course! Corporate entry of the whole Anglican Communion into Orthodoxy never happened - in Orthodox eyes the potentiality was never acted upon - so following their own terms those assessments remain confined to paper.
I’ve never heard of the Orthodox officially recognising an Anglican’s orders and only one case of an Oriental church (the Armenians) so doing, from a man with a penchant for making stuff up.
The founding of sub-Saharan African convert Eastern Orthodoxy was not related to this issue at all - they didn’t come in as Anglicans in a communionwide conversion - but rather was a case of ‘lines of succession’ from vagantes which as you know mean bubkes to the Orthodox.
February 12, 2008 at 6:53 pm
“The founding of sub-Saharan African convert Eastern Orthodoxy was not related to this issue at all - they didn’t come in as Anglicans in a communionwide conversion - but rather was a case of ‘lines of succession’ from vagantes which as you know mean bubkes to the Orthodox.”
My point was that if any group could have made a case for their orders and “churchness” being recognized after wholesale return or acceptance to ortho-praxis, this would have been the group with the strongest claim.
Not to belabor and beat to death the point, but the position on the possibility of corporate return to ortho-praxis by Anglicans leading to Orthodox recognition of orders should have played out here of all cases if that was the in practice the working approach to such matters.
Father Serge Kelleher recently wryly noted that one his wiser seminary professors pointed out it is always very smart to read about what a church says, but than take a look at what they do.
(A comment made amidst an argument between a radical Catholic and radical Orthodox who were equally outraged that back “in the old country” intercommunion for visiting families of Orth/Caths was so much the norm no one ever raised a fuss about it there! On paper what should never happen, seems to happen all the time…)
February 12, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Fogey, thanks for the education on the origin of your name. May your butcher bike alway brandish wicker basket tied with with leather and brass, your goatee notwithstanding.
Most of the rest of your conversation with Simple Sinner is pretty new to me so I sit on sideline taking it in.
On point on Talleyrand, though. I do realize that he was privately an atheist even as he ordained other bishops and that his case is a brilliant example of ex opere operato. Still, I am scratching my head at the claim that all the French church’s lines depend on him.
I have personally attended the episcopal ordinations of three men. Two of those ordinations included among the consecrators the papal nuncio whose line is traceable to the Petrine very closely.
My point is that at least in the 20th Century the idea of national lines of succession has vanished in Catholicism. While I have no idea how national such lines were before modern travel, the presence of Italian nuncios in the modern period is not only a question of an Rome based diplomatic corps, but has the additional effect of tying lines very directly to Peter.
February 12, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Now I think I know what you’re trying to get at, ASimpleSinner. If the Anglicans could be recognised that way in theory then why not fairly orthodox vagantes?
Could it possibly be because as recently as just before World War II Anglicanism indirectly had much more clout thanks to the British Empire?
Good point, Father, about the French succession. I picked up that bit from some defence or other of Anglican orders.
BTW the best such argument I’ve come across was from the sound (he was a Thomist) Anglo-Catholic priest Eric Mascall who pointed out that Rome recognised the baptisms of the Oceanic Methodists (in the Pacific) even though they read aloud a statement before baptising that specifically, deliberately denied baptismal regeneration.
February 12, 2008 at 7:38 pm
“Now I think I know what you’re trying to get at, ASimpleSinner. If the Anglicans could be recognised that way in theory then why not fairly orthodox vagantes?”
BINGO!
(Though however small, the AOC was a real church with a few generations of adherents rather than a church of one, so Villatte a first gen vagante, was the only vagante in the equation…) We see each other’s points.
February 13, 2008 at 3:16 am
On the PNCC and intercommunion:
The PNCC entered into communion with PECUSA (at the time) in 1946 based on Bonn. The Prime Bishop of the PNCC called off intercommunion in 1976 (about) based on PECUSA/Anglican Church of Canada’s ordination of women. That was confirmed at the General Synod of 1978.
As to PNCC intercommunion, The Roman Church allows PNCC members to receive the Eucharist on request, based on need (no local PNC Church to serve them etc.). Members must respect the PNCC discipline toward the sacrament (two hour fast, no communion in the hand, try to receive from an ordained clergyman if at all possible). Roman Catholics may receive in a PNC Church under more limited circumstance (if they respect their Church’s discipline - most do not). This arrangement is not true intercommunion and AFAIK Rome does not have a true intercommunion arrangement with anyone who does not fully accept Roman dogma. Others (Orthodox, Oriental, Old Catholic, and in more limited circumstances even Protestants) may simply receive the Eucharist in an R.C. Church. The converse is not true for Roman Catholics - there are many more conditions.
The Roman Church fully respects the PNC Church’s orders and other sacraments, save marriage. We have a different sacramental understanding of marriage. The Roman Church’s recognition of our sacraments includes the Sacrament of the Word of God.
The PNCC is in communion with the Nordic Church (NCC - mentioned above) and the Polish Catholic Church in Poland.
I cannot say for sure, but I believe the NCC’s Lutheran orders were considered valid - again I could be wrong on this - but most Scandinavian Lutherans maintain valid succession.
On the Old Catholics (legitimately styled - not vagantes in the U.S. and Canada) the PNCC was in impaired communion for several years. The PNCC could not countenance women’s ordination nor homosexual marriages/blessings. The split was finalized in 2005 I believe. For more see this Touchstone article. The PNCC still adheres to the Declaration of Utrecht as normative.
February 13, 2008 at 11:53 am
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark doesn’t claim apostolic succession nor does the Church of Norway. In the 1500s Norway had ‘district superintendents’ instead of bishops for a while then reverted to the old titles of bishop and diocese without trying to get the succession again.
Rather like ELCA before the concordat with TEC: they renamed their district superintendents bishops years before they started being consecrated by Episcopalians. (And didn’t believe the office was permanent; they reverted to being simply pastors when they left office as I think Methodist bishops do. That’s changed in ELCA.)
(The Evangelical Church in Germany - AFAIK mostly Lutheran but a 19th-century merger with the Reformed there, forming the country’s official Protestant church - likewise calls them bishops but they don’t claim apostolic succession.)
So the ex-state church clergy forming the Nordic Catholic Church would have had to be ordained de novo by the PNCC.
I think the Swedo-Catholics consist of one Church of Sweden bishop who belongs to Forward in Faith and goes to its meetings and a priest and parish here and there. They have a little Benedictine monastery and convent. That must be lonely, in a country even more secularist than England. I’ve been told by someone who lived there that Sweden is very anti-Roman (RCs are a microscopic minority that tends to try and blend in). AFAIK there’s no independent Swedo-Catholic church with the PNCC.
Finland, Estonia and some African churches got their orders from Sweden.
As Iceland was long a Danish colony I’ll assume they don’t claim the succession either.
February 14, 2008 at 3:21 am
Thank you Dcn Jim for weighing in with that info. After you mentioned it, I seemed to recall reading at one poing about the PNCC/PECUSA intercommunion not being exactly related to the Bonn Agreement. In a funny way, that only adds layers to the levels of inter-communion by pointing out that what happened in Bonn in 1931 did not translate to a tacit de facto agreement between the PNCC and PECUSA.
February 14, 2008 at 4:13 am
I never understood that. Didn’t Bonn apply to all of the Utrecht churches, were those churches that independent or was it simply a case of Episcopalians reluctant to chum up with some Polish immigrants or vice versa?
February 14, 2008 at 7:27 am
Good Point YF…
I would have thought that by Canterbury & Utrecht being in communion the rest would fall into place…
Then again, looking at the original post… it doesn’t always work that way.