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The Reception, Recognition and Reconciliation of Holy Orders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

Will Adam
Will Adam
Affiliation:
Priest in Charge of Girton and Ely Diocesan Ecumenical Officer
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Questions of the mutual recognition, or not, of the ministry of different Churches have been high on the ecumenical agenda for many years. Roman Catholic sacramental theology, manifest inter alia in Canon Law, has a clear understanding of the validity or invalidity of sacraments, including holy orders. Validity is a strong word and implies that sacramental acts which are not valid are de facto ineffective.

Type
Articles
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 8 , Issue 36 , January 2005 , pp. 4 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2005

References

1 This is an abridgement of a dissertation of the same title submitted as part of the LLM in Canon Law at Cardiff University in 2003. The full version contains more detailed assessment of orders and ordination in the Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches.

2 For a discussion of the Meissen Declaration. see below.

3 Eg Doe, N, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998), p 137;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBursell, R, Liturgy, Order and the Law (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996), pp 232, 233.Google Scholar

4 Eg the fashion dating from the 1940s for parish churches to declare themselves ‘out of communion’ with the Church of South India due to the supposed invalidity of its ministry and the author's experience of promoting Anglican-Methodist cooperation in the Diocess of Oxford and Ely in recent years.Google Scholar

5 Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 1113.Google Scholar

6 Gurrieri, J, ‘Sacramental Validity: The Origins and Use of a Vocabulary’ (1981) 41 The Jurist 21 at 28.Google Scholar

7 Ibid 21.

8 Ibid 22.

9 However. canon 951 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law admits of the possibility of valid ordination being administered other than by a bishop.Google Scholar

10 Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis 30 November 1947.Google Scholar

11 Apostolic Constitution Approval of the new rites for the ordination of deacons, presbyters and bishops, 18 June 1968.Google Scholar

12 Code of Canon Law 1983, canon 1009.Google Scholar

13 This principle can be traced to the Council of Trent.Google Scholar

14 For Eastern Orthodox clergy, see the Vatican II decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum. para 25.Google Scholar

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19 Ibid 41.

20 Ibid 42.

21 Ibid 40. note 82.

22 Articles of Religion, Article XXV.Google Scholar

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30 Ibid, note 45. He also cites the Prayer Books of the Church of the Province of South Africa and the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. The former states that ‘The central Act of ordination consists of the imposition of hands by a bishop, together with prayer for the Holy Spirit to give grace for the particular order being bestowed’. This is consistent with the contents of the section in the Alternative Service Book Ordinal entitled ‘The Ordination’.

31 ASB, p 338, note 1. This is consistent with the Revised Canons Ecclesiastical, Canon C 3, para 4.Google Scholar

32 ASB, p 338, note 2. This is consistent with Canon C 2, para 1.Google Scholar

33 ASB, p 338, note 3. This is consistent with Canon C 3, para 4.Google Scholar

34 Blake v Associated Newspapers Ltd (2003) 7 Ecc LJ 369, QBD.Google Scholar

35 Evidence dated 23 June 2003 at p 7.Google Scholar

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42 Ibid. I am grateful to the Rt Revd Christopher Hill. co-author of the Reuilly Common Statement, for further information on this subject.

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44 The text of the Measure suggests that they should act jointly.Google Scholar

45 Sometimes referred to as ‘Full Communion’ and distinguished in the Measure from those Churches with whom the Church of England is not in communion but whose orders it recognises.Google Scholar

46 The Canons of the Church of England (6th edn, Church House Publishing, 2000), pp 199–201.Google Scholar

47 See Canon B 44, para 5, and Canon C 1, para 1.Google Scholar

48 The Most Revd Robert Runcie on behalf of himself and the Archbishop of York, the Most Revd John Habgood.Google Scholar

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51 A sub-group of the Division's Recruitment and Selection Committee.Google Scholar

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53 Canon B 43, para 1(3).Google Scholar

54 Canon B 43, para 2(b)(iii).Google Scholar

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56 See above.Google Scholar

57 Para 15.Google Scholar

58 Para 22.Google Scholar

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66 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 22 May 1994, and the subsequent explanatory document Responsum ad dubium circa doctrinam in Epist. Ap. ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ traditam of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 28 October 1995.Google Scholar

67 Neill, S, Anglicanism (Penguin, 1958), p 372.Google Scholar

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69 Ibid.

70 As evidenced by the conditional re-ordination of Dr Graham Leonard.Google Scholar

71 The Declaration of Utrecht.Google Scholar

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73 Neill, Anglicanism, p 373.Google Scholar

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78 Ibid p 342.

79 Ibid p 341.

80 An Anglican Methodist Covenant (Church House Publishing, 2001), para 61.Google Scholar

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83 Ibid p 87.

84 Wendebourg, D, ‘The Reformation in Germany and the Episcopal Office’ in Visible Unity and the Ministry of Oversight (Church House Publishing, 1996), p 50.Google Scholar

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86 The Meissen Agreement (Council for Christian Unity Occasional Paper No 2), para 17.Google Scholar

87 According to Canon B43, para 5, ‘A bishop or priest who has accepted an invitation to take part in the ordination or consecration of a minister of a Church to which this Canon applies may not, by the laying on of hands or otherwise, do any act which is a sign of the conferring of holy orders, unless that Church is an episcopal Church with which the Church of England has established intercommunion’.Google Scholar

88 The Meissen Agreement, para 17.Google Scholar

89 Ibid para 17.

90 An agreement between the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran Churches and the Anglican Churches of the British Isles 1993.Google Scholar

91 Hill, C in Together in Mission and Ministry: The Porvoo Common Statement with Essays on Church and Ministry in Northern Europe (Church House Publishing, 1993), pp 53–58.Google Scholar

92 The Churches of Norway, Denmark and Iceland.Google Scholar

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94 Ibid para 53.

95 Ibid para 57.

96 The Canons of the Church of England, p 201.Google Scholar

97 Porvoo Common Statement, para 57.Google Scholar

98 Ibid para 9.

99 Ibid para 58(b)(ii), (iii) and (iv). An example of this is the integration of the ministers of the Scandinavian Mission to Seafarers in London into the Bermondsey Deanery of the Diocese of Southwark.

100 The Churches of Sweden and Norway have women bishops. See The Church of England Year Book (Church House Publishing, 2004), pp 418, 419.Google Scholar

101 For instance the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1992 allowed the ordination of women to the priesthood. Women ordained in other parts of the Anglican Communion prior to this did not require re-ordination after this point to minister in the Church of England. Their ordination prior to this was not, therefore, invalid but not recognised as lawful.Google Scholar