Ecclesiology

The historic ecclesiology of the Great Church is an eucharistic ecclesiology based on the episcopate as the continuation of the apostolic ministry. That ecclesiology as espoused in the second and third centuries has been generally received by Anglicanism: a true 'Church' is a bishop in the historic succession, designated for a geographical area, presiding in love at the eucharistic altar with his presbyterate, diaconate, and faithful people gathered with him in sacramental communion. A true Church, according to the tradition of the Catholic Church as a whole, requires a true bishop, a geographical jurisdiction, and the People of God established in communicatio in sacris. Any local particular Church with these characteristics is rendered a true Church, according the model universally-held since the time of Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint Clement of Rome, the age of the Apostolic Fathers of the second-century. The Church universal or Catholic is the worldwide communion, the oecumene, of local particular eucharistic assemblies - the Holy Catholic Church is by definition a Communion of Communions. The unity and catholicity of the Church inheres in the communion of the People of God with their local bishops and the communion of the bishops with one another, what Saint Cyprian of Carthage calls the 'undivided episcopate.' The bishop therefore is not only the sign of the unity of God's People amongst themselves as a local eucharistic assembly, but the sign of unity of all local Churches with each other and the whole Catholic Church. There can be no doubt that this eucharistic ecclesiology is the received tradition and teaching of the Anglican Communion. Two additional points may be helpful:

1. The 1920 Lambeth Conference Appeal to All Christian People corresponds with the teaching of the Book of Common Prayer Catechism, which affirms that all Christians baptised with water in the Name of the Blessed Trinity are true members of the Holy Catholic Church, the Body of which Christ is the Head and all the baptised are members. All the baptised, by virtue of their incorporation into the one Christ in the one Spirit, are truly members of the one Body which is the Ark of salvation and the Mother of believers: 'you cannot have God for your Father without the Church as your Mother.' 'Outside the Church there is no salvation.' Thus although individual Christians may lack full sacramental communion with the visible Catholic Church as constituted by Christ and the Apostles, they still possess integral membership in the Body of Christ by virtue of their sacramental identification with Christ the Lord. Anglicans thus simply say that all baptised Christians, the fides, or faithful, are members of Christ and hence members, mystically, of the Church. This is in essence the teaching of Saint Stephen I of Rome and Saint Augustine: baptism conferred outside the visible sacramental communion of the Great Church is still a true valid Baptism because it orders the person so baptised to the Catholic Church, whether they fully acknowledge it or not. All baptised Christians, according to the Prayer Book and the Lambeth Conference, are in some sense 'in the Church.' Upon reception into the Catholic Church by confirmation, the baptism received by one outside the Great Church is perfected and fulfilled in that it flourishes in its proper context, communion in the fullness of the Body.

2. The first point addresses only individual Christians. The question of the validity or authenticity of entire communions or ecclesial communities is different. The Anglican starting and ending point for this question must surely be the rule of ordination and consecration found in the Preface to the Ordinal of 1662, which rule is still authoritative in the Anglican Communion today. Whatever was the policy of the pre-Restoration Church, the Established Church of England and her daughter Churches from 1662 forward have required episcopal ordination and consecration for a valid universally-and-mutually-recognised ministry. The Preface to the Ordinal does not necessarily 'unchurch' protestant bodies that lack the historic succession of bishops, priests, and deacons, but it certainly makes explicitly clear that the Church of England only recognises FOR HERSELF a sacramentally valid ministry which is transmitted by bishops in the apostolic succession. It does not specifically address the validity or invalidity of the orders and sacramental ministrations of ecclesial bodies which lack the historic episcopate. But the inferences and the logical consequences are unambiguous: all post-1662 canon law of the Churches of the Anglican Communion requires episcopal ordination in the case of protestant ministers who enter our communion and wish to continue to exercise their ministry. Ordained ministers who are received into Anglicanism from Churches which possess the apostolic succession, Rome, Chalcedonian Orthodoxy, the Old Catholics, the Oriental Orthodox, the Assyrians, and the Swedish Lutherans, are not ordained but are received in their orders. Anglicanism, in this case, works from canonical, liturgical, and sacramental precedent, not from the formulation of strict statements of doctrine. Validity is a legal term, not a spiritual one: every sacramental act is valid for the community that celebrates it. It is only when reciprocity or mutual recognition of ministries and sacraments is approached and desired that the question of validity in the strictly objective sense arises. Since 1662, the historic Anglican position has been to recognise as its own ministry and sacraments, and hence as the ministry and sacraments of the one Catholic Church, those which are administered by Churches treasuring the apostolic succession. The Anglican Communion claims only to have and to recognise the orders, ministry, and sacraments of the Catholic Church. She claims her own sacraments and orders are those of the Church of all ages. She has no distinctive faith or order of her own, only that of the undivided Church. In this, some have differed from the post-Restoration praxis of the Anglican Communion.