http://konicki.com/
Deacon's Blog: Thoughts and Opinions from a Deacon in the PNCC.
Does anyone know of other blogs concerned with Anglicanism's historic sister communion, the Polish National Catholic Church?
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Anglicanism and Old Catholicism
Based on Three Studies of Old Catholicism by Fathers Owen Groman and Jonathan Trela:
Until recently, relations between the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholic Churches had been most successful. The close connection between Anglicanism and Old Catholicism began at the Old Catholic Congress of Cologne (1872). The prime mover in this matter was Bishop Herzog of the Swiss Old Catholic Church. Unofficially, Anglicans were allowed to receive communion at Swiss altars for some time. In 1879, the Swiss Old Catholic Church formally granted members of the Church of England altar rights. This intercommunion was extended when Bishop Herzog attended the 1880 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In America, he not only took part in the Liturgy, but also, in various places, was invited to preach and to confer Confirmation. In 1883 the German Old Catholic Church extended the privilege of the altar to Anglicans. The Anglican Communion gave its first formal sanction of intercommunion at the 1888 Lambeth Conference by resolution. Thirty years later the Society of St. Willibrord was formed to improve relations between the Church of England and the Dutch Old Catholic Church.
The Dutch Old Catholic Church steadfastly refused to extend the privilege of the altar to Anglicans until 1894 and that for the good of souls. However, the Dutch Church was not at all willing to accept Anglican Orders as valid since it considered the ritual of Edward VI used for ordinations as insufficient and defective. Archbishop Gerald Gul, the principal consecrator of Prime Bishop Francis Hodur, appointed a commission to decide the question, but the report was indecisive.
Investigation continued, during which there was no intercommunion between the Church of England and the Old Catholic Church of Holland, although intercommunion was operative between the Church of England and the Old Catholic Churches of Germany and Switzerland. This put little strain on the fabric of the union of Old Catholic Churches since it is endemic to the Old Catholic federation that the disciplinary decisions of each separate church bind only in the territory of that church and in good conscience the Dutch could not recognize Anglican Orders. On June 2, 1925, after extensive review, the Old Catholic Church of Holland finally recognized the historicity and validity of the orders of the Church of England, a decision ratified by the Old Catholic Bishops' Conference at Berne (1925). Three years previously, the holy Synod of Constantinople had pronounced in favor of the validity of Anglican orders.
By 1930, after extensive discussions between the European Old Catholics and the Church of England, full doctrinal accord had been reached on the essentials of the Faith. Both jurisdictions accepted the teachings of the undivided Church, but with the Old Catholics making a distinction in importance between the first four Councils and the later three. Good feelings had attained such a point that the Old Catholic bishops of Haarlem advised members of his flock emigrating to the United States to go to the Protestant Episcopal Church. This is very curious in the light of the fact that there was in America a fully formed and functioning member of the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, namely the Polish National Catholic Church. Be that as it may, the way had been paved for the union of the Church of England and the continental Old Catholic Churches.
The joint Anglican/Old Catholic Conference on Union was held at Bonn (July 2,1931). Questions were posed by each side concerning the doctrinal beliefs of the other. The immediate concern was for intercommunion with the Church of England and only secondarily with its daughter churches. This is evident in the fact that each church of the Anglican Communion would have to ratify the Bonn Agreement for itself otherwise it would have no force for that particular church. Prompted by the Dutch concern over validity and historicity of orders, the Old Catholic delegates asked:
Is it universally believed that ordination and consecration can only be given because it is the Church that calls her ministers, and that the holders of office derive their office and their apostolic character only from the will of the Church, so that the apostolic succession cannot be thought of apart from the catholicity of the Church, but has its sole basis therein?
The Anglican delegates replied affirmatively, mentioning the fact that they believed their church to be historically one with the Pre-Reformation Church in England. The Old Catholic delegates then inquired about inter- and intra-communal relations:
Would the Old Catholic Church be committed to intercommunion with churches already in communion with the Church of England if the Old Catholic Churches had intercommunion with the Church of England?
Dr. Headlam, Bishop of Gloucester, a chairman of the Conference, replied that the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht would not be committed to intercommunion with other churches with which the Church of England was already in union particularly if there were a doctrinal divergence; but rather that the churches of the Old Catholic federation would be free to deal with each in their own way.
Satisfied of the catholicity of the other, the delegates composed the following, called the Bonn Agreement:
(1) Each communion recognises the Catholicity and independence of the other and maintains its own.
(2) Each communion agrees to admit members of the other communion to participate in the sacraments.
(3) Intercommunion does not require from either communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion, or liturgical practice characteristic of the other, but implies that each believes the other to hold the essentials of the Christian faith.
This agreement was based on three principles: dogmatic unity, mutual recognition and independent cooperation. It was felt that a union which was not universally accepted was worthless. Thus, it was necessary to distinguish between doctrines which are necessary to salvation and teachings (theological positions) which are not. Unity, then, was founded on agreement in essentials. Mutual recognition entailed the acceptance of each communion's beliefs by the other as orthodox and their sacraments as valid. Independent cooperation perhaps the most ephemeral of the three, can only be a continued response achieved by reciprocal love and service, not through domination. Where these three principles are lacking, there can be no union in Faith.
The Bonn Agreement was accepted at once by the European Old Catholic Churches and by the Church of England. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America formally approved this intercommunion agreement at the General Convention of 1934, through the following resolution passed by the House of Bishops:
Resolved: the terms of intercommunion drawn up by the Joint Commission of Anglicans and Old Catholics we hereby accept and ratify them. Furthermore, we agree to the establishment of intercommunion between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Old Catholics of the Utrecht Convention on these terms.
However, by an unfortunate oversight, this resolution was not ratified by the House of Deputies. It was again ignored at the 1937 Convention. At the next General Convention (1940), the House of Bishops again passed the resolution with the discriminatory phrase 'in Europe' following the words 'the Old Catholics of the Utrecht Convention.' This significant phrase directed against the Polish National Catholic Church was removed by the House of Deputies. The original resolution then passed and intercommunion was realized with the Old Catholics.
Practically, this resolution and the Bonn Agreement had no immediate effect in the United States. Interrelations between the
Episcopal Church and Polish National Catholic Church had never been healthy due to a particular snobbishness on the part of the Episcopalians toward a body composed of recent immigrants. As early as 1896, the first foundation of Polish Old Catholicism had as its bishop the Right Reverend Anthony Kozlowski, who had been consecrated in Europe by three Old Catholic Bishops for the American Church. During the ten years of his episcopate, he was able to realise 23 parishes under his Chicago jurisdiction with some 80,000 members. He was on exceedingly good terms with the Episcopal bishop of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the Right Reverend Charles C. Grafton, who for years worked with Bishop Kozlowski for closer cooperation between the Episcopal and Polish Old Catholic Churches.
However, when, in 1900, Reginald H. Weller was to be consecrated Coadjutor to Bishop Grafton and that same bishop proposed to have Bishop Kozlowski as co-consecrator, one of the Episcopal co-consecrators refused to have any part in the service if the Polish bishop were included. Bishop Kozlowski did not participate and thus an early attempt at Anglican/Old Catholic intercommunion on the American scene was vitiated.
Writing to the General Convention (1901), Bishop Kozlowski petitioned for intercommunion on the terms of the Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888). These terms called for the belief that the essentials for unity were the acceptance of (1) the Holy Scriptures as containing all things necessary to salvation, (2) the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Faith, (3) the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist as instituted by Christ himself, and (4) the 'historic episcopate' locally adapted to the needs of various regions and peoples. Bishop Kozlowski's petition, based on the avowed terms of the Anglican Communion itself was referred to a committee of three bishops who, it seems, never filed a report. For the next ten years, this request would always be killed in committee and no action taken. In 1910 Bishop Grafton again presented a petition for intercommunion to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. This petition was signed by Bishop Francis Hodur who had been successful in reorganising and including the various Polish Old Catholic foundations into the Polish National Catholic Church, and who represented a fresh succession from Utrecht. Once more the matter was side-tracked into committee. This delaying maneuver on the part of the Episcopal Church is very difficult to understand unless one accepts the fact that the Episcopalians viewed the European Dutch, German and Swiss Old Catholics as socially acceptable compatriots, but considered the Poles as beneath Episcopal notice. Certainly, although the Episcopal Church may have considered itself the Catholic jurisdiction of the U.S.A., there was no attempt to include Polish Catholicism within its English Catholic ranks.
The statement that the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Episcopal Church was wary of any group which had declared its independence from Rome and thus opposed any intercourse seems not to be true since, in 1915, the Prince-Bishop De Landes Berghes et de Rache, a prelate of the vagrant Mathew Old Catholic line, participated in the consecration of the Right Reverend Hiram R. Hulse, the second Protestant Episcopal bishop of Cuba. De Landas had been consecrated in 1913 by Archbishop Arnold H. Mathew whose erratic behaviour merited ejection from the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht that same year. As an Austrian citizen, the Prince (he was related to almost every royal house in Europe) fled England in order to avoid internment during WWI as an enemy alien. Unwilling to wait out the war, the Prince-Bishop entered the American ecclesiastical arena by erecting the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, an obscure body which survives today in few parishes. Shortly thereafter, De Landas left the Old Catholics, made submission to the Roman See and died as an Augustinian novice. In short, it seems as if any bishop was acceptable, providing his credentials were socially acceptable. In this light, one can easily understand the discriminatory point of the phrase 'in Europe' as directed against the PNCC.
By passing the intercommunion resolution, the 1940 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church had declared itself ready for intercommunion with the Polish National Catholic Church, but now understandably the PNCC was reticent. The 1910 PNC petition for intercommunion, twenty-one years in advance of the Bonn Agreement, had been shelved. The Bonn Agreement itself had been primarily directed toward European intercommunion. Further, for the extension of the intercommunion accord, it was necessary for the local churches to ratify it. The 1931 Synod VI of the PNCC met one month too soon to consider approving a not yet drawn up Bonn Agreement. The Special Synod, meeting in 1935, turned the matter over to committee, reserving the right to articulate its own intercommunion agreement with the Protestant Episcopal Church. Rebuffed in 1934, the PNCC watched as it was ignored in 1937. With the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, the ecclesiastical climate had changed. Both Episcopalians and National Catholics were aware of what a 'union' of the jurisdictions would signify. An alliance of communions might lead to an alliance of nations. In order to insure closer ties with England and exert an indirect pressure the PNCC would continue to seek closer relations with the Protestant Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion. Bishop Hodur was such an ardent patriot that he, with the backing of the PNCC jurisdiction, was willing to continue ignoring the slights handed to the PNCC and press for intercommunion now not only for the good of souls, not only for the just position of the PNCC as a member of the Old Catholic federation, but also for the material well-being of his European countrymen. Intercommunion would be realised, but too late for the war effort.
Synod VII of the PNCC approved intercommunion with the Episcopal Church on October 18, 1946. It was a separate agreement, but identical to that of Bonn fifteen years earlier. Doctrinal accord had been achieved once the PNCC was sure that the beliefs of the Episcopal Church were Catholic. For thirty years, the agreement worked amicably enough. People of one communion could participate in the sacraments of the other. PNC bishops served as co-consecrators to Episcopal bishops, infusing into Anglican Orders a line of valid apostolic succession with which the Roman Church could not contend. However at its 1976 General Convention the Episcopal Church departed from Catholic belief and Tradition by altering its understanding of the sacraments in order to allow the ordination of women to the presbyterate. Promptly, the Prime Bishop of the PNCC, the Most Reverend Thaddeus Zielinski, suspended the intercommunion accord on the grounds that, by its action, the Protestant Episcopal Church had vitiated the 1946 agreement. This suspension was approved by the 1977 General Clergy Conference of the PNCC and ratified by the Supreme Council. On October 4, 1978, final resolution was made by the XV General Synod of the PNCC, meeting in Chicago. At that Synod the intercommunion agreement between the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA), the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and the PNCC was terminated on the grounds that these Anglican churches had abused and abandoned the ancient orthodox Catholic Faith. It is interesting to note that the Philippine Independent Catholic Church, which received its apostolic orders from PECUSA, had already excommunicated PECUSA over the issue of women's ordination, stating that PECUSA had departed from ancient Catholic Faith and Tradition. It seems that, at the time, the Philippine Independent Catholic Church valued its Catholicity and union with the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht more than its historic ties to the Episcopal Church.
In Europe the Bonn Agreement had worked well. Aside from the use of Old Catholic bishops as co-consecrators and the hob-and-nob of theological meetings, there was little daily contact between members of the Anglican and Old Catholic Communions. 'Good fences make good neighbours.' During WWII the Old Catholic bishops took the continental Church of England parishes under their care with little difficulty. Only recently has there been strain in the overall relationship and that over the departure from Catholic belief and Tradition on the part of various member churches of the Anglican Communion and the Union of Utrecht itself. As a result, the PNCC was forced to leave the Union of Utrecht in November 2003...
Until recently, relations between the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholic Churches had been most successful. The close connection between Anglicanism and Old Catholicism began at the Old Catholic Congress of Cologne (1872). The prime mover in this matter was Bishop Herzog of the Swiss Old Catholic Church. Unofficially, Anglicans were allowed to receive communion at Swiss altars for some time. In 1879, the Swiss Old Catholic Church formally granted members of the Church of England altar rights. This intercommunion was extended when Bishop Herzog attended the 1880 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In America, he not only took part in the Liturgy, but also, in various places, was invited to preach and to confer Confirmation. In 1883 the German Old Catholic Church extended the privilege of the altar to Anglicans. The Anglican Communion gave its first formal sanction of intercommunion at the 1888 Lambeth Conference by resolution. Thirty years later the Society of St. Willibrord was formed to improve relations between the Church of England and the Dutch Old Catholic Church.
The Dutch Old Catholic Church steadfastly refused to extend the privilege of the altar to Anglicans until 1894 and that for the good of souls. However, the Dutch Church was not at all willing to accept Anglican Orders as valid since it considered the ritual of Edward VI used for ordinations as insufficient and defective. Archbishop Gerald Gul, the principal consecrator of Prime Bishop Francis Hodur, appointed a commission to decide the question, but the report was indecisive.
Investigation continued, during which there was no intercommunion between the Church of England and the Old Catholic Church of Holland, although intercommunion was operative between the Church of England and the Old Catholic Churches of Germany and Switzerland. This put little strain on the fabric of the union of Old Catholic Churches since it is endemic to the Old Catholic federation that the disciplinary decisions of each separate church bind only in the territory of that church and in good conscience the Dutch could not recognize Anglican Orders. On June 2, 1925, after extensive review, the Old Catholic Church of Holland finally recognized the historicity and validity of the orders of the Church of England, a decision ratified by the Old Catholic Bishops' Conference at Berne (1925). Three years previously, the holy Synod of Constantinople had pronounced in favor of the validity of Anglican orders.
By 1930, after extensive discussions between the European Old Catholics and the Church of England, full doctrinal accord had been reached on the essentials of the Faith. Both jurisdictions accepted the teachings of the undivided Church, but with the Old Catholics making a distinction in importance between the first four Councils and the later three. Good feelings had attained such a point that the Old Catholic bishops of Haarlem advised members of his flock emigrating to the United States to go to the Protestant Episcopal Church. This is very curious in the light of the fact that there was in America a fully formed and functioning member of the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, namely the Polish National Catholic Church. Be that as it may, the way had been paved for the union of the Church of England and the continental Old Catholic Churches.
The joint Anglican/Old Catholic Conference on Union was held at Bonn (July 2,1931). Questions were posed by each side concerning the doctrinal beliefs of the other. The immediate concern was for intercommunion with the Church of England and only secondarily with its daughter churches. This is evident in the fact that each church of the Anglican Communion would have to ratify the Bonn Agreement for itself otherwise it would have no force for that particular church. Prompted by the Dutch concern over validity and historicity of orders, the Old Catholic delegates asked:
Is it universally believed that ordination and consecration can only be given because it is the Church that calls her ministers, and that the holders of office derive their office and their apostolic character only from the will of the Church, so that the apostolic succession cannot be thought of apart from the catholicity of the Church, but has its sole basis therein?
The Anglican delegates replied affirmatively, mentioning the fact that they believed their church to be historically one with the Pre-Reformation Church in England. The Old Catholic delegates then inquired about inter- and intra-communal relations:
Would the Old Catholic Church be committed to intercommunion with churches already in communion with the Church of England if the Old Catholic Churches had intercommunion with the Church of England?
Dr. Headlam, Bishop of Gloucester, a chairman of the Conference, replied that the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht would not be committed to intercommunion with other churches with which the Church of England was already in union particularly if there were a doctrinal divergence; but rather that the churches of the Old Catholic federation would be free to deal with each in their own way.
Satisfied of the catholicity of the other, the delegates composed the following, called the Bonn Agreement:
(1) Each communion recognises the Catholicity and independence of the other and maintains its own.
(2) Each communion agrees to admit members of the other communion to participate in the sacraments.
(3) Intercommunion does not require from either communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion, or liturgical practice characteristic of the other, but implies that each believes the other to hold the essentials of the Christian faith.
This agreement was based on three principles: dogmatic unity, mutual recognition and independent cooperation. It was felt that a union which was not universally accepted was worthless. Thus, it was necessary to distinguish between doctrines which are necessary to salvation and teachings (theological positions) which are not. Unity, then, was founded on agreement in essentials. Mutual recognition entailed the acceptance of each communion's beliefs by the other as orthodox and their sacraments as valid. Independent cooperation perhaps the most ephemeral of the three, can only be a continued response achieved by reciprocal love and service, not through domination. Where these three principles are lacking, there can be no union in Faith.
The Bonn Agreement was accepted at once by the European Old Catholic Churches and by the Church of England. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America formally approved this intercommunion agreement at the General Convention of 1934, through the following resolution passed by the House of Bishops:
Resolved: the terms of intercommunion drawn up by the Joint Commission of Anglicans and Old Catholics we hereby accept and ratify them. Furthermore, we agree to the establishment of intercommunion between the Protestant Episcopal Church and the Old Catholics of the Utrecht Convention on these terms.
However, by an unfortunate oversight, this resolution was not ratified by the House of Deputies. It was again ignored at the 1937 Convention. At the next General Convention (1940), the House of Bishops again passed the resolution with the discriminatory phrase 'in Europe' following the words 'the Old Catholics of the Utrecht Convention.' This significant phrase directed against the Polish National Catholic Church was removed by the House of Deputies. The original resolution then passed and intercommunion was realized with the Old Catholics.
Practically, this resolution and the Bonn Agreement had no immediate effect in the United States. Interrelations between the
Episcopal Church and Polish National Catholic Church had never been healthy due to a particular snobbishness on the part of the Episcopalians toward a body composed of recent immigrants. As early as 1896, the first foundation of Polish Old Catholicism had as its bishop the Right Reverend Anthony Kozlowski, who had been consecrated in Europe by three Old Catholic Bishops for the American Church. During the ten years of his episcopate, he was able to realise 23 parishes under his Chicago jurisdiction with some 80,000 members. He was on exceedingly good terms with the Episcopal bishop of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the Right Reverend Charles C. Grafton, who for years worked with Bishop Kozlowski for closer cooperation between the Episcopal and Polish Old Catholic Churches.
However, when, in 1900, Reginald H. Weller was to be consecrated Coadjutor to Bishop Grafton and that same bishop proposed to have Bishop Kozlowski as co-consecrator, one of the Episcopal co-consecrators refused to have any part in the service if the Polish bishop were included. Bishop Kozlowski did not participate and thus an early attempt at Anglican/Old Catholic intercommunion on the American scene was vitiated.
Writing to the General Convention (1901), Bishop Kozlowski petitioned for intercommunion on the terms of the Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888). These terms called for the belief that the essentials for unity were the acceptance of (1) the Holy Scriptures as containing all things necessary to salvation, (2) the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Faith, (3) the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist as instituted by Christ himself, and (4) the 'historic episcopate' locally adapted to the needs of various regions and peoples. Bishop Kozlowski's petition, based on the avowed terms of the Anglican Communion itself was referred to a committee of three bishops who, it seems, never filed a report. For the next ten years, this request would always be killed in committee and no action taken. In 1910 Bishop Grafton again presented a petition for intercommunion to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. This petition was signed by Bishop Francis Hodur who had been successful in reorganising and including the various Polish Old Catholic foundations into the Polish National Catholic Church, and who represented a fresh succession from Utrecht. Once more the matter was side-tracked into committee. This delaying maneuver on the part of the Episcopal Church is very difficult to understand unless one accepts the fact that the Episcopalians viewed the European Dutch, German and Swiss Old Catholics as socially acceptable compatriots, but considered the Poles as beneath Episcopal notice. Certainly, although the Episcopal Church may have considered itself the Catholic jurisdiction of the U.S.A., there was no attempt to include Polish Catholicism within its English Catholic ranks.
The statement that the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Episcopal Church was wary of any group which had declared its independence from Rome and thus opposed any intercourse seems not to be true since, in 1915, the Prince-Bishop De Landes Berghes et de Rache, a prelate of the vagrant Mathew Old Catholic line, participated in the consecration of the Right Reverend Hiram R. Hulse, the second Protestant Episcopal bishop of Cuba. De Landas had been consecrated in 1913 by Archbishop Arnold H. Mathew whose erratic behaviour merited ejection from the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht that same year. As an Austrian citizen, the Prince (he was related to almost every royal house in Europe) fled England in order to avoid internment during WWI as an enemy alien. Unwilling to wait out the war, the Prince-Bishop entered the American ecclesiastical arena by erecting the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, an obscure body which survives today in few parishes. Shortly thereafter, De Landas left the Old Catholics, made submission to the Roman See and died as an Augustinian novice. In short, it seems as if any bishop was acceptable, providing his credentials were socially acceptable. In this light, one can easily understand the discriminatory point of the phrase 'in Europe' as directed against the PNCC.
By passing the intercommunion resolution, the 1940 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church had declared itself ready for intercommunion with the Polish National Catholic Church, but now understandably the PNCC was reticent. The 1910 PNC petition for intercommunion, twenty-one years in advance of the Bonn Agreement, had been shelved. The Bonn Agreement itself had been primarily directed toward European intercommunion. Further, for the extension of the intercommunion accord, it was necessary for the local churches to ratify it. The 1931 Synod VI of the PNCC met one month too soon to consider approving a not yet drawn up Bonn Agreement. The Special Synod, meeting in 1935, turned the matter over to committee, reserving the right to articulate its own intercommunion agreement with the Protestant Episcopal Church. Rebuffed in 1934, the PNCC watched as it was ignored in 1937. With the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, the ecclesiastical climate had changed. Both Episcopalians and National Catholics were aware of what a 'union' of the jurisdictions would signify. An alliance of communions might lead to an alliance of nations. In order to insure closer ties with England and exert an indirect pressure the PNCC would continue to seek closer relations with the Protestant Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion. Bishop Hodur was such an ardent patriot that he, with the backing of the PNCC jurisdiction, was willing to continue ignoring the slights handed to the PNCC and press for intercommunion now not only for the good of souls, not only for the just position of the PNCC as a member of the Old Catholic federation, but also for the material well-being of his European countrymen. Intercommunion would be realised, but too late for the war effort.
Synod VII of the PNCC approved intercommunion with the Episcopal Church on October 18, 1946. It was a separate agreement, but identical to that of Bonn fifteen years earlier. Doctrinal accord had been achieved once the PNCC was sure that the beliefs of the Episcopal Church were Catholic. For thirty years, the agreement worked amicably enough. People of one communion could participate in the sacraments of the other. PNC bishops served as co-consecrators to Episcopal bishops, infusing into Anglican Orders a line of valid apostolic succession with which the Roman Church could not contend. However at its 1976 General Convention the Episcopal Church departed from Catholic belief and Tradition by altering its understanding of the sacraments in order to allow the ordination of women to the presbyterate. Promptly, the Prime Bishop of the PNCC, the Most Reverend Thaddeus Zielinski, suspended the intercommunion accord on the grounds that, by its action, the Protestant Episcopal Church had vitiated the 1946 agreement. This suspension was approved by the 1977 General Clergy Conference of the PNCC and ratified by the Supreme Council. On October 4, 1978, final resolution was made by the XV General Synod of the PNCC, meeting in Chicago. At that Synod the intercommunion agreement between the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA), the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and the PNCC was terminated on the grounds that these Anglican churches had abused and abandoned the ancient orthodox Catholic Faith. It is interesting to note that the Philippine Independent Catholic Church, which received its apostolic orders from PECUSA, had already excommunicated PECUSA over the issue of women's ordination, stating that PECUSA had departed from ancient Catholic Faith and Tradition. It seems that, at the time, the Philippine Independent Catholic Church valued its Catholicity and union with the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht more than its historic ties to the Episcopal Church.
In Europe the Bonn Agreement had worked well. Aside from the use of Old Catholic bishops as co-consecrators and the hob-and-nob of theological meetings, there was little daily contact between members of the Anglican and Old Catholic Communions. 'Good fences make good neighbours.' During WWII the Old Catholic bishops took the continental Church of England parishes under their care with little difficulty. Only recently has there been strain in the overall relationship and that over the departure from Catholic belief and Tradition on the part of various member churches of the Anglican Communion and the Union of Utrecht itself. As a result, the PNCC was forced to leave the Union of Utrecht in November 2003...
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Monday, May 01, 2006
The Right Reverend James Orin Mote, RIP
Bishop James Orin Mote of the Anglican Catholic Church entered life eternal at 8.45 p.m., Saturday 29 April 2006 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was one of the original four Bishops consecrated in Denver, Colorado on 28 January 1978 for the Anglican Church in North America and was a champion of the pro-life movement many times suffering imprisonment.
Today at Saint Alban's Cathedral, Oviedo, Florida, in the Holy Mass for SS. Philip and James, we commemorated Bishop Mote and commended him into the rest and peace of God. Bishop Mote was a man of great sanctity and of love for God and the Church. His by-word was, simply, 'The Catholic and Anglican Faith.' A splendid phrase indeed.
Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him. Amen.
Today at Saint Alban's Cathedral, Oviedo, Florida, in the Holy Mass for SS. Philip and James, we commemorated Bishop Mote and commended him into the rest and peace of God. Bishop Mote was a man of great sanctity and of love for God and the Church. His by-word was, simply, 'The Catholic and Anglican Faith.' A splendid phrase indeed.
Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him. Amen.
Father Gordon Anderson's Priestly Ordination
Congratulations Father Gordon, a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek!
http://continuinganglican.blogspot.com/
http://continuinganglican.blogspot.com/
Saturday, April 29, 2006
North American Old Roman Catholic Church?
Does anyone possess or have access to a copy of a rare and helpful book for which I have searched for some years? I should very much like to obtain a copy, be it original or photocopied.
Father Jonathan E. Trela of the Polish National Catholic Church wrote A History of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey in 1975.
Thank you to all who may have knowledge of this obscure but important work. God bless you!
Father Jonathan E. Trela of the Polish National Catholic Church wrote A History of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey in 1975.
Thank you to all who may have knowledge of this obscure but important work. God bless you!
The Anglican Rite of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
http://www.orthodoxresurgence.co.uk/Petroc/english.htm
Of the many variations of the Anglican Rite as used in several Apostolic Churches, this one stands out as one of the more refined and well-designed. It is the English Liturgy 'according to the Western Rite, derived from the Sarum, 1549, 1718 etc., adapted using the rules authorised by the Holy Synod of Russia,' the official Anglican Rite of the Synod Church, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. In 1870 the Russian Holy Synod authorised the use of the Western Rite; it later examined and approved a corrected version of the Anglican Rite, known as the Divine Liturgy of Saint Tikhon of Moscow.
Past and present, the Polish National Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the Russian Church Outside Russia, and the Moscow Patriarchate have all at one time or another authorised an Anglican liturgical use. The Ethiopian Orthodox and Romanian Orthodox Churches have sponsored a Western Rite. The Orthodox Church of France (L'EOF) exists today as a canonical or at least 'regular succession' Orthodox jurisdiction of the Western Rite, the only such sui juris Orthodox Church in the world.
Here is the ROCOR Anglican Canon of the Mass -
All glory be to Thee Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, Who of Thy tender mercy didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; Who made there, by His own oblation of Himself once offered, a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in His Holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that His precious death and Sacrifice, until His coming again.
Who in the same night that He was betrayed, took Bread and, when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His Disciples, saying, Take, eat; This is My Body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
Likewise after supper, He took the Cup; and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this; for this is My Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins; do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me.
Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we Thy humble servants, in accordance with the institution of Thy dearly beloved Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, and having in remembrance the Precious Death and Passion of Thy dear Son, His mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension do offer unto Thee in the memorial He commanded us to make, Thine own gifts which Thou hast given, a pure offering + an Holy + offering,
that Thou hast commanded for our salvation, that Thou mayest be pleased to send down Thy Holy Spirit upon this Sacrifice that It may be duly and properly changed in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, in the transformation of the Body + and Blood + of our Lord, Jesus Christ and that It may be for us who partake thereof, Life eternal and the everlasting Kingdom.
And we entirely desire Thy Fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our Sacrifice; our praise and thanksgiving, upon which vouchsafe to look and to accept as Thou didst accept the gifts of Thy servant Abel, the sacrifices of our father Abraham and Thy high priest Melchisedeck, most humbly beseeching Thee to grant that, by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in His Blood, we and all Thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion.
And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee; Humbly beseeching Thee, that all we, who are partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body + and Blood + of Thy Son Jesus Christ, be fulfilled with Thy grace and Heavenly benediction and made one body with Him, that He may dwell in us and we in Him.
Be mindful, O Lord, we pray Thee, of Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and fear, now resting in peace. To them and to all Thy faithful sleeping in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, Thy rest, + Thy light and Thy peace. And to us sinners who are Thy servants, grant confidence in the multitude of all Thy mercies and some lot and part with Thy Holy Apostles and Martyrs John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecelia, Anastasia and all Thy Saints, into whose company, we pray Thee of Thy mercy, to admit us.
And although we be unworthy to offer unto Thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech Thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; Not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, Through Jesus + Christ our Lord; By Whom + and with Whom + in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto Thee, O Father Almighty + world without end. Amen.
Of the many variations of the Anglican Rite as used in several Apostolic Churches, this one stands out as one of the more refined and well-designed. It is the English Liturgy 'according to the Western Rite, derived from the Sarum, 1549, 1718 etc., adapted using the rules authorised by the Holy Synod of Russia,' the official Anglican Rite of the Synod Church, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. In 1870 the Russian Holy Synod authorised the use of the Western Rite; it later examined and approved a corrected version of the Anglican Rite, known as the Divine Liturgy of Saint Tikhon of Moscow.
Past and present, the Polish National Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Antiochian Orthodox Church, the Russian Church Outside Russia, and the Moscow Patriarchate have all at one time or another authorised an Anglican liturgical use. The Ethiopian Orthodox and Romanian Orthodox Churches have sponsored a Western Rite. The Orthodox Church of France (L'EOF) exists today as a canonical or at least 'regular succession' Orthodox jurisdiction of the Western Rite, the only such sui juris Orthodox Church in the world.
Here is the ROCOR Anglican Canon of the Mass -
All glory be to Thee Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, Who of Thy tender mercy didst give Thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; Who made there, by His own oblation of Himself once offered, a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in His Holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that His precious death and Sacrifice, until His coming again.
Who in the same night that He was betrayed, took Bread and, when He had given thanks, He brake it, and gave it to His Disciples, saying, Take, eat; This is My Body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.
Likewise after supper, He took the Cup; and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of this; for this is My Blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins; do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me.
Wherefore, O Lord and Heavenly Father, we Thy humble servants, in accordance with the institution of Thy dearly beloved Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, and having in remembrance the Precious Death and Passion of Thy dear Son, His mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension do offer unto Thee in the memorial He commanded us to make, Thine own gifts which Thou hast given, a pure offering + an Holy + offering,
that Thou hast commanded for our salvation, that Thou mayest be pleased to send down Thy Holy Spirit upon this Sacrifice that It may be duly and properly changed in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, in the transformation of the Body + and Blood + of our Lord, Jesus Christ and that It may be for us who partake thereof, Life eternal and the everlasting Kingdom.
And we entirely desire Thy Fatherly goodness mercifully to accept this our Sacrifice; our praise and thanksgiving, upon which vouchsafe to look and to accept as Thou didst accept the gifts of Thy servant Abel, the sacrifices of our father Abraham and Thy high priest Melchisedeck, most humbly beseeching Thee to grant that, by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in His Blood, we and all Thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion.
And here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee; Humbly beseeching Thee, that all we, who are partakers of this Holy Communion, may worthily receive the most precious Body + and Blood + of Thy Son Jesus Christ, be fulfilled with Thy grace and Heavenly benediction and made one body with Him, that He may dwell in us and we in Him.
Be mindful, O Lord, we pray Thee, of Thy servants departed this life in Thy faith and fear, now resting in peace. To them and to all Thy faithful sleeping in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, Thy rest, + Thy light and Thy peace. And to us sinners who are Thy servants, grant confidence in the multitude of all Thy mercies and some lot and part with Thy Holy Apostles and Martyrs John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicity, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecelia, Anastasia and all Thy Saints, into whose company, we pray Thee of Thy mercy, to admit us.
And although we be unworthy to offer unto Thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech Thee to accept this our bounden duty and service; Not weighing our merits, but pardoning our offences, Through Jesus + Christ our Lord; By Whom + and with Whom + in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honour and glory be unto Thee, O Father Almighty + world without end. Amen.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Notes for the Sermon on the occasion of the Priestly Ordination of the Reverend Father James Gordon Frasier Anderson, 22 April 2006
Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek!
Today is the wonderful fulfilment of many years of prayer, labour, and sacrifice. It has taken a long time to get to this day, but it was well worth the perseverance and commitment it has demanded. I shall never forget that particular Friday evening in the summer of 1997 when Gordon and I enjoyed a drink or two at the bar at Michael’s restaurant in Timonium. That evening as we discussed the Church and the ministry and journeys to Anglicanism, I pointedly asked Gordon, ‘have you ever thought of becoming a Priest in Christ’s Holy Catholic Church? Yes I actually put it like that. And the reply was, ‘yes.’ By God’s grace and many years of prayer and study, we arrive today at the conclusion of that conversation.
Today indeed God calls Gordon to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ in His Body the Church through the summons of God’s local representative, the Bishop. And a Priest, a Sacerdos, Gordon today becomes, by the imposition of hands and the invocation of the Holy Ghost.
What is this Priesthood to which Gordon is today ordained?
Pope John Paul II, in his excellent book commemorating his 50th jubilee of Priestly Ordination, Gift and Mystery, recalls his own Ordination, during which, as Gordon shall, he prostrated himself on the floor of the Church, sprawled out in the form of a cross. The late Pontiff reminds us that the Priest, stretched out in such a way, is a bridge, a bridge across time and space, a bridge uniting the Church throughout all ages, a bridge between God and man. The priest is Christ’s bridge, joining heaven and earth, and men to God. He is the link that unites the Church in every generation. He is the sign of the Church’s catholicity and the Sacrament of Christ in history.
There is a crisis in the Church today precisely because we have forgotten what the Priest is. What is the identity of the Catholic Priest?
The genius of Anglicanism is the Catholic Priesthood as expressed in the Ordinal – which combines the ancient Catholic Order of Priests with the truths of the primacy of Holy Scripture and justification by faith.
It is the possession of the Catholic Priesthood in its fullness that makes Anglicanism a true branch of the Apostolic Church and not a sect.
The Priest is a Sacramental Man, a supernatural being – he is the living Sacrament of Christ. He is a mediator and advocate in the one mediator and advocate. He is the representative of God to man, and man to God.
The Priest possesses a unique gift – it is not his own Priesthood that he exercises, but he shares in Christ’s one Priesthood by the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
The Priest is another Christ, alter Christus; he is in persona Christi capitis, in the Person of Christ the Head of the Church; he is the living icon of Christ; he is the image of the Bridegroom of the Bride, the image of Christ for and to His Church.
The Priest is the living instrument of Christ – he enters into the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice of obedience to the heavenly Father. His job is not a ‘job’; he does not function in a role: he is to BE the image of Christ. The ministry of the Priest is ontological – a change occurs in his very being. He is given an indelible character, an invisible mark on his soul that makes him different from anyone or anything else in all creation.
PRIESTHOOD = SACRIFICE
Christ reproduces His life of self-sacrificing love, His self-donating oblation in the life of His sacramental representative. Christ suffers and sacrifices: His Priest, His icon, must also suffer and sacrifice. The Mass is the heart of his sacrifice of love.
Priesthood is the highest dignity known to man – all of the presidents, poobahs, and potentates, all of the philosophers, politicians, and tycoons of the world put together cannot do what the Priest does… for at Mass the Priest unites heaven and earth and holds in his sinful hands the Creator of the universe, the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
On such an occasion as this, we are reminded of the parable of Saint Francis of Assisi. ‘If one happens upon an angel and a Priest, one should greet the Priest first, for the Angel has a higher nature, but the Priest possesses a greater dignity.’
The Priest is the Icon of the Incarnation. Priesthood safeguards the doctrine of the Creeds while extending the very Priestly Work of Jesus Christ in time and space.
What is the consequence of these truths?
In short, one should never forget the advice offered to me on the occasion of my own priesting: a Priest is ordained to be inconvenienced… how true that phrase really is.
Gordon, my dearest of friends, I charge you always to keep in your mind and heart the famous admonition of Father H. A. Wilson, an English Anglo-Catholic priest who exhausted himself in service to the poor of London’s slums:
‘The ministry of the Catholic priest is to pull back the veil between heaven and earth – and to hide himself in the folds.’
Be Jesus Christ to your people, be a holy, godly, loving, self-sacrificing, consecrated Priest of Jesus Christ. Go to God with the people on your heart.
Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek!
Today is the wonderful fulfilment of many years of prayer, labour, and sacrifice. It has taken a long time to get to this day, but it was well worth the perseverance and commitment it has demanded. I shall never forget that particular Friday evening in the summer of 1997 when Gordon and I enjoyed a drink or two at the bar at Michael’s restaurant in Timonium. That evening as we discussed the Church and the ministry and journeys to Anglicanism, I pointedly asked Gordon, ‘have you ever thought of becoming a Priest in Christ’s Holy Catholic Church? Yes I actually put it like that. And the reply was, ‘yes.’ By God’s grace and many years of prayer and study, we arrive today at the conclusion of that conversation.
Today indeed God calls Gordon to the Priesthood of Jesus Christ in His Body the Church through the summons of God’s local representative, the Bishop. And a Priest, a Sacerdos, Gordon today becomes, by the imposition of hands and the invocation of the Holy Ghost.
What is this Priesthood to which Gordon is today ordained?
Pope John Paul II, in his excellent book commemorating his 50th jubilee of Priestly Ordination, Gift and Mystery, recalls his own Ordination, during which, as Gordon shall, he prostrated himself on the floor of the Church, sprawled out in the form of a cross. The late Pontiff reminds us that the Priest, stretched out in such a way, is a bridge, a bridge across time and space, a bridge uniting the Church throughout all ages, a bridge between God and man. The priest is Christ’s bridge, joining heaven and earth, and men to God. He is the link that unites the Church in every generation. He is the sign of the Church’s catholicity and the Sacrament of Christ in history.
There is a crisis in the Church today precisely because we have forgotten what the Priest is. What is the identity of the Catholic Priest?
The genius of Anglicanism is the Catholic Priesthood as expressed in the Ordinal – which combines the ancient Catholic Order of Priests with the truths of the primacy of Holy Scripture and justification by faith.
It is the possession of the Catholic Priesthood in its fullness that makes Anglicanism a true branch of the Apostolic Church and not a sect.
The Priest is a Sacramental Man, a supernatural being – he is the living Sacrament of Christ. He is a mediator and advocate in the one mediator and advocate. He is the representative of God to man, and man to God.
The Priest possesses a unique gift – it is not his own Priesthood that he exercises, but he shares in Christ’s one Priesthood by the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
The Priest is another Christ, alter Christus; he is in persona Christi capitis, in the Person of Christ the Head of the Church; he is the living icon of Christ; he is the image of the Bridegroom of the Bride, the image of Christ for and to His Church.
The Priest is the living instrument of Christ – he enters into the mystery of Christ’s sacrifice of obedience to the heavenly Father. His job is not a ‘job’; he does not function in a role: he is to BE the image of Christ. The ministry of the Priest is ontological – a change occurs in his very being. He is given an indelible character, an invisible mark on his soul that makes him different from anyone or anything else in all creation.
PRIESTHOOD = SACRIFICE
Christ reproduces His life of self-sacrificing love, His self-donating oblation in the life of His sacramental representative. Christ suffers and sacrifices: His Priest, His icon, must also suffer and sacrifice. The Mass is the heart of his sacrifice of love.
Priesthood is the highest dignity known to man – all of the presidents, poobahs, and potentates, all of the philosophers, politicians, and tycoons of the world put together cannot do what the Priest does… for at Mass the Priest unites heaven and earth and holds in his sinful hands the Creator of the universe, the true Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
On such an occasion as this, we are reminded of the parable of Saint Francis of Assisi. ‘If one happens upon an angel and a Priest, one should greet the Priest first, for the Angel has a higher nature, but the Priest possesses a greater dignity.’
The Priest is the Icon of the Incarnation. Priesthood safeguards the doctrine of the Creeds while extending the very Priestly Work of Jesus Christ in time and space.
What is the consequence of these truths?
In short, one should never forget the advice offered to me on the occasion of my own priesting: a Priest is ordained to be inconvenienced… how true that phrase really is.
Gordon, my dearest of friends, I charge you always to keep in your mind and heart the famous admonition of Father H. A. Wilson, an English Anglo-Catholic priest who exhausted himself in service to the poor of London’s slums:
‘The ministry of the Catholic priest is to pull back the veil between heaven and earth – and to hide himself in the folds.’
Be Jesus Christ to your people, be a holy, godly, loving, self-sacrificing, consecrated Priest of Jesus Christ. Go to God with the people on your heart.
Thou art a Priest forever after the Order of Melchizedek!
Monday, April 17, 2006
The 'Cumminsite' Episcopate
Praised and magnified be the Glorious Third-Day Resurrection of Our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ!
In response to several questions I have received on the subject of the episcopate in the Reformed Episcopal Church, I offer the following thoughts:
The episcopate of the Reformed Episcopal Church depends for its sacramental validity upon those same five components which are necessary for any valid consecration and ordination: proper minister, matter, form, subject, and intention. The necessary intention for a valid ordination is, simply, 'generally to do what the Church does.' This is not to intend what the Church intends, but to do what the Church does, i.e., ordain. This general intention suffices, even if the minister and the subject hold to an heretical doctrine of the sacrament being conferred. So long as one intends seriously to perform and receive the rite of ordination, that is, seriously to perform the Christian rite however understood, the intention is valid for the administration of the sacrament. So long as one merely intends to do what Our Lord Jesus Christ or the true Church do in Ordination (even in opposition to the Catholic Church's doctrine), such an ordination is valid, even if heretical views are maintained on ordination itself. Heretical views on the sacrament of order do not invalidate ordination, just as heretical views on baptism do not invalidate baptism (see the decision of the Roman Holy Office on Oceanic Methodist Baptisms 1872). This position is precisely the position Saint Augustine of Hippo took against the Donatist schism, and it has been the general and authoritative teaching of the Western Church since the fourth century. Saint Thomas Aquinas echoes this teaching in the Summa Theologica, Supplement, Question 38, Second Article. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine defends this very point in his On the Sacraments In Gen. I.21. Those who dissent from the Catholic Church can validly baptise and ordain, even if they hold doctrines on the very sacraments themselves at odds with the Church, as long as the Church's basic rule on baptism and order is preserved.
For the purposes of this discussion, I shall leave aside the debate on the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of the Declaration of Principles of the REC. It may suffice to say that its teachings regarding the Real Objective Presence, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Christian sacerdotium are not in accord with the received Tradition of the ancient and undivided Catholic Church. Its orthodoxy or otherwise, however, does not affect the substance of the argument I here present - for this reason. It is the rite that matters, not the internal belief or error of the celebrant. Sacramental intention, for Anglicans at least, is usually understood as external or exterior intention, which is manifested ritually, in the liturgical rite used for the administration of the sacrament. Internal intention or personal intention are not usually brought into the discussion because it is impossible to determine in any given case what the personal or interior intention of the minister of a sacrament is. If the sacraments depend on the personal orthodoxy or right belief or interior disposition of the minister, no sacrament could ever be held to have a moral certainty of validity, as one could never determine such a needful state in the mind or heart of the bishop or priest in question. Sacraments are by nature ecclesial, ecclesiastical, and this is particularly the case with ordination. Sacraments belong to the Holy Catholic Church, and as such to a particular local Church specifically. What matters is the Church's intention. The necessary intention of the Church, and of the minister who functions publicly as the agent, officer and representative of the Church, is put forward in the Church's official rite, the matter and form, used for the conferral of the sacrament. On the basis of these principles, the episcopate of the Reformed Episcopal Church is valid from 1873 forward. As long as the proper matter and form of ordination remain, prayer with the laying-on-of-hands for the conferral of the particular order, with the intention to ordain a baptised man as a bishop, priest, or deacon, changes to the rite of ordination do not and cannot void the sacrament on the basis of defective intention. Otherwise, Pope Leo XIII and Apostolicae Curae (1896) are right and all Anglican Orders were invalidated by the changes Archbishop Cranmer made to the Pontificale Romanum in the construction of the 1550 Anglican Ordinal.
Let us look at the original reformed Ordinal used for the consecration of Reformed Episcopal bishops from the 1870's -
It is, in fact, a very slightly altered version of the 1662 English Ordinal. It is virtually identical to the 1789 American version. It clearly identifies the Order of Bishop as that being conferred. It includes the traditional collect for the Eucharist of episcopal consecration. The traditional lessons clearly refer to the episcopate, Acts 20.17ff and S. John 21.15ff or S. Matthew 28.18ff. The Litany invokes the grace of God upon the consecrand for the Office of Bishop, 'our Brother.' The collect at the end of the Litany prays for the one 'called to the Work and Ministry of a Bishop.' The vows unambiguously charge the candidate with episcopal authority and oversight. The Veni Creator Spiritus is sung over the consecrand, invoking the Holy Ghost upon him. The Prayer of Ordination before the imposition of hands is the 1662 English version, replete with its prayer for grace for the candidate. The imposition of hands is accompanied by the formula: 'Take thou Authority to execute the Office and Work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee...' This change is the only major alteration in the Consecration Service and is modelled on the alternative formula for the ordination of priests in the American Ordinal. The final prayers are exactly the same as those found in the Anglican Ordinal.
What does this all mean?
1. Proper matter: imposition of hands is the matter of the Reformed Episcopal Ordinal.
2. Proper form: prayer for the grace of the episcopate is found throughout the Ordinal and suffices for validity; the formula at the imposition of hands fixes the intention of the rite as the transmission of the authority and office of the episcopate.
3. Proper minister: undoubted bishops in the Anglican line of succession, beginning with Bishop George David Cummins of Kentucky, have always presided at consecrations in this rite. One bishop in apostolic succession is required for validity, three for regularity.
4. Proper subject: the original REC bishops were episcopally-ordained priests; however, per saltum ('by a leap') consecrations are valid. Even if the candidate were not himself a priest, he would still receive the character of the episcopate with this rite. Per saltum consecrations are valid but irregular, and were actually administered by the Church of England to titular Scottish bishops in 1610. The Lambeth Conference of 1908 recommended per saltum consecration as the way by which to introduce episcopacy into non-episcopal bodies.
5. Proper intention: the intention of the Ordinal in question is to consecrate a Bishop in the Church of God. That is all that is necessary.
The original presence of Bishop G. Cummins alone as sole consecrator does not affect validity; the hierarchies of both the Polish National Catholic Church and the entire Old Catholic Union of Utrecht originated from solus consecrations and are regarded as valid by Rome. The presence of and imposition of hands by non-episcopally ordained ministers or episcopally-ordained priests in the consecration of REC bishops also do not affect validity, as long as the consecrator himself is in valid episcopal orders. Bishop Cummins' public statements at and before the consecration of Bishop Cheney, by which he personally asserted a 'low' view of the episcopate, a bene esse view, do not render his sacramental acts invalid. By following the Ordinal described above, he clearly intended to confer the episcopate of the Church of God, and that is all that is necessary.
As Dr John Wordsworth writes: 'The 'Sacrament of Order' requires laying-on-of-hands, with prayer suitable to the office conferred, and with a general intention of making a man what the Church intends as a Bishop, Priest or Deacon. We hold that such an Ordination conferred by a Bishop, as sole or chief minister, who has been himself so ordained, even if he is a heretic, is valid and cannot be reiterated without sacrilege.' This has been the formal position of the Church of England for the duration of her history.
In fine, it is my prudent judgement that neither the American Report of the House of Bishops 1888, the Lambeth Conference of 1888, nor Bishop Grafton of Fon du Lac were fully and sufficiently informed on this subject. And that is exactly the prudent judgement of Bishop Wilson of Eau Claire in his 1941 report affirming the validity of the Reformed Episcopal episcopate. I firmly believe Bishop Wilson, himself a faithful Anglican Catholic, was correct.
Let us pray for the unity of Christ's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
God bless you!
In response to several questions I have received on the subject of the episcopate in the Reformed Episcopal Church, I offer the following thoughts:
The episcopate of the Reformed Episcopal Church depends for its sacramental validity upon those same five components which are necessary for any valid consecration and ordination: proper minister, matter, form, subject, and intention. The necessary intention for a valid ordination is, simply, 'generally to do what the Church does.' This is not to intend what the Church intends, but to do what the Church does, i.e., ordain. This general intention suffices, even if the minister and the subject hold to an heretical doctrine of the sacrament being conferred. So long as one intends seriously to perform and receive the rite of ordination, that is, seriously to perform the Christian rite however understood, the intention is valid for the administration of the sacrament. So long as one merely intends to do what Our Lord Jesus Christ or the true Church do in Ordination (even in opposition to the Catholic Church's doctrine), such an ordination is valid, even if heretical views are maintained on ordination itself. Heretical views on the sacrament of order do not invalidate ordination, just as heretical views on baptism do not invalidate baptism (see the decision of the Roman Holy Office on Oceanic Methodist Baptisms 1872). This position is precisely the position Saint Augustine of Hippo took against the Donatist schism, and it has been the general and authoritative teaching of the Western Church since the fourth century. Saint Thomas Aquinas echoes this teaching in the Summa Theologica, Supplement, Question 38, Second Article. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine defends this very point in his On the Sacraments In Gen. I.21. Those who dissent from the Catholic Church can validly baptise and ordain, even if they hold doctrines on the very sacraments themselves at odds with the Church, as long as the Church's basic rule on baptism and order is preserved.
For the purposes of this discussion, I shall leave aside the debate on the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of the Declaration of Principles of the REC. It may suffice to say that its teachings regarding the Real Objective Presence, the Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Christian sacerdotium are not in accord with the received Tradition of the ancient and undivided Catholic Church. Its orthodoxy or otherwise, however, does not affect the substance of the argument I here present - for this reason. It is the rite that matters, not the internal belief or error of the celebrant. Sacramental intention, for Anglicans at least, is usually understood as external or exterior intention, which is manifested ritually, in the liturgical rite used for the administration of the sacrament. Internal intention or personal intention are not usually brought into the discussion because it is impossible to determine in any given case what the personal or interior intention of the minister of a sacrament is. If the sacraments depend on the personal orthodoxy or right belief or interior disposition of the minister, no sacrament could ever be held to have a moral certainty of validity, as one could never determine such a needful state in the mind or heart of the bishop or priest in question. Sacraments are by nature ecclesial, ecclesiastical, and this is particularly the case with ordination. Sacraments belong to the Holy Catholic Church, and as such to a particular local Church specifically. What matters is the Church's intention. The necessary intention of the Church, and of the minister who functions publicly as the agent, officer and representative of the Church, is put forward in the Church's official rite, the matter and form, used for the conferral of the sacrament. On the basis of these principles, the episcopate of the Reformed Episcopal Church is valid from 1873 forward. As long as the proper matter and form of ordination remain, prayer with the laying-on-of-hands for the conferral of the particular order, with the intention to ordain a baptised man as a bishop, priest, or deacon, changes to the rite of ordination do not and cannot void the sacrament on the basis of defective intention. Otherwise, Pope Leo XIII and Apostolicae Curae (1896) are right and all Anglican Orders were invalidated by the changes Archbishop Cranmer made to the Pontificale Romanum in the construction of the 1550 Anglican Ordinal.
Let us look at the original reformed Ordinal used for the consecration of Reformed Episcopal bishops from the 1870's -
It is, in fact, a very slightly altered version of the 1662 English Ordinal. It is virtually identical to the 1789 American version. It clearly identifies the Order of Bishop as that being conferred. It includes the traditional collect for the Eucharist of episcopal consecration. The traditional lessons clearly refer to the episcopate, Acts 20.17ff and S. John 21.15ff or S. Matthew 28.18ff. The Litany invokes the grace of God upon the consecrand for the Office of Bishop, 'our Brother.' The collect at the end of the Litany prays for the one 'called to the Work and Ministry of a Bishop.' The vows unambiguously charge the candidate with episcopal authority and oversight. The Veni Creator Spiritus is sung over the consecrand, invoking the Holy Ghost upon him. The Prayer of Ordination before the imposition of hands is the 1662 English version, replete with its prayer for grace for the candidate. The imposition of hands is accompanied by the formula: 'Take thou Authority to execute the Office and Work of a Bishop in the Church of God now committed unto thee...' This change is the only major alteration in the Consecration Service and is modelled on the alternative formula for the ordination of priests in the American Ordinal. The final prayers are exactly the same as those found in the Anglican Ordinal.
What does this all mean?
1. Proper matter: imposition of hands is the matter of the Reformed Episcopal Ordinal.
2. Proper form: prayer for the grace of the episcopate is found throughout the Ordinal and suffices for validity; the formula at the imposition of hands fixes the intention of the rite as the transmission of the authority and office of the episcopate.
3. Proper minister: undoubted bishops in the Anglican line of succession, beginning with Bishop George David Cummins of Kentucky, have always presided at consecrations in this rite. One bishop in apostolic succession is required for validity, three for regularity.
4. Proper subject: the original REC bishops were episcopally-ordained priests; however, per saltum ('by a leap') consecrations are valid. Even if the candidate were not himself a priest, he would still receive the character of the episcopate with this rite. Per saltum consecrations are valid but irregular, and were actually administered by the Church of England to titular Scottish bishops in 1610. The Lambeth Conference of 1908 recommended per saltum consecration as the way by which to introduce episcopacy into non-episcopal bodies.
5. Proper intention: the intention of the Ordinal in question is to consecrate a Bishop in the Church of God. That is all that is necessary.
The original presence of Bishop G. Cummins alone as sole consecrator does not affect validity; the hierarchies of both the Polish National Catholic Church and the entire Old Catholic Union of Utrecht originated from solus consecrations and are regarded as valid by Rome. The presence of and imposition of hands by non-episcopally ordained ministers or episcopally-ordained priests in the consecration of REC bishops also do not affect validity, as long as the consecrator himself is in valid episcopal orders. Bishop Cummins' public statements at and before the consecration of Bishop Cheney, by which he personally asserted a 'low' view of the episcopate, a bene esse view, do not render his sacramental acts invalid. By following the Ordinal described above, he clearly intended to confer the episcopate of the Church of God, and that is all that is necessary.
As Dr John Wordsworth writes: 'The 'Sacrament of Order' requires laying-on-of-hands, with prayer suitable to the office conferred, and with a general intention of making a man what the Church intends as a Bishop, Priest or Deacon. We hold that such an Ordination conferred by a Bishop, as sole or chief minister, who has been himself so ordained, even if he is a heretic, is valid and cannot be reiterated without sacrilege.' This has been the formal position of the Church of England for the duration of her history.
In fine, it is my prudent judgement that neither the American Report of the House of Bishops 1888, the Lambeth Conference of 1888, nor Bishop Grafton of Fon du Lac were fully and sufficiently informed on this subject. And that is exactly the prudent judgement of Bishop Wilson of Eau Claire in his 1941 report affirming the validity of the Reformed Episcopal episcopate. I firmly believe Bishop Wilson, himself a faithful Anglican Catholic, was correct.
Let us pray for the unity of Christ's One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
God bless you!
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
On REC Orders - A Response to the APA's Mystery Australian Correspondent
Dear Brothers+
I have not yet seen the letter you mention - evidently our anonymous Australian correspondent decided not to send a copy of his diatribe to the Cathedral for obvious and probably wise reasons. I am utterly fascinated and puzzled by the correspondence you describe. It certainly sounds as though it arises from an Anglo-Catholic, perhaps even a TAC, source. My guess is that that is exactly from whence it comes, the TAC and/or FIF-Australia. I should be fascinated to read it myself: the only cogent arguments I have ever encountered opposing the sacramental validity of REC Orders have been developed from the autobiographical writings of Bishop Charles C. Grafton of Fon du Lac, who maintained REC Orders were absolutely invalid based on defective ministerial intention. PECUSA as a whole opposed the said Orders on canonical grounds at Lambeth Conference 1888 but did not seem to have very compelling arguments from a sacramentological point of view. The arguments then put forth have more to do with Bishop Cheney's PECUSA deposition from Holy Orders and his solus consecration at the hands of Bishop Cummins than from any defective liturgical and theological position. Bishop Grafton held that the REC's 1873 changes made to the Anglican Ordinal, in which all references to the word 'Priest' and all statements affirming the conveyance of the Holy Ghost through the imposition of hands were expunged, rendered the REC Ordination rite incapable of validly conferring the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Hence the liturgical changes purportedly demonstrated and manifested a defective intention regarding the Sacrament. Grafton's line of argument is virtually identical to that of Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae (1896) and thus seems extremely dangerous indeed for any Anglican to use. By so invalidating REC Orders with such an approach we hazard the danger of declaring our own Orders invalid, or so warned the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in their Response to the Pope in 1897 concerning Rome's position vis-a-vis Anglicanism. I should regard our Australian friend's effort to be a tremendous throwing of stones in glass houses.
Please be assured of my prayers for you all and your families during this Holy Week and Easter. May the Lord Jesus Christ bless and keep you!
I have not yet seen the letter you mention - evidently our anonymous Australian correspondent decided not to send a copy of his diatribe to the Cathedral for obvious and probably wise reasons. I am utterly fascinated and puzzled by the correspondence you describe. It certainly sounds as though it arises from an Anglo-Catholic, perhaps even a TAC, source. My guess is that that is exactly from whence it comes, the TAC and/or FIF-Australia. I should be fascinated to read it myself: the only cogent arguments I have ever encountered opposing the sacramental validity of REC Orders have been developed from the autobiographical writings of Bishop Charles C. Grafton of Fon du Lac, who maintained REC Orders were absolutely invalid based on defective ministerial intention. PECUSA as a whole opposed the said Orders on canonical grounds at Lambeth Conference 1888 but did not seem to have very compelling arguments from a sacramentological point of view. The arguments then put forth have more to do with Bishop Cheney's PECUSA deposition from Holy Orders and his solus consecration at the hands of Bishop Cummins than from any defective liturgical and theological position. Bishop Grafton held that the REC's 1873 changes made to the Anglican Ordinal, in which all references to the word 'Priest' and all statements affirming the conveyance of the Holy Ghost through the imposition of hands were expunged, rendered the REC Ordination rite incapable of validly conferring the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Hence the liturgical changes purportedly demonstrated and manifested a defective intention regarding the Sacrament. Grafton's line of argument is virtually identical to that of Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae (1896) and thus seems extremely dangerous indeed for any Anglican to use. By so invalidating REC Orders with such an approach we hazard the danger of declaring our own Orders invalid, or so warned the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in their Response to the Pope in 1897 concerning Rome's position vis-a-vis Anglicanism. I should regard our Australian friend's effort to be a tremendous throwing of stones in glass houses.
Please be assured of my prayers for you all and your families during this Holy Week and Easter. May the Lord Jesus Christ bless and keep you!
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The First Continuing Anglican Church
If the proposition of a 'Continuing Church' is so ominous to the Church of England establishment, we may do well to ask the question: 'what was the first Continuing Church?'
The answer may surprise some people.
The first Continuing Anglican Church formed since the Non-Jurors' Church, the Catholic Remnant of Britain of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was the Continuing Anglican Diocese of Nandyal, which refused to join the pan-protestant Church of South India in 1947. Nandyal was the first local particular Church to describe itself as a Continuing Anglican Church.
This independent Diocese was placed under the direct authority of the jurisdiction of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon, headed by the Metropolitan of Calcutta.
The 1948 Lambeth Conference said this about the Church of Nandyal in its Report on the Unity of the Church:
'We have learned with great regret that in the Nandyal area in South India there has been a grievous breakdown of Christian fellowship. We earnestly hope that within a short period fellowship may be restored.
1. We reaffirm the decision expressed by the Lambeth Conference in 1930 that no Church of the Anglican Communion will set up dioceses or congregations in the area of the Church of South India.
2. We agree that no form of coercion should be used to bring any Christian into the Church of South India against his conscientious convictions.
3. We note that, at the request of the Church of South India, and with the approval of all the diocesan bishops of that Church, the Metropolitan of India has appointed a Commissary to take spiritual oversight of the Anglicans in that area who have not joined the Church of South India. We recommend that this arrangement be continued as a measure of accommodation, for as long as may be necessary.
4. We recommend that, when episcopal ministrations are necessary, the Metropolitan of India, at the request of the Commissary and with the consent of the Moderator of the Church of South India and of the Bishop of Anantapur and Kurnool, may arrange for a bishop of the Church of India, Burma, and Ceylon, to visit the Nandyal area to carry out such ministrations.
5. In the event of an ordination being required, the candidates should take the oath of canonical obedience to the Bishop of Calcutta for the time being (and his successors) as the Bishop temporarily in charge of the Christians concerned.'
In 1950, the Nandyal Church decided to recognise the validity and regularity of ordinations and consecrations carried out in the CSI.
In 1962, the Church of Nandyal was made an official Diocese of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon, replete with its own Bishop Ordinary, Cathedral and administration.
The Anglican Diocese of Nandyal finally merged with the CSI in 1975.
Unlike our post-1976 jurisdictions, Nandyal was never forced to break communion with Canterbury and has maintained such communion with the Church of England in an unbroken continuity until today. The CSI today enjoys full communio in sacris with the Anglican Communion. Those who in good conscience could not unite with the protestantising CSI or the Church of North India in the 1970's formed in the region of Nandyal and throughout India ongoing orthodox Continuing jurisdictions which survive today. Each American Continuing Church seems to have an Indian counterpart.
The Anglican Province of America is in communion with the Anglican Church of India (Dioceses of Andhra Pradesh and Lucknow).
The Anglican Catholic Church is in communion with the Church of India (Anglican) (Dioceses of Amritsar, Bombay, Delhi, Lucknow, and Nagpur).
The Anglican Church in America is in communion with the Anglican Church of India (Traditional Anglican Communion).
Let us continually pray that the great body of the Indian Continuing Church will be reunited in full sacramental communion - and that the whole Continuing Church, possessing such an admirable origin, may recover her proper Catholic unity in Our Blessed Lord.
The answer may surprise some people.
The first Continuing Anglican Church formed since the Non-Jurors' Church, the Catholic Remnant of Britain of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was the Continuing Anglican Diocese of Nandyal, which refused to join the pan-protestant Church of South India in 1947. Nandyal was the first local particular Church to describe itself as a Continuing Anglican Church.
This independent Diocese was placed under the direct authority of the jurisdiction of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon, headed by the Metropolitan of Calcutta.
The 1948 Lambeth Conference said this about the Church of Nandyal in its Report on the Unity of the Church:
'We have learned with great regret that in the Nandyal area in South India there has been a grievous breakdown of Christian fellowship. We earnestly hope that within a short period fellowship may be restored.
1. We reaffirm the decision expressed by the Lambeth Conference in 1930 that no Church of the Anglican Communion will set up dioceses or congregations in the area of the Church of South India.
2. We agree that no form of coercion should be used to bring any Christian into the Church of South India against his conscientious convictions.
3. We note that, at the request of the Church of South India, and with the approval of all the diocesan bishops of that Church, the Metropolitan of India has appointed a Commissary to take spiritual oversight of the Anglicans in that area who have not joined the Church of South India. We recommend that this arrangement be continued as a measure of accommodation, for as long as may be necessary.
4. We recommend that, when episcopal ministrations are necessary, the Metropolitan of India, at the request of the Commissary and with the consent of the Moderator of the Church of South India and of the Bishop of Anantapur and Kurnool, may arrange for a bishop of the Church of India, Burma, and Ceylon, to visit the Nandyal area to carry out such ministrations.
5. In the event of an ordination being required, the candidates should take the oath of canonical obedience to the Bishop of Calcutta for the time being (and his successors) as the Bishop temporarily in charge of the Christians concerned.'
In 1950, the Nandyal Church decided to recognise the validity and regularity of ordinations and consecrations carried out in the CSI.
In 1962, the Church of Nandyal was made an official Diocese of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon, replete with its own Bishop Ordinary, Cathedral and administration.
The Anglican Diocese of Nandyal finally merged with the CSI in 1975.
Unlike our post-1976 jurisdictions, Nandyal was never forced to break communion with Canterbury and has maintained such communion with the Church of England in an unbroken continuity until today. The CSI today enjoys full communio in sacris with the Anglican Communion. Those who in good conscience could not unite with the protestantising CSI or the Church of North India in the 1970's formed in the region of Nandyal and throughout India ongoing orthodox Continuing jurisdictions which survive today. Each American Continuing Church seems to have an Indian counterpart.
The Anglican Province of America is in communion with the Anglican Church of India (Dioceses of Andhra Pradesh and Lucknow).
The Anglican Catholic Church is in communion with the Church of India (Anglican) (Dioceses of Amritsar, Bombay, Delhi, Lucknow, and Nagpur).
The Anglican Church in America is in communion with the Anglican Church of India (Traditional Anglican Communion).
Let us continually pray that the great body of the Indian Continuing Church will be reunited in full sacramental communion - and that the whole Continuing Church, possessing such an admirable origin, may recover her proper Catholic unity in Our Blessed Lord.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
The 'continuing Anglican Church' has come of age
The raging controversy in the Church of England over legislation which would permit the purported consecration of women to the Sacred Episcopate has recently introduced an element into C of E debate heretofore rarely mentioned...
The Continuing Church.
Note this passage from the Guildford Report, the official report of the Bishops' Working Party of the Church of England designated to pave the way for the 'consecration' of women to the Episcopate. In paragraph 39 the Report criticises the text of Consecrated Women? published by Forward in Faith, claiming that the legislative proposal of that FIF-UK work might ultimately engender a Continuing Church in England:
'There would be the risk of it [the Third Province] becoming another 'continuing Anglican Church.''
Forward in Faith's Legal Working Party Response to the Guildford Report thus states in reply:
'We do not accept that there would be a risk of a new province becoming another 'continuing Anglican church.' Continuing churches are those which have left the parent church. Since the new province would be created by the Church of England, and would remain part of her, it would not be a continuing church. Conversely, if adequate provision is not made within the Church of England for those who cannot accept the consecration of women, then there is a real risk of 'continuing churches' forming spontaneously.'
An interesting commentary, and prophecy of possible future action, from our dear sisters and brothers in Forward in Faith. With all this unusual talk of the Continuing Church, it seems that Continuing Anglicanism has finally come of age.
Dom Gregory Dix of Nashdom Abbey, and of blessed memory, would no doubt be appalled at the modern state and condition of his beloved Church of England. He would certainly not be opposed to the creation of a Continuing Anglican Church. In fact, he recommended it, and confronted Archbishop William Temple of Canterbury with such a possibility directly. It appears that he is the first Anglican divine to use the term 'Continuing Church.' In the early-to-mid 1940's, in conjunction with the other superiors of Religious Orders in the Church of England, Dom Gregory suggested that a 'Continuing Church' would be formed by Anglo-Catholics in England as a result of the impending creation of the pan-protestant United Church of South India. Dix went so far as to sign the Superiors' open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, along with such famous churchmen as Father Raymond Raynes, CR, a letter which unambiguously asserted the possibility of the creation of an Anglo-Catholic Continuing Church which would sever its ties with Canterbury but would retain its communion with other orthodox (i.e., Catholic) Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Sounds familiar doesn't it? - there is nothing new under the sun!
In 1955, the Church of England determined that the creedal doctrine of the Church of South India was orthodox and that the Orders of the CSI were sacramentally valid; by then the furore over the Indian scheme had died down and nothing of substance ever came of the Continuing Church movement in England... perhaps until now. For the hearty Anglo-Catholics of the 1940's and 1950's, and the 2000's, Apostolic Faith and Order hold precedence even over jurisdictional loyalty or history.
Perhaps being a 'Continuing Anglican' isn't so bad after all.
The Continuing Church.
Note this passage from the Guildford Report, the official report of the Bishops' Working Party of the Church of England designated to pave the way for the 'consecration' of women to the Episcopate. In paragraph 39 the Report criticises the text of Consecrated Women? published by Forward in Faith, claiming that the legislative proposal of that FIF-UK work might ultimately engender a Continuing Church in England:
'There would be the risk of it [the Third Province] becoming another 'continuing Anglican Church.''
Forward in Faith's Legal Working Party Response to the Guildford Report thus states in reply:
'We do not accept that there would be a risk of a new province becoming another 'continuing Anglican church.' Continuing churches are those which have left the parent church. Since the new province would be created by the Church of England, and would remain part of her, it would not be a continuing church. Conversely, if adequate provision is not made within the Church of England for those who cannot accept the consecration of women, then there is a real risk of 'continuing churches' forming spontaneously.'
An interesting commentary, and prophecy of possible future action, from our dear sisters and brothers in Forward in Faith. With all this unusual talk of the Continuing Church, it seems that Continuing Anglicanism has finally come of age.
Dom Gregory Dix of Nashdom Abbey, and of blessed memory, would no doubt be appalled at the modern state and condition of his beloved Church of England. He would certainly not be opposed to the creation of a Continuing Anglican Church. In fact, he recommended it, and confronted Archbishop William Temple of Canterbury with such a possibility directly. It appears that he is the first Anglican divine to use the term 'Continuing Church.' In the early-to-mid 1940's, in conjunction with the other superiors of Religious Orders in the Church of England, Dom Gregory suggested that a 'Continuing Church' would be formed by Anglo-Catholics in England as a result of the impending creation of the pan-protestant United Church of South India. Dix went so far as to sign the Superiors' open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, along with such famous churchmen as Father Raymond Raynes, CR, a letter which unambiguously asserted the possibility of the creation of an Anglo-Catholic Continuing Church which would sever its ties with Canterbury but would retain its communion with other orthodox (i.e., Catholic) Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Sounds familiar doesn't it? - there is nothing new under the sun!
In 1955, the Church of England determined that the creedal doctrine of the Church of South India was orthodox and that the Orders of the CSI were sacramentally valid; by then the furore over the Indian scheme had died down and nothing of substance ever came of the Continuing Church movement in England... perhaps until now. For the hearty Anglo-Catholics of the 1940's and 1950's, and the 2000's, Apostolic Faith and Order hold precedence even over jurisdictional loyalty or history.
Perhaps being a 'Continuing Anglican' isn't so bad after all.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Orthodox Consecration - the Mystery Unfolds
From Dr William Tighe, with many thanks from your blogger:
I have been making inquiries about this. Nobody seems to know who this “Metropolitan John” may have been. Possibly it may have been John Theodorovich (d. 1971), who in the early 1920s was one of the Ukrainian priests trying to set up an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and was elected one of its bishops. But as no living bishop could be found to consecrate them, they exhumed the body of one of their recently-deceased bishops and, holding his hand on the heads of those bishops-elect, pronounced “on his behalf” (as it were) the formula of episcopal consecration. In 1924 this Metropolitan John came to America, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was reconsecrated in 1949 by other, canonical, Orthodox bishops. He may be your man. However, the Ukrainian Orthodox community in America produced numerous splinter groups from the, some of them having bishops in the “dead hand” succession, others in more regular successions; and a few of these small bodies quickly degenerated into “ordination factories” run by episcopi vagantes.
I have been making inquiries about this. Nobody seems to know who this “Metropolitan John” may have been. Possibly it may have been John Theodorovich (d. 1971), who in the early 1920s was one of the Ukrainian priests trying to set up an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and was elected one of its bishops. But as no living bishop could be found to consecrate them, they exhumed the body of one of their recently-deceased bishops and, holding his hand on the heads of those bishops-elect, pronounced “on his behalf” (as it were) the formula of episcopal consecration. In 1924 this Metropolitan John came to America, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was reconsecrated in 1949 by other, canonical, Orthodox bishops. He may be your man. However, the Ukrainian Orthodox community in America produced numerous splinter groups from the, some of them having bishops in the “dead hand” succession, others in more regular successions; and a few of these small bodies quickly degenerated into “ordination factories” run by episcopi vagantes.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Metropolitan John?
A question regarding the participation of Eastern Orthodox Bishops in the consecration of Anglican Bishops:
The Episcopal Church Annual 1959 states that on 29 September 1953 Bishop William S. Thomas was consecrated Bishop Suffragan of Pittsburgh, the 523rd Bishop of the American Succession. Amongst his consecrators was one identified as Metropolitan John of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It would appear that an Orthodox Eastern Bishop has indeed consecrated an Anglican prelate in the past, thus introducing the Eastern succession into the Anglican.
Was Metropolitan John a Bishop of a canonical Orthodox jurisdiction? Does anyone know of his identity and origin?
To follow an excellent thread on Anglo-Catholicism: go to http://all2common.classicalanglican.net/?p=204
The Episcopal Church Annual 1959 states that on 29 September 1953 Bishop William S. Thomas was consecrated Bishop Suffragan of Pittsburgh, the 523rd Bishop of the American Succession. Amongst his consecrators was one identified as Metropolitan John of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. It would appear that an Orthodox Eastern Bishop has indeed consecrated an Anglican prelate in the past, thus introducing the Eastern succession into the Anglican.
Was Metropolitan John a Bishop of a canonical Orthodox jurisdiction? Does anyone know of his identity and origin?
To follow an excellent thread on Anglo-Catholicism: go to http://all2common.classicalanglican.net/?p=204
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
The Sacred Order of Deacons
An Ordination Sermon preached by yours truly in May 2005 at Saint Alban's Cathedral, Oviedo, Florida:
This Ordination Day, like all such sacred occasions, causes me to hearken back to my own Ordination to the Sacred Order of Deacons – a hellaciously hot morning in Southern Maryland in June 1996. On that occasion, the Bishop who ordained me almost passed out from the heat. This is my first Ordination sermon, so let us hope that mystical experience will not be reproduced here today.
The Prayer Book Ordination Service holds up two original Deacons for our particular attention, Saint Stephen and Saint Philip, two of the first seven Deacons ordained by the Apostles to be their helpers in the distribution of the Church’s welfare payments.
The establishment of the Order of Deacons was the first time in the long Apostolic history of Bishops that they ‘passed the buck.’ Deacons were ordained to resolve Church crisis.
In a few moments, the Bishop will ask our candidates if they are willing to do what Saint Stephen, Saint Philip, and their five brothers did – to HELP – especially at the Holy Eucharist. Deacons pledge themselves to receive money and other assistance and to make sure those in need receive it. Deacons are to look for people in need and make sure they get help.
I cannot predict Doc’s and Tracy’s ministries will end as Saint Stephen’s did, with an angry mob beating their heads in with rocks, but that is precisely the way Saint Stephen’s tumultuous Diaconate ended-up.
Saint Stephen died because he spoke the truth to the Jewish leaders of his day – and to the world. Later in the Mass, when the Bishop asks our candidates if they will frame and fashion their lives according to the Doctrine of Christ, he will not be referring only to decorous ministerial behaviour…
Saint Stephen reminds us that one supreme price of being a Christian is the constant willingness to speak God’s truth, no matter what the consequences may be.
The Book of Acts also describes how Deacon Saint Philip converted the Ethiopian eunuch and led him to Holy Baptism – the tool he used was his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. The man was reading the Prophet Isaiah. Philip asked him if he understood what he read. The man replied, ‘how can I, unless someone explains it to me?’
Saint Philip explained to him – he led him to Jesus Christ, the living Word of God.
Doc and Tracy are about to pledge their fidelity to the Scriptures, and their diligence in reading, teaching, and preaching the Holy Scriptures.
We are ordaining them so that they may lead people to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and Saint Philip shows us how.
There is a third Deacon Who presence permeates the Ordination Mass this morning, and that is the Deacon Who is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
The Sacrament of Holy Orders is one Sacrament is three grades or levels – because the ministry the Sacrament conveys is the one Ministry of Christ Himself. Hence, it is male in character in all three levels, by Christ’s will and institution. The Ministry is the extension of Christ’s Incarnation.
We see that Ministry incarnate now in His Church in three ways.
The Bible tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is
The Bishop – because He watches over us and feeds us as the Good Shepherd of our souls.
The Priest – because He sacrificed Himself on the Altar of the Cross to take away the sins of the whole world.
But what Our Lord calls Himself is the DEACON.
He asks His disciples the question, ‘which one is greater, the man that sits down to eat or the one who waits on him?’ Obviously the man who sits down to eat, but Our Lord says:
But I am among you as one who serves.
I am here as a waiter, a helper, a Deacon.
Doc and Tracy, my dear friends - I charge you to remember
Deacon Saint Stephen
Deacon Saint Philip
and the Deacon Jesus Christ
May God so replenish you with the truth of His doctrine and adorn you with innocency of life that you may both by word and good example serve God in this Office through our Lord Jesus Christ, who reminds us-
I am among you as a Deacon!
This Ordination Day, like all such sacred occasions, causes me to hearken back to my own Ordination to the Sacred Order of Deacons – a hellaciously hot morning in Southern Maryland in June 1996. On that occasion, the Bishop who ordained me almost passed out from the heat. This is my first Ordination sermon, so let us hope that mystical experience will not be reproduced here today.
The Prayer Book Ordination Service holds up two original Deacons for our particular attention, Saint Stephen and Saint Philip, two of the first seven Deacons ordained by the Apostles to be their helpers in the distribution of the Church’s welfare payments.
The establishment of the Order of Deacons was the first time in the long Apostolic history of Bishops that they ‘passed the buck.’ Deacons were ordained to resolve Church crisis.
In a few moments, the Bishop will ask our candidates if they are willing to do what Saint Stephen, Saint Philip, and their five brothers did – to HELP – especially at the Holy Eucharist. Deacons pledge themselves to receive money and other assistance and to make sure those in need receive it. Deacons are to look for people in need and make sure they get help.
I cannot predict Doc’s and Tracy’s ministries will end as Saint Stephen’s did, with an angry mob beating their heads in with rocks, but that is precisely the way Saint Stephen’s tumultuous Diaconate ended-up.
Saint Stephen died because he spoke the truth to the Jewish leaders of his day – and to the world. Later in the Mass, when the Bishop asks our candidates if they will frame and fashion their lives according to the Doctrine of Christ, he will not be referring only to decorous ministerial behaviour…
Saint Stephen reminds us that one supreme price of being a Christian is the constant willingness to speak God’s truth, no matter what the consequences may be.
The Book of Acts also describes how Deacon Saint Philip converted the Ethiopian eunuch and led him to Holy Baptism – the tool he used was his knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. The man was reading the Prophet Isaiah. Philip asked him if he understood what he read. The man replied, ‘how can I, unless someone explains it to me?’
Saint Philip explained to him – he led him to Jesus Christ, the living Word of God.
Doc and Tracy are about to pledge their fidelity to the Scriptures, and their diligence in reading, teaching, and preaching the Holy Scriptures.
We are ordaining them so that they may lead people to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and Saint Philip shows us how.
There is a third Deacon Who presence permeates the Ordination Mass this morning, and that is the Deacon Who is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
The Sacrament of Holy Orders is one Sacrament is three grades or levels – because the ministry the Sacrament conveys is the one Ministry of Christ Himself. Hence, it is male in character in all three levels, by Christ’s will and institution. The Ministry is the extension of Christ’s Incarnation.
We see that Ministry incarnate now in His Church in three ways.
The Bible tells us that the Lord Jesus Christ is
The Bishop – because He watches over us and feeds us as the Good Shepherd of our souls.
The Priest – because He sacrificed Himself on the Altar of the Cross to take away the sins of the whole world.
But what Our Lord calls Himself is the DEACON.
He asks His disciples the question, ‘which one is greater, the man that sits down to eat or the one who waits on him?’ Obviously the man who sits down to eat, but Our Lord says:
But I am among you as one who serves.
I am here as a waiter, a helper, a Deacon.
Doc and Tracy, my dear friends - I charge you to remember
Deacon Saint Stephen
Deacon Saint Philip
and the Deacon Jesus Christ
May God so replenish you with the truth of His doctrine and adorn you with innocency of life that you may both by word and good example serve God in this Office through our Lord Jesus Christ, who reminds us-
I am among you as a Deacon!
The Authentic APA
I today encountered this most unpleasant quote on the Pontifications blog regarding my beloved jurisdiction:
'The REC is in the midst of a ten-year merger process with the Anglican Province of America, a body that joins Anglo-Catholic ritual with a sort of tepid centrist Anglicanism, and whose distinguishing characteristic is that until recently all of its bishops had been divorced-and-remarried at least once.'
For a more accurate and charitable picture of the Anglican Province of America, one of the original Continuing Churches in the USA and the one certainly having the most significant substantiated membership of any Continuing Church, I invite the reader to visit our Provincial website:
www.anglicanprovince.org
I should hardly think that the Catholic and Apostolic Faith of the Creeds, the Fathers, the Undivided Church, the General Councils, the Book of Common Prayer, the Caroline Divines, the Non-Jurors, the Tractarian and Evangelical Revivals, and the whole Ecclesia Anglicana ought to be characterised as 'tepid' and 'centrist.'
Nothing quite draws vitriol like authenticity and success!
'The REC is in the midst of a ten-year merger process with the Anglican Province of America, a body that joins Anglo-Catholic ritual with a sort of tepid centrist Anglicanism, and whose distinguishing characteristic is that until recently all of its bishops had been divorced-and-remarried at least once.'
For a more accurate and charitable picture of the Anglican Province of America, one of the original Continuing Churches in the USA and the one certainly having the most significant substantiated membership of any Continuing Church, I invite the reader to visit our Provincial website:
www.anglicanprovince.org
I should hardly think that the Catholic and Apostolic Faith of the Creeds, the Fathers, the Undivided Church, the General Councils, the Book of Common Prayer, the Caroline Divines, the Non-Jurors, the Tractarian and Evangelical Revivals, and the whole Ecclesia Anglicana ought to be characterised as 'tepid' and 'centrist.'
Nothing quite draws vitriol like authenticity and success!
Monday, March 27, 2006
Why the New Rite of Episcopal Consecration is Valid - or- Why the Anglican Rite of Episcopal Consecration is Valid
In preparation for the impending reconciliation of the Society of Saint Pius X, the traditionalist Latin Mass and Sacraments religious society, with the See of Rome, Angelus Press, the publishing wing of SSPX has reprinted a fascinating paper entitled Why the New Rite of Episcopal Consecration is Valid. Pope Benedict XVI has to be a real Bishop if the SSPX is going to reunite with him. In the essay, a traditionalist Dominican theologian, Father Pierre-Marie argues cogently and convincingly that the new sacramental form of the new Roman Pontifical of 1968 is valid, in spite of the fact that it is not the same form as used in ancient Latin rite, because it is an ancient Eastern prayer of consecration based on the Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus. We are told it is valid because it clearly invokes the Holy Ghost for the office and work of the Episcopal Office, what is called in Latin the Spiritum principalem, the Spirit of Authority, or the Governing Spirit. It suffices, we are instructed, to invoke the said Spirit, for with such prayer is affirmed the intention to confer the grace of the Episcopate.
My question is: how does this at all differ from the original sacramental form of the Anglican Ordinal in 1550? The two rites do exactly the same thing - that is, they both invoke the Holy Ghost for the grace of the Order of Bishops. Yet again it would seem that Apostolicae Curae has been outmoded and circumvented by a more biblical and patristic approach to the subject of the Sacraments and the grace they communicate.
The 1968 Rite:
Et nunc effunde super hunc electum eam virtutem, quae a te est, Spiritum principalem, quem dedisti dilecto Filio Tuo Jesu Christo, quem ipse donavit sanctis Apostolis, qui constituerunt Ecclesiam per singula loca et sanctuarium tuum, in gloriam et laudem indeficientem nominis tui.
So now pour out upon this chosen one that power which is from you, the governing Spirit whom you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the Spirit given by him to the holy Apostles, who founded the Church in every place to be your temple for the unceasing glory and praise of your name.
The Anglican Rite of 1550:
Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee, by imposition of hands: for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of soberness.
The Anglican rite quotes II Timothy 1.6-7, in which Saint Paul describes his consecration of Saint Timothy to the Apostolate/Episcopate. This same quote is cited by the Council of Trent as the biblical basis for asserting the distinctive grace and order of the Episcopate:
SESSION THE TWENTY-THIRD,
CHAPTER III. That Order is truly and properly a Sacrament.
Whereas, by the testimony of Scripture, by Apostolic tradition, and the unanimous consent of the Fathers, it is clear that grace is conferred by sacred ordination, which is performed by words and outward signs, no one ought to doubt that Order is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of holy Church. For the apostle says; I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love of sobriety.
CANON IV.--If any one saith, that, by sacred ordination, the Holy Ghost is not given; and that vainly therefore do the bishops say, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; or, that a character is not imprinted by that ordination; or, that he who has once been a priest, can again become a layman; let him be anathema.
Both rites equally and explicitly confer the Spirit of Authority, the Spirit of the Apostolic Office and Ministry.
Accipe Spiritum Sanctum!
My question is: how does this at all differ from the original sacramental form of the Anglican Ordinal in 1550? The two rites do exactly the same thing - that is, they both invoke the Holy Ghost for the grace of the Order of Bishops. Yet again it would seem that Apostolicae Curae has been outmoded and circumvented by a more biblical and patristic approach to the subject of the Sacraments and the grace they communicate.
The 1968 Rite:
Et nunc effunde super hunc electum eam virtutem, quae a te est, Spiritum principalem, quem dedisti dilecto Filio Tuo Jesu Christo, quem ipse donavit sanctis Apostolis, qui constituerunt Ecclesiam per singula loca et sanctuarium tuum, in gloriam et laudem indeficientem nominis tui.
So now pour out upon this chosen one that power which is from you, the governing Spirit whom you gave to your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the Spirit given by him to the holy Apostles, who founded the Church in every place to be your temple for the unceasing glory and praise of your name.
The Anglican Rite of 1550:
Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee, by imposition of hands: for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of soberness.
The Anglican rite quotes II Timothy 1.6-7, in which Saint Paul describes his consecration of Saint Timothy to the Apostolate/Episcopate. This same quote is cited by the Council of Trent as the biblical basis for asserting the distinctive grace and order of the Episcopate:
SESSION THE TWENTY-THIRD,
CHAPTER III. That Order is truly and properly a Sacrament.
Whereas, by the testimony of Scripture, by Apostolic tradition, and the unanimous consent of the Fathers, it is clear that grace is conferred by sacred ordination, which is performed by words and outward signs, no one ought to doubt that Order is truly and properly one of the seven sacraments of holy Church. For the apostle says; I admonish thee that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee by the imposition of my hands. For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love of sobriety.
CANON IV.--If any one saith, that, by sacred ordination, the Holy Ghost is not given; and that vainly therefore do the bishops say, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; or, that a character is not imprinted by that ordination; or, that he who has once been a priest, can again become a layman; let him be anathema.
Both rites equally and explicitly confer the Spirit of Authority, the Spirit of the Apostolic Office and Ministry.
Accipe Spiritum Sanctum!
Friday, March 24, 2006
The Mission Province
http://www.missionsprovinsen.se/engelsk/index.htm
The above link connects to an awesome website for the new Mission Province, Sweden's Continuing Church.
Pray for the orthodox of the Swedish Lutheran Tradition!
And for a little background on the position of the Anglican Communion regarding the Church of Sweden...
The Church of England and the Church of Sweden
Report of the Commission Appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Pursuance of Resolution 74 of the Lambeth Conference of 1908 on the Relation of the Anglican Communion to the Church of Sweden:
We are convinced by the evidence which has been before us:
(I) That the succession of bishops has been maintained unbroken by the Church of Sweden, and that it has a true conception of the episcopal office, though it does not as a whole consider the office to be so important as most English Churchmen do;
(2) That the office of priest is also rightly conceived as a divinely instituted instrument for the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, and that it has been in intention handed on throughout the whole history of the Church of Sweden. The change in language introduced in 1811, which continued in use until 1894, does not appear to us to have vitiated the intention, when regard is paid to other documents which remained in authority and throughout testified to that intention. For example, this intention is manifested in the Augustana Confessio, Articles V. and VII., and elsewhere, both in the Prayer Book itself and in the Church Law.
We are, therefore, agreed to recommend that a resolution should be proposed, either to the next Lambeth Conference or to a meeting of the English bishops, similar to that which was adopted by the Lambeth Conference of 1888 in reference to the Old Catholics of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, under which members of the National Church of Sweden, otherwise qualified to receive the Sacrament in their own Church, might be admitted to Holy Communion in ours.
____________________________________________
1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops
Resolution 24
Reunion of Christendom
The Conference welcomes the Report of the Commission appointed after the last Conference entitled "The Church of England and the Church of Sweden," and, accepting the conclusions there maintained on the succession of bishops of the Church of Sweden and the conception of the priesthood set forth in its standards, recommends that members of that Church, qualified to receive the sacrament in their own Church, should be admitted to Holy Communion in ours. It also recommends that on suitable occasions permission should be given to Swedish ecclesiastics to give addresses in our churches.
The above link connects to an awesome website for the new Mission Province, Sweden's Continuing Church.
Pray for the orthodox of the Swedish Lutheran Tradition!
And for a little background on the position of the Anglican Communion regarding the Church of Sweden...
The Church of England and the Church of Sweden
Report of the Commission Appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Pursuance of Resolution 74 of the Lambeth Conference of 1908 on the Relation of the Anglican Communion to the Church of Sweden:
We are convinced by the evidence which has been before us:
(I) That the succession of bishops has been maintained unbroken by the Church of Sweden, and that it has a true conception of the episcopal office, though it does not as a whole consider the office to be so important as most English Churchmen do;
(2) That the office of priest is also rightly conceived as a divinely instituted instrument for the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, and that it has been in intention handed on throughout the whole history of the Church of Sweden. The change in language introduced in 1811, which continued in use until 1894, does not appear to us to have vitiated the intention, when regard is paid to other documents which remained in authority and throughout testified to that intention. For example, this intention is manifested in the Augustana Confessio, Articles V. and VII., and elsewhere, both in the Prayer Book itself and in the Church Law.
We are, therefore, agreed to recommend that a resolution should be proposed, either to the next Lambeth Conference or to a meeting of the English bishops, similar to that which was adopted by the Lambeth Conference of 1888 in reference to the Old Catholics of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, under which members of the National Church of Sweden, otherwise qualified to receive the Sacrament in their own Church, might be admitted to Holy Communion in ours.
____________________________________________
1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops
Resolution 24
Reunion of Christendom
The Conference welcomes the Report of the Commission appointed after the last Conference entitled "The Church of England and the Church of Sweden," and, accepting the conclusions there maintained on the succession of bishops of the Church of Sweden and the conception of the priesthood set forth in its standards, recommends that members of that Church, qualified to receive the sacrament in their own Church, should be admitted to Holy Communion in ours. It also recommends that on suitable occasions permission should be given to Swedish ecclesiastics to give addresses in our churches.
Are the Church Fathers 'Lutheran' or are the Lutherans Patristic?
http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1519
Please follow the above link to a fascinating conversation which addresses many of the concerns and critiques offered for one's consideration in my earlier post on confessional Lutheranism.
The debate is simply this: do confessional Lutherans submit the protestant confessions to the judgement of the ancient Fathers and their authoritative interpretation of the Catholic Faith, or do confessional Lutherans read the Fathers in such a way as to squeeze the Patristic Tradition into the matrix of the Book of Concord? Anglicans are very familiar with this debate. For instance, Father Arthur Middleton in his excellent work Fathers and Anglicans demonstrates how the Caroline Divines tried to make the Fathers into proto-Anglicans and how the Tractarians tried to conform the Anglican formularies to the higher authority of the Fathers. That in-house struggle and debate continues to this day...
Please follow the above link to a fascinating conversation which addresses many of the concerns and critiques offered for one's consideration in my earlier post on confessional Lutheranism.
The debate is simply this: do confessional Lutherans submit the protestant confessions to the judgement of the ancient Fathers and their authoritative interpretation of the Catholic Faith, or do confessional Lutherans read the Fathers in such a way as to squeeze the Patristic Tradition into the matrix of the Book of Concord? Anglicans are very familiar with this debate. For instance, Father Arthur Middleton in his excellent work Fathers and Anglicans demonstrates how the Caroline Divines tried to make the Fathers into proto-Anglicans and how the Tractarians tried to conform the Anglican formularies to the higher authority of the Fathers. That in-house struggle and debate continues to this day...
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
The Anglican Debt to Father Luther
http://www.accipepotestatem.com/
If anyone is agnostic about the historical connexion between the Church of England and the Lutheran Reformation, follow the above link to text entitled The Lutheran Origin of the Anglican Ordinal by Dr EC Messenger.
As the Bishop who ordained me to the Priesthood with that same Ordinal once quipped, 'If an Anglican Priest says he utterly hates the Reformation, ask him about his wife!'
If anyone is agnostic about the historical connexion between the Church of England and the Lutheran Reformation, follow the above link to text entitled The Lutheran Origin of the Anglican Ordinal by Dr EC Messenger.
As the Bishop who ordained me to the Priesthood with that same Ordinal once quipped, 'If an Anglican Priest says he utterly hates the Reformation, ask him about his wife!'
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