On Leaving the Church of England - Gavin Ashenden

Bishop Francis Hodur and the Polish National Catholic Church

Anglicanism's historic Sister Church, the Polish National Catholic Church and Anglicans in the USA were in full communion from 1946 to 1978....

The Ongoing Collapse of the Church of England

From the BBC...

The attempt to house two completely different religions in one ecclesial institution was never practicable and has been proven once more to be utterly futile....

Christian orthodoxy has never been in a process of 'reception' concerning the ordination of women and is unprepared to admit that the universal Church has erred or been misguided about something as important to the Gospel as the sacramental essence of the Church and her Apostolic Ministry instituted by Jesus Christ. 

For Traditional Anglicans, as for the Patriarchates of East and West, the maleness of Holy Orders is a settled issue because it is a dogmatic truth revealed by God in Scripture and Tradition. Women's ordination, for this reason, has been a church-dividing issue and is not a second-tier concern or problem.

The purported ordination of women and the blessing of purported marriages of persons of the same sex are hermeneutically inseparable: today we see that the creation of a new synthetic system of marriage is the direct result of the creation of the new synthetic priesthood. The Sacrament of Holy Orders and the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony remain forever inextricably tied together in the divine revelation. Those religious organisations which follow in the path of modernism believe themselves masters over the sacraments, and therefore masters over the created order sanctified by the sacraments, free by fiat to change what God has created, redeemed, and revealed. The Church of England has tragically followed this path.

Purported women's ordination and pseudogamy share the same erroneous interpretation of Holy Scripture, or biblical hermeneutic, a contemporary, culturally-conditioned, historical-critical revisionist approach to the Scriptures. Both are based on the same reading and interpretation of the Bible, as both undermine the basic anthropological revelation concerning the nature of God, Man, and the Church contained in the Word of God. Both doctrines are equally heresies of the Christological and anthropological order.

Across the pond, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) should take serious notice of the disastrous consequences of the 'dual integrities' programme...

Let us pray earnestly for Bishop North and for all faithful Anglican Catholics struggling to survive in the C of E.

The Epiclesis in the Anglican Mass

The absence and/or presence of the epiclesis in the Canon of the Mass, and its necessity, is a contested subject amongst Anglo-Catholics: some orthodox Anglicans maintain that only the Very Words of Christ, the Words of Institution, are necessary for a valid consecration and that the epiclesis is unnecessary. Others maintain that the epiclesis is indispensable. Different parties over the course of our Anglican history have held different views, but all of them have been allowed to maintain their views and all views on the subject have been tolerated as surely within the ambit of the Church. The division of opinion goes back to the earliest centuries and to the divide between West and East.

In the First Millennium Undivided Church, it was generally held that the entire Eucharistic Prayer consecrated the elements: there was no ‘moment’ or ‘spot’ of consecration. What was merely bread and wine at the beginning of the Prex Mystica was transformed and changed into the Precious Body and Blood of Christ by the end of the Canon. There was no universal agreement in the ancient Church, even within the East, on the controverted question of a moment of consecration. Individual Fathers disagreed with one other, and thus the First Millennium consensus turned to the entire Canon of the Mass as the locus for consecration. The Holy Eucharist is divine Mystery, Our Lord in mysterio made present mystically by the Prayer of the Church. In the early Church, the faithful were simply not preoccupied with finding an exact point in which the reality of the Sacrament was accomplished. The Church saw the Eucharistic Prayer as a single organic unit. In the Canon, the Words of Institution were usually always included. The Church did not generally enquire into an exact moment in which the Change occurs. It was held that all features of the Prex united together to comprise one act, a moral and spiritual unity, which achieved consecration. It was only with the advent of scholasticism in the Middle Ages did theologians begin to explore the need for a minimal form necessary for the essence of the Sacrament.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, who offers a splendid example of early catechesis, plainly affirms: ‘Since then he himself declared and said of the bread, This is my Body, who shall dare to doubt any longer? And since he has himself affirmed and said, This is my Blood, who shall ever hesitate, saying, that it is not his blood? Consider therefore the Bread and the Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ; for even though sense suggests this to you, yet let faith establish you. Judge not the matter from the taste, but from faith be fully assured without misgiving, that the Body and Blood of Christ have been vouchsafed to you. Having learned these things, and been fully assured that the seeming bread is not bread, though sensible to taste, but the Body of Christ; and that the seeming wine is not wine, though the taste will have it so, but the Blood of Christ.’ A precise moment of consecration is not specifically or unequivocally identified, just the fact of the Real Objective Presence and the Eucharistic Change. This line of defence and instruction is the usual approach for most of the early Fathers, who almost always hold the Prayer of Consecration to be one seamless entity containing both the Words of Christ and an epiclesis.

Whereas some Latin Saints such as Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine teach that the Verba Christi alone consecrate the elements, some Eastern Saints such as Saint Basil and Saint Gregory Nazianzus profess an opposing view - that the epiclesis is consecratory. Interestingly, Saint John Chrysostom preached a sermon in which he states that the Words of Christ alone suffice for consecration: 'The saying, 'This is my body', once uttered, from that time to the present day, and even until Christ's coming, makes the sacrifice complete at every Altar in the Churches.'

There is no doubt today that all liturgies of the Primitive Church possessed some form of a Eucharistic epiclesis, but the location of the epiclesis within the Anaphora and its role or meaning varied widely from rite to rite. The fifth-century Canon of the Roman Mass contained some kind of epiclesis after the Words of Institution, as we are informed by Pope Gelasius. The Ambrosian-Augustinian teaching on the centrality of the Verba led to a neglect and eventual removal of this epiclesis from the Roman Canon in later centuries.

The sixteenth century Church of England inherited the contemporary Latin view that the Words alone effect the consecration, and because of this inheritance, the 1549, 1552, 1559, 1604, and 1662 English Prayer Books all present the Words of Institution as effecting consecration. The 1549 has an explicit epiclesis before the consecratory Words of Institution; the other English Books have no explicit epiclesis at all. In this way, the English BCP tradition, as opposed to the Scottish and American, possesses the same theology and practice of consecration as the medieval Latin Rite and its Gregorian-Roman Canon. 

The English Book of Common Prayer endorsed the then-common Western view that the consecration was effected by the Words of Institution, and there is undoubtedly strong patristic support for this perspective.

In his De Sacramentis, Saint Ambrose of Milan unambiguously attributes the consecration to the Words of Institution: 'Thus the Word of Christ consecrates this sacrament.' - ‘If the blessing of a human being had power even to change nature, what do we say of God’s action in the consecration itself, in which the very words of the Lord and Saviour are effective? If the words of Elijah had power even to bring down fire from heaven, will not the words of Christ have power to change the natures of the elements? You have read that the words of Christ have power to change the natures of the elements. You have read that in the creation of the whole world, he spoke and they came to be; he commanded and they were created. If Christ could by speaking create out of nothing what did not yet exist, can we say that his words are unable to change existing things into something they previously were not? It is no lesser feat to create new natures for things than to change their existing natures. The Lord Jesus himself declares: ‘This is my body.’ Before the blessing contained in these words, a different thing is named; after the consecration a body is indicated. He himself speaks of his blood. Before the consecration something else is spoken of; after the consecration blood is designated. And you say: ‘Amen,’ that is: ‘It is true.’ What the mouth utters, let the mind within acknowledge; what the word says, let the heart ratify.’

Saint Augustine of Hippo taught, 'If the word be joined to the element, it becomes a sacrament.' For Augustine, the Eucharist, like other sacraments, is a 'visible word' or 'word made visible.' The Word added to the matter becomes the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass. This view is taken up and utilised by the entire Latin Church by the fifth or sixth century.  

The introduction into post-reformation Anglicanism of the doctrine that the epiclesis is necessary for Eucharistic consecration transpired via the emphases and liturgical renewal of the Non-Jurors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Scotland and England. These Non-Juring patristic theologians and historians, who dubbed themselves the 'British Catholic Church' or the 'Catholic Remnant of Britain,' felt that the Eastern sequence of Institution, Oblation, and Invocation was the most authentic and primitive, and thus restored this structure to their Anglican Eucharistic rites. From henceforth there is a divide between the English Prayer Book tradition and the Scottish-American. It was the position of the Usager Non-Jurors, from whom we received the Scottish Rite of 1764 adapted to be the American Canon of 1789, that the epiclesis was absolutely necessary for a valid consecration. Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first American bishop and himself a Usager in the tradition of the Non-Jurors, maintained that the 1662 English Canon was inadequate and he refused to employ it. The default theological position of the 1928 American Canon requires the Institution, Oblation, and Invocation for a proper consecration of the Body and Blood of Christ – according to rubric.

Historically, the entire Anglican Communion agreed that at a minimum, a validly ordained priest always validly celebrates the Eucharist so long as he employs the Words of Institution from Our Lord and real wheaten bread and fermented grape wine in the consecration, with the intention of doing what Christ instituted. It was maintained that this is all that the New Testament and the universal Tradition require.

The aforementioned agreement of Anglicanism is demonstrated by the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, which document, accepted by the Lambeth Conferences of 1888 and 1920, affirms on behalf of the whole Anglican Communion that Baptism and the Supper of the Lord must be 'ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.'  

What presents us with a challenge today is that the Scottish and American Churches ultimately adopted the order for the Prayer of Consecration as used in the Eastern Churches. The 1928 American Mass follows the Scottish Order with the Invocation (epiclesis) after the Words of Institution and the Oblation (anamnesis). The 1928 English Deposited Book and the 1929 Scottish Prayer Book have also accepted the Eastern liturgical praxis.

It must be noted that the Eastern tradition does not agree within itself on precisely how the epiclesis consecrates in relation to the Words of Christ: one school of thought professes that the epiclesis alone consecrates the elements without reference to the Words. Another party holds that both the Words of Institution and the epiclesis together must be employed in the Eucharistic Prayer. The Synod of Jerusalem 1672 declares, ‘The Holy Eucharist is instituted by the essential Word and sanctified by the invocation of the Holy Ghost.’ Saint Mark of Ephesus writes, ‘Not only by the sound of the Lord's words are the divine gifts sanctified, but also by the prayer after these words, and by the consecration of the priest in the strength of the Holy Ghost.’

The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus of Rome (AD 215) shows us that the use of an epiclesis after the Words of Institution was a very ancient Roman Rite sequence. It was the intention of Hippolytus to preserve and conserve a more ancient expression of the Eucharistic liturgy of the Church of Rome, one which was in the third century falling into desuetude and being replaced by other forms. In his effort to maintain this old rite, Hippolytus would establish himself as an antipope in opposition to the official hierarchy….

A comparison of the Eucharistic Canon of the 1928 American Book with the Anaphora of the primitive Roman Rite as given by Saint Hippolytus reveals that the parallels are remarkable. Both Anaphoras are offered to God the Father through God the Son, both are introduced with a thanksgiving for redemption, then move to the Institution Narrative, immediately followed by the Oblation and the Invocation (epiclesis), and conclude with a doxology.

We give thanks to you God,
through your beloved son Jesus Christ,
whom you sent to us in former times
as Saviour, Redeemer, and Messenger of your Will,
who is your inseparable Word,
through whom you made all,
and in whom you were well-pleased,
whom you sent from heaven into the womb of a Virgin,
who, being conceived within her, was made flesh,
and appeared as your Son,
born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin.
It is he who, fulfilling your will
and acquiring for you a holy people, 
extended his hands in suffering,
in order to liberate from sufferings
those who believe in you.
Who, when he was delivered to voluntary suffering,
in order to dissolve death,
and break the chains of the devil,
and tread down hell,
and bring the just to the light,
and set the limit,
and manifest the resurrection,
taking the bread, and giving thanks to you, said,
Take, eat, for this is my body which is broken for you.
Likewise the chalice, saying,
This is my blood which is shed for you.
Whenever you do this, do this in memory of me. 

Therefore, remembering his death and resurrection, 
we offer to you the bread and the chalice, 
giving thanks to you, who has made us worthy 
to stand before you and to serve as your priests.
And we pray that you would send your Holy Spirit 
to the oblation of your Holy Church. 
In their gathering together, 
give to all those who partake of your holy mysteries the fullness of the Holy Spirit, 
toward the strengthening of the faith in truth, 
that we may praise you and glorify you,
through your Son Jesus Christ,
through whom to you be glory and honour,
Father and Son, 
with the Holy Spirit,
in your Holy Church,
now and throughout the ages of ages.
Amen. 

The Anaphora of Saint Hippolytus is much briefer than the Canon of the American Rite. Neither Eucharistic Prayer contains an explicit intercession for the living or the faithful departed because the Prayer for the Church or the general intercession occurs earlier in the Mass. Saint Hippolytus, although Bishop of Rome, was Greek-speaking and cultivates an early Eastern liturgical tradition in his ministry and writing. The original text of the Apostolic Tradition was in Greek, and reflects an Eastern origin.

Bishop Walter H. Frere, CR, Bishop of Truro, a staunch defender of the Eucharistic Canon of the 1928 Deposited Prayer Book of the Church of England, desired a restoration of the Eucharistic Anaphora based on Eastern theological and structural lines. It is fascinating to know that Bishop Frere was one of the very, very few English Anglo-Catholics who supported the 1928 Proposed Book and especially its Canon: most Anglo-Catholics in England in the early twentieth century despised the epiclesis in the new liturgy (holding to the English BCP/ Latin view that the Very Words of Christ alone consecrate) and forged an alliance with the Evangelical party to see the Deposited Book defeated. Walterus Truron loved the Eastern tradition and rightly saw the Ecclesia Anglicana as the western expression of that orthodoxy so magnificently manifested in the Eastern rite. 

Based on the preceding evidence, we may say that particularly for the American Church, so long as the Mass is celebrated according to text, ceremonial, and customary of the 1928 Book and the authorised Missals, one is free to prefer any number of opinions regarding any specific 'moment of consecration.' Every priest is bound to use those liturgical rites authorised by one’s ecclesiastical authority, that is, the Bishop Ordinary and the Canons. The later Scottish-American Rite, it can be argued, may be superior in terms of reference to the most ancient liturgies, and, one may assert, is even more authentic, but the original English Rite, most recently revised in 1662, is the mother liturgy of Anglicanism and remains authoritative for many orthodox Anglicans throughout the world. All classical Prayer Book liturgies are valid for the effect of Eucharistic consecration, but may not always equally achieve the fullness of theological and doxological expression. 

Our dilemma is part of the good Anglican muddle, not the false 'comprehensiveness' of the Elizabethan Settlement failure. Our complexity comes from the fact that we are a genuinely Catholic and hybrid Church, a hybrid of East and West, with a liturgy which quite ingeniously incorporates both Eastern and Western features in the format of the Church's official worship. The disagreement over the role of the Eucharistic epiclesis has existed in Anglicanism since the seventeenth century and is likely to continue well into the future. Patience and tolerance are called for on all sides of the debate. Those who hold to the solum Verbis Christi position have a long history behind them - especially in the Western Church of late antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and in the Church of England during and after the reformation. Those who hold to the necessity of the epiclesis have the entire Eastern Church and many examples from the most original and primitive liturgies behind them. The good news is that regardless of one's view, traditional Anglicans continually receive the greatest gift ever bestowed upon mankind, the True Body and True Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ under the form of bread and wine in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

'Continual growth in thy love and service...'

In the 1928 American Prayer Book Eucharist, the Prayer for the Whole State of Christ's Church contains this phrase of intercession for the Dead, which petition is absolutely unique to the revised American liturgy: 'And we also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.'

From whence does this unique prayer for the Holy Souls come?

The answer: Saint Gregory of Nyssa teaches we shall eternally grow and develop into the life of God in the land of light and joy in the fellowship of the Saints, as we go from strength to strength and glory to glory, for God is infinite and we are finite beings graced to enter into communion with an infinite Communion of Persons. 

Prayers for the faithful departed were reintroduced into the American Liturgy in the 1928 edition and all possess this characteristic reference to the doctrine of Saint Gregory, that souls in Christ may continue to grow in God's love and service in Paradise. These prayers all view the state of the soul, and the life of service, in the realm of the Intermediate State as one of growth and increase in the love and knowledge of God (Prayer Book pages 42, 74-75, 268, 332, 334, 598).

For Saint Gregory, the soul divinised by grace will never cease to grow in love and service, will never cease to seek to conform itself to the infinite God, Who is love. 

Saint Gregory instructs us that in the life of the world to come, the soul in Jesus Christ seeks to be entirely conformed to the divine nature, which is love. Love will alone remain as the soul's truest desire and orientation. The soul wishes to attach itself to the highest reality, the Good, to God, Who alone is the One and Only truly to be desired and loved. Being the image of God, the soul attaches itself to God by the attraction and action of love. It wills to be conformed to the One who is forever sought and acquired. The soul continually becomes the image and likeness of the God in Whom it participates and lives in communion. For all eternity, we shall love God and be caught up into the God who loves us.

The Nature of God eternally lives, thrives, and operates as love, being love, without limit. The Holy Trinity is infinite, limitless love Himself, and therefore, for all eternity the souls of the faithful will experience a limitless ascent to God, a never-ending growth into God's love. 

So when the soul which has become simple and uniform and an accurate image of God finds that truly simple and immaterial good, the one thing which is really lovable and desirable, it attaches itself to it and combines with it through the impulse and operation of love. It conforms itself to that which is always being grasped and found, and becomes through its likeness to the good that which the nature is in which it participates (On the Soul and the Resurrection). 

This truly is the vision of God: never to be satisfied in the desire to see him. But one must always, by looking at what he can see, rekindle his desire to see more. Thus, no limit would interrupt the growth in the ascent to God, since no limit to the Good can be found nor is the increasing of the desire for the Good brought to an end because it is satisfied (The Life of Moses). 

Interview on Quad Cities Anglican Radio

Please listen to today's 1st February 2017 radio interview with me about Liturgy found on Quad Cities Anglican Radio - thank you Father Don and Father Thomas for hosting this wonderful experience!

http://qcaradio.com/

Saint Charles Stuart I of England, King and Martyr

O most mighty God, terrible in thy judgements, and wonderful in thy doings toward the children of men, who in thy heavy displeasure didst suffer the life of our gracious Sovereign King Charles the First, to be, as this day, taken away by the hands of cruel and bloody men: we thy sinful creatures here assembled before thee, do, in the behalf of all the people of this land, humbly confess, that they were the crying sins of this nation, which brought down this heavy judgement upon us. But, O gracious God, when thou makest inquisition for blood, lay not the guilt of this innocent blood, the shedding whereof nothing but the Blood of thy Son can expiate, lay it not to the charge of the people of this land: nor let it ever be required of us, or our posterity. Be merciful, O Lord, be merciful unto thy people whom thou hast redeemed; and be not angry with us forever: but pardon us for thy mercies sake, through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (1662 English Prayer Book)

The Anglican Joint Synods 2017

The leaders of four Continuing Anglican Churches have announced plans for Joint Synods to meet in Atlanta, Georgia, the week of October 2nd to 6th.  At the conclusion of the week it is the intention of the Churches to sign an agreement establishing full communion (communio in sacris) among the four bodies as well as a pledge to pursue in a determined and deliberate fashion increasingly full unity.  The Churches also will discuss common plans for mission and evangelism.  Each Church will hold its own mandatory business meetings and Synods, but the four will join together throughout for common worship and social occasions.
 
The four Churches and their episcopal leaders are the Anglican Church in America (Brian Marsh), the Anglican Catholic Church (Mark Haverland), the Anglican Province of America (Walter Grundorf), and the Diocese of the Holy Cross (Paul Hewett).  The Joint Synods will meet at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia in north Atlanta.
 
The four Churches have grown increasingly close in recent years, and look to the Congress of Saint Louis (1977) and The Affirmation of St. Louis as common historical and theological touchstones.  The Churches are united by commitments to credal orthodoxy; to traditional Anglican worship, rooted in the historic Books of Common Prayer; to the three-fold Apostolic ministry of male bishops, priests, and deacons; and to traditional morality in issues affecting the sanctity of life and human sexuality.  
 
While all four Churches seek closer relations with other ecclesial bodies with Anglican backgrounds, they differ from most of them in a firm belief that innovations since the mid-1970s such as modernist liturgies and the purported ordination of women to Holy Orders constitute unacceptable developments that remove Anglicans from the central tradition of the Undivided Church of the first millennium.  
 
The four Churches have about 300 congregations in the United States as well as larger memberships in Africa, South America, Oceania, Asia, and England.

Two Splendid Quotes...

... from the bishop who ordained me to the priesthood.

'The genius of Anglicanism is that it is the Biblical Faith revealed in Catholic Order.'

and

'Anglicanism is evangelical, but not Calvinist; it is Catholic, but not Romish.'

A Blessed Christmas from Saint Barnabas Dunwoody!

Anglicans and the Historic Priesthood

By Alice C. Linsley
special to VIRTUEONLINE
www.virtueonline.org

December 22, 2016

I am writing this from the strength of my conviction that women's ordination to the sacred order of priests is a dangerous innovation, and as a woman who served as a priest in ECUSA from 1988 until the Sunday on which Gene Robinson was consecrated.

Some will view this article as an attempt to influence the 2017 decision of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). However, this is a question on which I have been speaking and writing for over 10 years, and I have no illusion that what is said here will change the minds of those who also hold their positions with firm conviction.

Some say that the opposing positions on women's ordination are predicated on equally valid arguments. That is problematic because the Church does not change sacred Tradition based on the validity of arguments. It has no authority to do so.

Given that Anglicans are comfortable with theological ambiguity and some bishops are pleased to act unilaterally, with little regard for uniformity, it may be impossible to achieve consensus on the question of women priests. As far as the Anglican Church of North America is concerned, the question has been under study for a good while. Out of concern for the growth and unity of that fledging body, it was not addressed early.

"At the inception of the Anglican Church in North America, the lead Bishops unanimously agreed to work together for the good of the Kingdom. As part of this consensus, it was understood that there were differing understandings regarding the ordination of women to Holy Orders, but there existed a mutual love and respect for one another and a desire to move forward for the good of the Church. This commitment was deeply embedded in the Constitution and Canons overwhelmingly adopted by the Inaugural Assembly (2009). [1]

While the Anglican tent has room for "both integrities" the issue remains contentious, and some clergy may leave ACNA should the ordination of women become an approved practice. For these clergy the ordination of women is deemed a first order issue.

Father Louis Tarsitano wrote, "The priesthood of Christ, and that representative priesthood rooted in Christ's priesthood is changeless. To change it is to change the New Testament itself."[2]

Father Richard L. Jones has written, "The established historicity of the priesthood extends back to Melchizedek, then the Levitical priesthood, then Christ and the Apostles, then the Apostolic Fathers, and on through the succeeding 1900+ years. Not only is women in the priesthood a recent innovation that defies the traditions of the past, it also has no basis in Scripture whatsoever."

The Most Rev. Walter F. Grundorf, Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Province of America, expresses that body's fidelity to holy Tradition in this statement:
"The Anglican Province of America, in common with the rest of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, affirms that the Sacrament of Holy Orders of Bishop, Priest and Deacons is the perpetuation of Our Lord Jesus Christ's gift of Apostolic Ministry to his Church and that these Sacred Orders consist exclusively of men in accordance with Christ's will and institution as proven by Holy Scriptures and the universal Tradition of the Holy Catholic Church for two thousand years. We do believe in conformity with the Undivided Catholic Church of the First Millennium that the male character of Holy Orders is unalterably of Divine institution."

The Anglican Province of South America debated the issue of women's ordination for 20 years and feelings ran high. Nevertheless, that Province has agreed to differ. According to Gregory Venables, the Primate of the Anglican Church of South America, "it hasn't caused any division."

Some believe the ability to embrace opposing views is a strength. Michael Warren Davis, writing for the Imaginative Conservative, expressed exactly this view:

"By allowing these rival sentiments to work themselves out, by allowing different provinces and even different parishes to align with this or that camp, the Anglican Communion has grown to be the third largest Church body in the world. To pick the Communion apart now, either from the left or the right, is the only certain means of destroying Anglicanism entirely. Total uniformity is not only impossible--its expectation is un-Anglican."

Concern for the growth and unity of the Anglican Communion does not condone moving the boundary stones set up by our holy ancestors (Proverbs 22:28) that enable us to discern and avoid errant paths. Anglicans who uphold the all-male priesthood are portrayed as having "conservative separatist tendencies, such the Anglican realignment and Continuing Anglican movements."[3] In reality, the separatists are the innovators, and their departure from holy Tradition creates division.

C. S. Lewis observed, "The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters. As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality." [4]

A woman standing at the altar as a priest represents a departure from the pattern of Scripture. The Bible does not explicitly state "Women shall not be ordained" because it was inconceivable to the Biblical writers that a woman would raise a knife to ritually slay an animal on the altar. This was the work of priests and the heads of households, both roles of men in the Judeo-Christian Tradition.

The priesthood is tied to the altar, and though the Christian priest enacts a bloodless sacrifice, the priesthood is about blood. According to Leviticus 17:11, "The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life." The blood of Jesus makes atonement, purifies, and sanctifies. He is both Sacerdos and Agnus Dei.
St. Paul refers to the Blood of Jesus no less than twelve times in his writings. Because God makes peace with us through the blood of the cross, he urges us to "Take every care to preserve the unity of the Spirit by the peace that binds you together" (Eph. 4:3).

The notion of a woman offering blood sacrifice was unthinkable to the Hebrew people. Such a thing would have been viewed as an affront to the Creator. He created women to bring forth life, not to take it. The blood work of women involves childbirth. The blood work of men involves hunting and warfare. Traditional gender roles speak of the distinction between life and death, a distinction that modernism has blurred. To the modern reader, this sounds bizarre. Today women fight in combat, hunt, and abort their unborn.

That men and women have distinct blood work is a given in the context of the Biblical writers. Women were not permitted at the altar and men were not permitted inside birthing chambers. This is an aspect of the Tradition the Church has received. Some view this as legalistic and patriarchal, but instead it is an invitation to contemplate a sacred mystery that is to be preserved by the Church.

A woman standing in persona Christi at the altar sends a distorted and confusing message. Likewise, a man standing in a Nativity scene as the Virgin Mary sends a distorted and confusing message. Jesus Christ is not the author of confusion. That comes from earthly and spiritual forces that oppose Christ and His Gospel.

Through the Church, God preserves right belief and right actions in the service of humanity. The conservation of holy Tradition is the responsibility of bishops and priests who follow the Apostles, upon whom the Church is founded. So-called "traditionalists" have been criticized for doing exactly what must be done to preserve the Gospel and the Church's witness.

Archbishop Shane B. Janzen, Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, has stated:
"The Traditional Anglican Communion, as with other Continuing Anglican Churches outside of the Canterbury Communion, holds to the Principles of Faith set out in the Affirmation of Saint Louis, 1977. We hold and believe that the Holy Orders of Bishop, Priest and Deacon are exclusive to men, affirming as we do the ancient tradition of the Church and the authority of Sacred Scripture. Though many in the secular world today see the ordination of women as a matter of human rights and equality between the sexes, it is in fact a matter of divine institution not human determination. No one has the 'right' to be ordained. The calling to the ordained ministry within the Church is from God who, in the person of His Son our Lord Jesus Christ, instituted the sacred ministry among men alone -- though He could very well have done otherwise given our Lord's pronouncements and actions which in many cases ran counter to the prevailing understanding and teachings of the then Jewish authorities. The ordained minister is an 'icon of Christ' -- persona Christi or alter Christus -- particularly in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. To set aside the teachings of Christ and the sacred tradition of the Church universal in any unilateral way is contrary to the teachings of Christ, the ancient discipline of the Church, and the means by which doctrines of the Church are determined. The Traditional Anglican Communion continues in the beliefs and discipline of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. We seek to conform to the model of Church left to us by our Lord, and as He did not grant authority to His Church to confer the Sacrament of Holy Orders on women, it is beyond our moral and canonical right to do so. We hold that no Church or body of bishops has the authority to alter the teachings of Christ and His Church in matters of faith and morals, including the ordination of women."

Christian leaders are to uphold values consistent with the Gospel and to resist dangerous innovations that threaten the unity of the Body of Christ. They are to preserve the pattern, rather than change the pattern based on vain arguments. As a philosophy teacher, I know that an argument can be valid and yet have no basis in reality. The Tradition of the Church is grounded in reality. It speaks about what is real and true. In an escapist society the Church is a troublesome reminder that God exists and is working in mysterious ways to redeem the world. The emotional fragility that is exhibited by many today is a sign that they are fleeing the reality of God. We escape reality when we fantasize new identities, immerse ourselves in virtual realities, hide behind addictions, and avoid pondering eternal verities.

This is what Lewis meant when he wrote, "With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us." [5]

On the question of women priests, Archbishop Edmund Akanya of Nigeria has stated: "Our position as a church is that it runs counter to scripture and more so our culture. Even the women themselves are seriously opposed to women's ordination. This position has been held before I became a bishop. In fact, it [women's ordination] is looked at as something that led to the issue of human sexuality today.

Archbishop Akanya is justified in this view since the first woman "regularly" ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) was known to be a lesbian and served as co-president of Integrity.

Louie Crew, the founder of Integrity, worked to influence the decisions of the General Conventions, and the 1976 Convention passed resolutions supporting the "civil rights" of lesbians and gays. (And it came to pass that the salt lost its saltiness and is no longer good for anything.)

The theological ambiguity and biblical illiteracy with which Episcopalians were comfortable served to advance Crew's agenda. He wrote,
"Almost never in our history have we had the luxury of expecting a high degree of conformity in doctrine or liturgical practice. To avoid extinction, frequently individual Anglicans and even groups of us have needed to back off from actions with which we disapprove and allow them still to happen, preferably 'somewhere else.'" [6]
This live-and-let-live attitude became enshrined among American Episcopalians and paved the way for Integrity to work its wizardry. Crew wrote, "Episcopal polity, therefore, allows much air in which lesbigays may breathe our living witness."[7]

The Church's nature resists worldly corruption and it is able by God's grace to correct what is wrong within itself. Regardless of how one views the priest at altar - in persona Christi, in persona ecclesiae, an icon of Christ, the divinely appointed mediator in the pattern of the Mediator, etc., this is not a matter of secondary importance. No synod or jurisdiction has authority to change the received Tradition concerning Jesus Christ and his blood shed for the salvation of the world. C.S. Lewis is correct that when it comes to the Church's received Tradition, "We cannot shuffle or tamper so much."

Through Jesus Christ the eternal truth signified by the Priesthood comes into focus. He perfects atonement through His own shed blood. The Priesthood is necessarily tied to the blood of Jesus Christ. Where faith in the saving nature of His blood is denied, there can be no true Priesthood. A priest who denies the necessity of repentance and trust in Jesus' blood as the only means of atonement is a false priest.

Alice C. Linsley has been pioneering the scientific field of Biblical Anthropology for 30 years. Her research on the primitive understanding of blood is reflected in this article. She lives in North Carolina where she continues to teach Philosophy.

FOOTNOTES
1. From "Frequently Asked Questions" at the ACNA website
2. Tarsitano, "Some Scriptural References Applicable to the Question of the Ordination of Women"
3. "Ordination of women in the Anglican Communion" Wikipedia
4. C.S. Lewis, "Priestesses in the Church"
5. Ibid
6. Louie Crew, Changing the Church
7. Ibid
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