Albany Via Media

April 27, 2010

To the Editor:

I don't remember hearing about “indelibility of orders” when I went through Confirmation class in the Diocese of Connecticut in the mid-60's, although perhaps it was in there. When I went to college (Clarkson College in Potsdam), I was taught by Father Pennock, then Rector at Trinity Church, about the indelibility of orders — priests are priests “according to the order of Melchizedek, forever.” (My future husband and I both attended Trinity, Potsdam, while in college. Fr. Pennock was kind enough to travel to my home church in Connecticut to perform our wedding.)

What Fr. Pennock taught me agrees, of course, with the Roman Catholic position on orders. The Roman Catholic catechism (paragraphs 1581 through 1584) says ordination is indelible. I am pretty sure that most Anglo-Catholics, at least, would agree with the Roman Catholic position.

At the Church of England General Synod in July of 2008, The Cyprus Agreed Statement of the International Commission for Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue 2006, “The Church of the Triune God”, was received with thanks. The Statement was also discussed at the Lambeth Conference in one of the Bishops' Self-Select Sessions. It would be interesting to know if this is one of the sessions that our own Bishop Love attended.

Here is what the joint statement of Anglican and Orthodox theologians presents as the agreed position of the two traditions (pages 47 and 48):

(VI) 22. Bishops and presbyters do not possess an indelible mark as if ordination were a magical seal granting them personal power to celebrate the Eucharist or any other liturgical action, apart from the ecclesial body. The priestly ministry is rather a charismatic gift, enabling those who receive it to serve and build up the body of the Church. It is a permanent order of service only in union with the Church and by its discerning authority. Any notion of ‘indelible mark’ would imply that the ordained individual possesses forever this peculiar mark of priesthood, which can never in any circumstance be removed or surrendered. Such a doctrine absolutizes priesthood and isolates it from the community of the Church. Priesthood is thereby grossly distorted and its significance greatly over-estimated. It becomes something imposed on the Church, which is unable to deprive the ordained individual of the priestly mark, even if the ordained person is unworthy to retain ecclesial grace. Such a doctrine divorces priesthood from its organic context in the life of the Church. It gives the ordained person an autonomous power above the Church itself, such that the Church cannot remove the indelible mark even if those ordained relinquish the exercise of their ministries, or are deprived of them, or even excommunicated.

(VI) 23. We are not aware that the theory of an indelible mark conferred by ordination can be found in patristic teaching. On the contrary, the canonical data leave no doubt that, once the Church decided to depose a bishop or presbyter, they returned to the rank of layman. Those deposed or excommunicated were in no way considered to retain their priesthood. The fact that the ministerial rehabilitation and restoration of such persons did not, according to the canons, involve re-ordination, does not imply any recognition that they were bishops or priests during the period of such punishment. It meant only that the Church recognised what had been sacramentally performed. The grace of ecclesiastical ministry was restored upon his assignment to an ecclesial community with no other sacramental sign or rite.

I was surprised to read this. I had understood, for example, that even a deposed priest could validly administer absolution to someone at the point of death. In practice, excepting such dramatic circumstances, this may be a distinction without a difference, since it is clear in the Cyprus Agreed Statement that reordination is not required when a deposed priest is rehabilitated and restored.

Many of the disagreements in the Anglican Communion today relate to the issue of authority: the authority of Scripture, of Tradition, of Reason; the ecclesial authority of the local bishop, of the local Anglican Church (in our case The Episcopal Church) and the teaching authority of bishops gathered together, as at Lambeth. Here [above] is a statement jointly issued by Anglican and Orthodox theologians, received by the Synod of the Church of England, and discussed at the Lambeth Conference. Is this in fact the theological position of the Anglican Communion, of The Episcopal Church, or of the Diocese of Albany?

Of course I am not a theologian, nor do I play one on TV. I didn't read every word of the Cyprus Agreed Statement, just as I haven't read every word of the Roman Catechism. But we do have deacons, priests, bishops, and theologians in this diocese. I'd like to know what they think. Is this one of those cases where we would gladly embrace our Anglican identity, but perhaps wish to add a footnoted reservation?

Allison de Kanel