Albany Via Media

May 14, 2010

To the Editor:

I am grateful to Allison de Kanel for her letter and the opportunity to share some thoughts on the interesting topic she raises on the indelibility of orders.

There is a great deal that is attractive about the basic thesis of The Cyprus Agreed Statement. (The Statement rightly notes it “…carries only the authority of its [committee] members.”) What is most attractive is the understanding that there is something perverse about ordination as a “personal possession.” Clearly, ordination is not something a bishop, priest, or deacon “has” over and against the Church. There is indeed a wonderful sense in Anglicanism of orders holding genuine weight without being a weight of imposition or entitlement. Clearly, anything to the contrary could hardly be “holy” orders.

Without taking any position on the patristic research done in the Statement, there are some interesting implications to the view it holds. For if the ordained person does not ever have a “possession” (indelible or otherwise) over and against the Church, then one must consider the matter of what constitutes “the Church” that holds the rightful authority to give and take away orders.

This is a very serious matter for any Church of the Reformation and quite relevant to the state of the Anglican Communion in relation to The Episcopal Church.

When the Church of England came into being in the break with Rome, did Rome as “the Church” have a right to declare English holy orders invalid? I mean, if the English Church and its handful of breakaway bishops did not both “possess” orders and were able to “convey” them over and against the Church (Rome), we Anglicans would have no valid Church at all.

In other words, again, who gets to define “the Church?” If any breakaway bishop, priest, or deacon can be said to have no valid “indelible” personal “possession” of orders, would that not also be true of a handful or even a couple of hundred or thousand ordained people? There must by the thesis be a “real” Church to stand up and declare validity.

Curiously but consistently, Rome did not attack the validity of Anglican orders on the basis of our departing from “the Church” (Rome). Rather, they attacked the validity of Anglican orders in a manner consistent with the theory of indelibility. In principle, according to the indelibility theory, Rome would need to maintain that orders could be “retained” and “conferred” by the breakaway English bishops because they “possessed” them. Rome in fact entertained that possibility.

But the problem in Rome's view was that the “form” or manner in which the “breakaway” Anglican orders were conferred lacked, in their view, a sufficiently sacramental sense of priesthood -- the sense of “the sacrifice of the Mass.” The issue, in other words, was that the nature of the orders conferred was not recognizable to Rome as being what the orders were alleged to be -- priest and bishop “making.”

The first Church of England bishops and priests had valid orders because they were given by Rome in “proper” form. But over time under the English ordination rites valid orders were said to have “died out.” Rome held that those English Reformation rites failed to “convey” what they alleged to convey because of theological error in the rites.

On the other hand, consistent with this theology, Rome held the orders of the “breakaway” Orthodox Church valid despite their lack of communion with Rome because Rome felt their sacramental form in ordination was proper. The doctrine of “indelibility” here could be said to have worked against Rome.

So let us take it to the present case. If “the Church” for us means “the Anglican Communion,” and holy orders are not indelible “possessions” but function at the pleasure of the Church, then a “breakaway” province such as potentially TEC could become, would potentially subject itself to the declaration that its orders are now “null and void.”

It has often amazed me that TEC is not more seemingly concerned about the validity of its orders if it breaks from the whole Communion or the “catholic” reality of Anglicanism. Their conscious or unconscious hope must be in the “indelibility” of their orders.

In the end, of course, what holy orders hold or convey is a matter of reality and not opinion or even formal “position.” Orders are a gift of God alone and God alone determines their reality and meaning.

The Rev. Paul J. Hartt