Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 July 2008
Questions of the mutual recognition, or not, of the ministry of different Churches have been high on the ecumenical agenda for many years. Roman Catholic sacramental theology, manifest inter alia in Canon Law, has a clear understanding of the validity or invalidity of sacraments, including holy orders. Validity is a strong word and implies that sacramental acts which are not valid are de facto ineffective.
1 This is an abridgement of a dissertation of the same title submitted as part of the LLM in Canon Law at Cardiff University in 2003. The full version contains more detailed assessment of orders and ordination in the Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches.
2 For a discussion of the Meissen Declaration. see below.
3 Eg Doe, N, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1998), p 137;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBursell, R, Liturgy, Order and the Law (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1996), pp 232, 233.Google Scholar
4 Eg the fashion dating from the 1940s for parish churches to declare themselves ‘out of communion’ with the Church of South India due to the supposed invalidity of its ministry and the author's experience of promoting Anglican-Methodist cooperation in the Diocess of Oxford and Ely in recent years.Google Scholar
5 Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 1113.Google Scholar
6 Gurrieri, J, ‘Sacramental Validity: The Origins and Use of a Vocabulary’ (1981) 41 The Jurist 21 at 28.Google Scholar
7 Ibid 21.
8 Ibid 22.
9 However. canon 951 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law admits of the possibility of valid ordination being administered other than by a bishop.Google Scholar
10 Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis 30 November 1947.Google Scholar
11 Apostolic Constitution Approval of the new rites for the ordination of deacons, presbyters and bishops, 18 June 1968.Google Scholar
12 Code of Canon Law 1983, canon 1009.Google Scholar
13 This principle can be traced to the Council of Trent.Google Scholar
14 For Eastern Orthodox clergy, see the Vatican II decree Orientalium Ecclesiarum. para 25.Google Scholar
15 Hill, C and Yarnold, E (eds) Anglican Orders: The Documents in the Debate (SPCK. 1997), p 82.Google Scholar
16 Leonard, G, ‘By Whose Authority’ in Longenecker, D (ed), The Path to Rome (Gracewing, 1999), p 28.Google Scholar
17 The words ‘valid’ and ‘validity’ do not appear at all in the resolutions or study materials of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.Google Scholar
18 Gurrieri, J, ‘Sacramental Validity: The Origins and Use of a Vocabulary’ (1981) 41 The Jurist 21 at 40–42.Google Scholar
19 Ibid 41.
20 Ibid 42.
21 Ibid 40. note 82.
22 Articles of Religion, Article XXV.Google Scholar
23 Article XXV, describes sacraments as ‘certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him’. The article goes on to state that the remaining five ‘commonly called Sacraments…have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God’. The ARCICI report Ministry and Ordination, states that Article XXV does not deny that the five ‘commonly called Sacraments’ are sacraments but merely that they are not ‘necessary for salvation’.Google Scholar See Hill, C and Yarnold, E, Anglicans and Roman Catholics: The Search for Unity (SPCK 1994) p 35. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines sacraments as ‘the signs and instruments by which the Holy Spirit spreads the grace of Christ the head throughout the Church which is his Body’: Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 774.Google Scholar
24 Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s11.Google Scholar
25 Briden, T and Hanson, B, Moore's Introduction to English Canon Law (3rd edn, Mowbray, 1992), p 77.Google Scholar
26 Ibid p 77.
27 R Bursell, Liturgy, Order and the Law, pp 232, 233.Google Scholar
28 Ibid, p 233, note 29.
29 N Doe, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion, p 137.Google Scholar
30 Ibid, note 45. He also cites the Prayer Books of the Church of the Province of South Africa and the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. The former states that ‘The central Act of ordination consists of the imposition of hands by a bishop, together with prayer for the Holy Spirit to give grace for the particular order being bestowed’. This is consistent with the contents of the section in the Alternative Service Book Ordinal entitled ‘The Ordination’.
31 ASB, p 338, note 1. This is consistent with the Revised Canons Ecclesiastical, Canon C 3, para 4.Google Scholar
32 ASB, p 338, note 2. This is consistent with Canon C 2, para 1.Google Scholar
33 ASB, p 338, note 3. This is consistent with Canon C 3, para 4.Google Scholar
34 Blake v Associated Newspapers Ltd (2003) 7 Ecc LJ 369, QBD.Google Scholar
35 Evidence dated 23 June 2003 at p 7.Google Scholar
36 For a fuller treatment of the issues at stake in this case, see Hill, C, ‘Episcopal Lineage: A Theological Reflection on Blake v Associated Newspapers Ltd (2003) 7 Ecc LJ pp 334–338.Google Scholar
37 Hill, C in Together in Mission and Ministry: The Porvoo Common Statement with Essays on Church and Ministry in Northern Europe (Church House Publishing, 1993), p 47.Google Scholar
38 Ibid.
39 See The Meissen Agreement (Council for Christian Unity Occasional Paper No 2). para 16.Google Scholar
40 In Called to Witness and Service: The Reuilly Common Statement with Essays on Church, Eucharist and Ministry (Church House Publishing, 1999), pp 51–57.Google Scholar
41 Ibid p 53.
42 Ibid. I am grateful to the Rt Revd Christopher Hill. co-author of the Reuilly Common Statement, for further information on this subject.
43 Webster, J, ‘Ministry and Priesthood’ in Sykes, S and Booty, J (eds) The Study of Anglicanism (SPCK, 1988), p 290.Google Scholar
44 The text of the Measure suggests that they should act jointly.Google Scholar
45 Sometimes referred to as ‘Full Communion’ and distinguished in the Measure from those Churches with whom the Church of England is not in communion but whose orders it recognises.Google Scholar
46 The Canons of the Church of England (6th edn, Church House Publishing, 2000), pp 199–201.Google Scholar
47 See Canon B 44, para 5, and Canon C 1, para 1.Google Scholar
48 The Most Revd Robert Runcie on behalf of himself and the Archbishop of York, the Most Revd John Habgood.Google Scholar
49 For the statement, see (1989) 1(5) Ecc LJ 9. See also N Doe, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion, p 352, note 63.Google Scholar
50 Eg the Revd Dr Susan Cole King and the Revd Joyce Bennett ordained as priests in the USA and Hong Kong, respectively, were both licensed to officiate as deacons in the Diocese of Oxford during this period.Google Scholar
51 A sub-group of the Division's Recruitment and Selection Committee.Google Scholar
52 Promulged January 1989.Google Scholar
53 Canon B 43, para 1(3).Google Scholar
54 Canon B 43, para 2(b)(iii).Google Scholar
55 Canon B 43, para 5.Google Scholar
56 See above.Google Scholar
57 Para 15.Google Scholar
58 Para 22.Google Scholar
59 Code of Canon Law 1917. canon 951; Code of Canon Law 1983, canon 1012.Google Scholar
60 See note 10 above.Google Scholar
61 See note 11 above.Google Scholar
62 Unitatis Redintegratio (see above), para 15.Google Scholar
63 See the discussion of the conditional ordination of Dr Graham Leonard at p 6 above.Google Scholar
64 Eg ‘The report of the First Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission Ministry and Ordination’ (1973) in Hill, C and Yarnold, E (eds), Anglicans and Roman Catholics: The Search for Unity (SPCK, 1994), pp 29ff.Google Scholar
65 Ibid p 40.
66 Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 22 May 1994, and the subsequent explanatory document Responsum ad dubium circa doctrinam in Epist. Ap. ‘Ordinatio Sacerdotalis’ traditam of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 28 October 1995.Google Scholar
67 Neill, S, Anglicanism (Penguin, 1958), p 372.Google Scholar
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid.
70 As evidenced by the conditional re-ordination of Dr Graham Leonard.Google Scholar
71 The Declaration of Utrecht.Google Scholar
72 Cross, F and Livingstone, E (eds) Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford 1997) p 1180.Google Scholar
73 Neill, Anglicanism, p 373.Google Scholar
74 ‘The Bonn Agreement’ in Evans, G and Wright, J (eds). The Anglican Tradition (SPCK, 1991), p 396.Google Scholar
75 Neill, p 373.Google Scholar
76 Evans and Wright, The Anglican Tradition, p 379.Google Scholar
77 ‘The Inauguration Service’ in Sundkler, B, Church of South India – The Movement towards Union 1900–1947 (2nd edn) (Lutterworth Press, 1965), p 342.Google Scholar
78 Ibid p 342.
79 Ibid p 341.
80 An Anglican Methodist Covenant (Church House Publishing, 2001), para 61.Google Scholar
81 Anglican-Methodist Unity: 2 The Scheme (SPCK/Epworth Press. 1963), p 87.Google Scholar
82 Ibid pp 103 ff.
83 Ibid p 87.
84 Wendebourg, D, ‘The Reformation in Germany and the Episcopal Office’ in Visible Unity and the Ministry of Oversight (Church House Publishing, 1996), p 50.Google Scholar
85 Ibid p 66.
86 The Meissen Agreement (Council for Christian Unity Occasional Paper No 2), para 17.Google Scholar
87 According to Canon B43, para 5, ‘A bishop or priest who has accepted an invitation to take part in the ordination or consecration of a minister of a Church to which this Canon applies may not, by the laying on of hands or otherwise, do any act which is a sign of the conferring of holy orders, unless that Church is an episcopal Church with which the Church of England has established intercommunion’.Google Scholar
88 The Meissen Agreement, para 17.Google Scholar
89 Ibid para 17.
90 An agreement between the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran Churches and the Anglican Churches of the British Isles 1993.Google Scholar
91 Hill, C in Together in Mission and Ministry: The Porvoo Common Statement with Essays on Church and Ministry in Northern Europe (Church House Publishing, 1993), pp 53–58.Google Scholar
92 The Churches of Norway, Denmark and Iceland.Google Scholar
93 Porvoo Common Statement, para 34.Google Scholar
94 Ibid para 53.
95 Ibid para 57.
96 The Canons of the Church of England, p 201.Google Scholar
97 Porvoo Common Statement, para 57.Google Scholar
98 Ibid para 9.
99 Ibid para 58(b)(ii), (iii) and (iv). An example of this is the integration of the ministers of the Scandinavian Mission to Seafarers in London into the Bermondsey Deanery of the Diocese of Southwark.
100 The Churches of Sweden and Norway have women bishops. See The Church of England Year Book (Church House Publishing, 2004), pp 418, 419.Google Scholar
101 For instance the Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure 1992 allowed the ordination of women to the priesthood. Women ordained in other parts of the Anglican Communion prior to this did not require re-ordination after this point to minister in the Church of England. Their ordination prior to this was not, therefore, invalid but not recognised as lawful.Google Scholar