What You May Not Know about the New ACNA Ordinal

The College of Bishops recently approved a new Ordinal for use in the Anglican Church in North America. This Ordinal differs from the classical Anglican Ordinal in a number of ways.

The new Ordinal alters the historic Preface to the classical Anglican Ordinal.

The new Ordinal abandons the form of the ordination services in the classical Anglican Ordinal.

The new Ordinal replaces the formula used at the imposition of hands in the Form and Manner of Making of Deacons in the classical Anglican Ordinal with an adaptation of the late Medieval formula used in the Form and Manner of Ordering of Priests, which is not found in the earliest Ordinals and has been a major object of controversy in the Anglican Church.

The new Ordinal does not require blanket belief in the canonical Old Testament and New Testament.

The new Ordinal drops an alternate formula for use at the imposition of hands in the Form and Manner of the Ordering of Priests, which has been a part of the American Ordinal since 1790.

The new Ordinal gives greater emphasis to the consecration of bishops than to the ordination of deacons and priests.

The new Ordinal reintroduces into the Ordinal pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic ceremonies and ornaments, such as anointing a new priest's hands with oil of chrism and anointing a new bishop's forehead with blessed oil, which the English Reformers dropped from the Ordinal and which are tied to doctrines and practices rejected by the Reformed Church of England, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and historic Anglicanism.

To learn more about the new ACNA Ordinal, click on the following links.

Archbishop Robert Duncan on the New ACNA Ordinal
Further Thoughts on the New ACNA Ordinal
The New ACNA Ordinal: Shadows of Things That Will Be or Shadows of Things That May Be?
The 2011 Ordinal: A Foretaste of the New American Prayer Book