By Robin G. Jordan
The order in which the ACNA Ordinal is arranged is the order
of the 1928 Ordinal and its predecessors. This order is as follows:
The Preface
The Form and Manner of Ordaining a Deacon
The Form and Manner of Ordaining a Priest
The Form and Manner of Consecrating and Ordaining a Bishop
The Litany and Suffrages for Ordination.
The ordination services in the ACNA Ordinal, however, follow
the pattern of the ordination rites in the 1979 Ordinal, using contemporary
language versions of the texts from the 1928 Ordinal in place of the texts from
the 1979 Ordinal. A number of additions
and alterations have been made to these rites. We will be examining these
changes to the rites as they affect the doctrine of the rites.
One of the most significant changes in the ACNA Ordinal is
not in the ordination rites themselves but in the Preface. The phrase “these orders of ministry” has
been altered to “these three orders
of ministry.” This change is significant because it reflects an Anglo-Catholic
interpretation of the Preface and excludes a longstanding conservative
evangelical interpretation of the Preface, which is also how Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer and the English Reformers interpreted the Preface. It is an early
indication of the theological bias of the revised Ordinal, which as we shall
see is unreformed Catholic.
While the English Reformers recognized three offices in the
Church—deacon, presbyter, and bishop, they recognized only two orders—deacon
and presbyter-bishop—a view consistent with the New Testament in which terms
presbyter and bishop are used interchangeably.
The ACNA Ordinal brings the ordination rite for deacons into
line with its ordination rites for presbyters and bishops. The Examination is
followed by the singing of the Veni Creator Spiritus and a period of silent
prayer. The bishop says a prayer for the ordinand after which he lays hands on
the ordinand, reciting a formula modeled upon the formulae in the other two
ordination rites. The bishop concludes the setting apart of the ordinand with a
prayer for the newly-made deacon. These changes are justified on the grounds
that they restore the ancient dignity of the office of deacon. They represent
significant departures from the doctrine and liturgical usages of the 1662
Ordinal and the 1552 Ordinal upon which it is based.
Archbishop Cranmer in the Preface to the 1552 Ordinal states
that no man may execute the office of deacon, presbyter, or bishop except that
he has been admitted to such office “by public prayer, with the imposition of
hands.” In the ordination rite for
deacons in the 1552 and 1662 Ordinals the only prayer that precedes the laying
on of hands is the Litany to which has been added a special petition and which
concludes with a special collect. To Cranmer the Litany sufficed as “public
prayer” in the form for making a deacon. He saw no need for additional prayer other
than the collects before the blessing. Of the three ordination rites in the
1552 and 1662 Ordinals, the ordination rite for deacons most clearly reflects
the English Reformers’ view of ordination. With the imposition of hands the
bishop gives formal authority to execute a particular office. The ceremony of lying on of hands has
no sacramental efficacy. While the ordination rites for presbyters and bishops
are more elaborate, they reflect the same view of ordination—a view also
reflected in Articles 23 and 25.
The revised ordination rite for deacons in the ACNA Ordinal,
however, reflects a different view of ordination—a view of ordination close to
that of the Roman Catholic Church if not identical with its view of
ordination—a view of ordination that the English Reformers rejected as having
no basis in Scripture. This unreformed Catholic view of ordination regards such
ceremonies as the imposition of hands and anointing with blessed oil as having a
sacramental efficacy. With these ceremonies the bishop confers special gifts
and graces of the Holy Spirit essential to the performance of the functions of
a particular ministry. These gifts and graces enable the priest to offer the
sacrifice of the Eucharist and the bishop to confirm and ordain. Only a bishop
in a line of succession of bishops going back to the apostles is able to confer
such gifts and graces.
Among its alterations to the ordination rite for deacons,
the ACNA Ordinal changes the form of the question addressed to ordinands
concerning the Bible .It “avoids the necessity of asserting blanket belief.” This
change was first introduced in the 1928 Ordinal and reflects the influence of
the Anglo-Catholic and Broad Church Movement on the 1928 Prayer Book.
While the ACNA Ordinal draws heavily on texts from the 1928
Ordinal, it omits the optional use of an alternative formula at the imposition
of hands in the ordination rite for presbyters. In The American Prayer Book: Its Origins and Principles (Charles
Scribner’s Sons,1937) Edward Lambe Parsons and Bayard Hale Jones discuss the
importance of this addition to the American Ordinal:
In the American books, one important addition was made in 1789 in the service for Priests, by inclusion of an alternative Sentence of Ordination: “Take thou Authority to execute the Office of Priest in the Church of God, now committed to thee by the Imposition of our hands. And be a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God,” etc. This form omitted the words from the Fourth Gospel, “Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained.” The purpose of the alternative was of course to make the service more acceptable to the evangelical groups who disliked the sacerdotal implications of the English form.
The First Formula of Ordination bore an uncomfortable
similarity to a phrase in the Roman Catholic ordination rite for priests. The
canons of the Church of England required clerical subscription to the Articles
of Religion and the Articles provided doctrinal standards for interpreting the
Prayer Book. By these standards the doctrines reflected in the Roman Catholic
rite are not consistent with the teaching of Scripture.
In The Tutorial Prayer
Book for the Teacher, the Student, and the General Reader (Harrison Trust, 1913) Charles Neil and J.M. Willoughby give the
received interpretation of the formula, which is based upon the English
Reformers’ view of ordination.
This formula consists of a prayer, an address, and a charge. The Bishop, by speaking these words, doth not take upon him to give the Holy Spirit, no more than he doth to remit sins, when he pronounceth the remission of sins; but by speaking these words of Christ ... he doth show the principal duty of a minister, and assureth him of the assistance of God s Holy Spirit, if he labour in the same accordingly.
*
(See also pp. 96, 322, n.) The words Receive ye the Holy Ghost, do not occur in any Ordinal prior to 1200 A.D.
The wording of this formula would not become a major cause
of controversy in the Church of England until Anglo-Catholics began to
challenge the accepted interpretation of the formula and to reinterpret its
meaning according to Roman Catholic teaching in the nineteenth century. The
Articles of Religion also came under fire from the same quarter with
Anglo-Catholics lobbying for the abolition of clerical subscription to the
Articles.
To avoid any suggestion that the bishop confers the gift of
the Holy Spirit in any way in ordination, more recent Anglican service books
have substituted different wording for the formula “Receive the Holy Ghost….”
“Almighty God grant unto thee the gift of the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Presbyter now committed unto thee by the Imposition of our hands….” The Book of Common Prayer of the Free Church of England (1956)
“Therefore, Father, through Jesus Christ your Son, give your Holy Spirit to N.; fill him with grace and power, and make him a priest in your Church.” The Book of Common Prayer (1979) of the Episcopal Church in the USA
“Send down the Holy Spirit upon your servant N for the office and work of a priest in your Church.” The Alternative Service Book 1980 of the Church of England
“Send down your Holy Spirit upon your servant N, whom we consecrate in your name to the office and work of a priest in the Church.” The Book of Alternative Services (1985) of the Anglican Church of Canada
“God of grace, through your Holy Spirit, gentle as a dove, living, burning as fire, empower your servant N for the office and work of a priest in the Church.” A New Zealand Prayer Book (1989)
“May God empower you, through the Holy Spirit, for the ministry of presbyter in the Church of God, now committed to you by the laying on of our hands.” The Prayer Book of the Church of England in South Africa (1992)
“Send down the Holy Spirit upon your servant N, whom we set part by the laying on of our hands, for the office and work of a priest in your Church.” A Prayer Book for Australia (1995)
“Send down the Holy Spirit on your servant N for the office and work of a priest in your Church.” Common Worship (2000) of the Church of England
N, may the Holy Spirit stir up all the gifts of God that are in you for the ministry. May he equip you with all wisdom, strength, and power necessary for the execution of the duties pertaining to the priesthood. We lay our hands on you to confirm your ordination to this ministry. In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Our Modern Services (2002, 2003) of the Anglican Church of Kenya
Pour out your Holy Spirit upon your servant …. for the office and work of priest in your Church….” The Book of Common Prayer (2004) of the Church of Ireland
All of these service books were available to the ACNA
Liturgy and Common Prayer Task Force that drafted the ACNA Ordinal. The retention of the formula “Receive the Holy
Ghost…”in a contemporary language version and the omission of the alternative
formula point to one conclusion: it is not by coincidence that the ACNA Ordinal
reflects unreformed Catholic positions on ordination, as opposed to reformed
Anglican positions. This conclusion is supported by the other changes that the
ACNA Ordinal makes in the American Ordinal.
The doctrine of a rite is not only expressed or inferred its
texts and their particular ordering but also in its ceremonial. Even ceremonial
that is optional must be considered in evaluating the doctrine of a particular
rite. This is especially the case when the ceremonial is incorporated into the
rite itself and not in a separate section after the rite and in the absence of
a disclaimer to the effect that no particular doctrinal significance is
attached to the ceremonies permitted by the rubrics in the rite, and the use of
such optional ceremonies is not to be understood as implying any doctrines
other than those contained in the Articles of Religion of 1571 and The Book of Common Prayer of 1662.
Ceremonies are not theological neutral. They are not
entirely free of past and present doctrinal associations. These doctrinal
associations may go back centuries and cannot be dismissed lightly.
The vesting of a newly-made deacon with maniple, stole, and
dalmatic permitted in the ACNA ordination rite for deacons has longstanding
doctrinal associations. So does the vesting of a newly-ordained priest with
stole and chasuble and the anointing of his hands with oil permitted in the
ACNA ordination rite for priests; the presentation of a newly-consecrated
bishop with a pastoral staff, the anointing of his forehead with the oil of
chrism, and his presentation with a pectoral cross, an episcopal ring, and a
mitre permitted in the ordination rite for bishops; and the prostration of the candidate as an alternative to kneeling permitted in all three rites. They are not innocent ceremonies. They point to unreformed Catholic
doctrines related to the Eucharist and apostolic succession. Their inclusion in
these rites is an affirmation of these doctrines even thought their use is
optional. The doctrines in question and the ceremonies associated with them
were rejected by the English Reformers who found no basis for them in Scripture
The rubrics of the ACNA ordination rite for priests require
the bishop to give the new priest a Bible in one hand and a chalice in another.
The giving of the chalice has longstanding associations with what the Roman
Catholic Church regard as the most important duty of the priest—the offering of
the sacrifice of the Mass. The rubrics do not prohibit the filling of the
chalice with wine mixed with water or the nestling of a paten with an
unconsecrated host on it in the chalice. In the Roman rite the giving of these
instruments of ministry, along with the authorization to function as a
sacrificing priest, forms the essence of valid ordination.
The English Reformers rejected the entire Roman Catholic
concept of Christian ministry as a sacerdotal priesthood. In order to remove
any possibility of misunderstanding, the 1552 Ordinal discontinued the giving
of a chalice to the ordinand. The sole instrument of new priest’s ministry in
the reformed Church of England would be the Bible. Phillip Edgcombe Hughes in
Theology of the English Reformers (Horseradish, 1997) makes an important point.
This does not mean, however there is no longer a ministry of the sacraments, but rather that the sacraments, being sacraments of the gospel, can not rightly be separated from the ministry of the word. Thus the bishop still says to the candidate: “Tke thou authority to preach the word of God and to minister the holy sacraments.”
It is noteworthy that while the rubrics of the ordination
rites in the ACNA Ordinal permit the optional use of a number of ceremonies to make the rites more visibly
unreformed Catholic in doctrine and liturgical practice, they do not permit the
omission of the giving of the chalice to make the ordination rite for priests
more acceptable to evangelicals to whom the sacerdotal connotations of this
ceremony are objectionable. The ACNA
Ordinal makes no attempt to comprehend Anglicans who hold the reformed Anglican
view of Christian ministry and ordination.
The ACNA College of Bishops has publicly stated that this version of the ACNA Ordinal is the final version authorized for use in the ACNA. No proposals for further revision of the ACNA Ordinal will be entertained. However, the Provincial Council has enacted no legislation authorizing its use nor has the Provincial Assembly ratified such legislation Under the provisions of the ACNA Constitution the Provincial Council, not the College of Bishops, has final authority in this matter. See Article V of the ACNA Constitution. The College of Bishops is clearly overreaching its authority. The unreformed Catholic doctrine of the ACNA Ordinal and the College of Bishops’ position on the ordinal points to the strong influence of vested interests in the College of Bishops—vested interests that seek to make room for only one school of thought in the ACNA—their own.
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