| 34 |
There is a long-standing problem about
episcopal ministry and its relation to succession. At the time of
the Reformation all our churches ordained bishops (sometimes the term
superintendent was used as a synonym for bishop) to the existing sees
of the Catholic Church, indicating their intention to continue the
life and ministry of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
In some of the territories the historic succession of bishops was
maintained by episcopal ordination, whereas elsewhere on a few occasions
bishops or superintendents were consecrated by priests following what
was believed to be the precedent of the early Church. One consequence
of this was a lack of unity between the ministries of our churches
and thus a hindrance to our common witness, service and mission. The
interruption of the episcopal succession has, nevertheless, in these
particular churches always been accompanied by the intention and by
measures to secure the apostolic continuity of the Church as a Church
of the gospel served by an episcopal ministry. The subsequent tradition
of these churches demonstrates their faithfulness to the apostolicity
of the Church. In the last one hundred years all our churches have
felt a growing need to overcome this difficulty and to give common
expression to their continuous participation in the life of the One,
Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. |
| 35 |
Because of this difficulty we now set out
at greater length an understanding of the apostolicity of the whole
Church and within that the apostolic ministry, succession in the episcopal
office and the historic succession as a sign. All of these are interrelated. |
| A |
The Apostolicity of the Whole Church |
| 36 |
`In the Creed, the Church confesses
itself to be apostolic. The Church lives in continuity with the apostles
and their proclamation. The same Lord who sent the apostles continues
to be present in the Church. The Spirit keeps the Church in the apostolic
tradition until the fulfilment of history in the Kingdom of God. Apostolic
tradition in the Church means continuity in the permanent characteristics
of the Church of the apostles: witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation
and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and
the eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion
in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and needy,
unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord
has given to each'. |
| 37 |
The Church today is charged, as were the
apostles, to proclaim the gospel to all nations, because the good
news about Jesus Christ is the disclosure of God's eternal plan for
the reconciliation of all things in his Son. The Church is called
to faithfulness to the normative apostolic witness to the life, death,
resurrection and exaltation of its Lord. The Church receives its mission
and the power to fulfil this mission as a gift of the risen Christ.
The Church is thus apostolic as a whole. `Apostolicity means that
the Church is sent by Jesus to be for the world, to participate in
his mission and therefore in the mission of the One who sent Jesus,
to participate in the mission of the Father and the Son through the
dynamic of the Holy Spirit'. |
| 38 |
God the Holy Spirit pours out his gifts
upon the whole Church (Eph. 4: 11-13, I Cor. 12: 4-11), and raises
up men and women, both lay and ordained, to contribute to the nurture
of the community. Thus the whole Church, and every member, participates
in and contributes to the communication of the gospel, by their faithful
expression and embodiment of the permanent characteristics of the
Church of the apostles in a given time and place. Essential to its
testimony are not merely its words, but the love of its members for
one another, the quality of its service of those in need, its use
of financial and other resources, the justice and effectiveness of
its life and its means of discipline, its distribution and exercise
of power, and its assemblies for worship. All these are means of communication
which must be focused upon Christ, the true Word of God, and spring
from life in the Holy Spirit. |
| 39 |
Thus the primary manifestation of apostolic
succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church
as a whole. The succession is an expression of the permanence and,
therefore, of the continuity of Christ's own mission in which the
Church participates. |
| 40 |
Within the apostolicity of the whole Church
is an apostolic succession of the ministry which serves and is a focus
of the continuity of the Church in its life in Christ and its faithfulness
to the words and acts of Jesus transmitted by the apostles. The ordained
ministry has a particular responsibility for witnessing to this tradition
and for proclaiming it afresh with authority in every generation. |
| B |
Apostolic Ministry |
| 41 |
To nourish the Church, God has given the
apostolic ministry, instituted by our Lord and transmitted through
the apostles. The chief responsibility of the ordained ministry is
to assemble and build up the body of Christ by proclaiming and teaching
the Word of God, by celebrating the sacraments and by guiding the
life of the community in its worship, its mission and its caring ministry.
The setting aside of a person to a lifelong ordained office by prayer,
invocation of the Holy Spirit and the laying on of hands reminds the
Church that it receives its mission from Christ himself and expresses
the Church's firm intention to live in fidelity to and gratitude for
that commission and gift. The different tasks of the one ministry
find expression in its structuring. The threefold ministry of bishops,
priests and deacons became the general pattern of ordained ministry
in the early Church, though subsequently it underwent considerable
change in its practical exercise and is still developing today. |
| 42 |
The diversity of God's gifts requires their
co-ordination so that they enrich the whole Church and its unity.
This diversity and the multiplicity of tasks involved in serving it
calls for a ministry of co-ordination. This is the ministry of oversight,
episcope, a caring for the life of a whole community, a pastoring
of the pastors and a true feeding of Christ's flock, in accordance
with Christ's command across the ages and in unity with Christians
in other places. Episcope (oversight) is a requirement of the whole
Church and its faithful exercise in the light of the Gospel is of
fundamental importance to its life. |
| 43 |
Oversight of the Church and its mission
is the particular responsibility of the bishop. The bishop's office
is one of service and communication within the community of believers
and, together with the whole community, to the world. Bishops preach
the word, preside at the sacraments, and administer discipline in
such a way as to be representative pastoral ministers of oversight,
continuity and unity in the Church. They have pastoral oversight of
the area to which they are called. They serve the apostolicity, catholicity
and unity of the Church's teaching, worship and sacramental life.
They have responsibility for leadership in the Church's mission. None
of these tasks should be carried out in isolation from the whole Church. |
| 44 |
The ministry of oversight is exercised
personally, collegially and communally. It is personal because the
presence of Christ among his people can most effectively be pointed
to by the person ordained to proclaim the gospel and call the community
to serve the Lord in unity of life and witness. It is collegial, first
because the bishop gathers together those who are ordained to share
in the tasks of ministry and to represent the concerns of the community;
secondly, because through the collegiality of bishops the Christian
community in local areas is related to the wider Church, and the universal
Church to that community. It is communal, because the exercise of
ordained ministry is rooted in the life of the community and requires
the community's effective participation in the discovery of God's
will and the guidance of the Spirit. In most of our churches today
this takes synodical form. Bishops, together with other ministers
and the whole community, are responsible for the orderly transfer
of ministerial authority in the Church. |
| 45 |
The personal, collegial and communal dimensions
of oversight find expression at the local, regional and universal
levels of the Church's life. |
| C |
The Episcopal Office in the Service
of the Apostolic Succession |
| 46 |
The ultimate ground of the fidelity of
the Church, in continuity with the apostles, is the promise of the
Lord and the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in the whole Church.
The continuity of the ministry of oversight is to be understood within
the continuity of the apostolic life and mission of the whole Church.
Apostolic succession in the episcopal office is a visible and personal
way of focusing the apostolicity of the whole Church. |
| 47 |
Continuity in apostolic succession is signified
in the ordination or consecration of a bishop. In this act the people
of God gather to affirm the choice of and pray for the chosen candidate.
At the laying on of hands by the ordaining bishop and other representatives
with prayer, the whole Church calls upon God in confidence of His
promise to pour out the Holy Spirit on his covenant people (Is. 11:
1-3, cf. Veni Creator Spiritus). The biblical act of laying on of
hands is rich in significance. It may mean (among other things) identification,
commissioning or welcome. It is used in a variety of contexts: confirmation,
reconciliation, healing and ordination. On the one hand, by the laying
on of hands with prayer a gift of grace already given by God is recognized
and confirmed; on the other hand it is perfected for service. The
precise significance or intention of the laying on of hands as a sign
is determined by the prayer or declaration which accompanies it. In
the case of the episcopate, to ordain by prayer and the laying on
of hands is to do what the apostles did, and the Church through the
ages. |
| 48 |
In the consecration of a bishop the sign
is effective in four ways: first it bears witness to the Church's
trust in God's faithfulness to his people and in the promised presence
of Christ with his Church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to
the end of time; secondly, it expresses the Church's intention to
be faithful to God's initiative and gift, by living in the continuity
of the apostolic faith and tradition; thirdly, the participation of
a group of bishops in the laying on of hands signifies their and their
churches' acceptance of the new bishop and so of the catholicity of
the churches: fourthly, it transmits ministerial office and its authority
in accordance with God's will and institution. Thus in the act of
consecration a bishop receives the sign of divine approval and a permanent
commission to lead his particular church in the common faith and apostolic
life of all the churches. |
| 49 |
The continuity signified in the consecration
of a bishop to episcopal ministry cannot be divorced from the continuity
of life and witness of the diocese to which he is called. In the particular
circumstances of our churches, the continuity represented by the occupation
of the historic sees is more than personal. The care to maintain a
diocesan and parochial pattern of pastoral life and ministry reflects
an intention of the churches to continue to exercise the apostolic
ministry of word and sacrament of the universal Church. |
| D |
The Historic Episcopal Succession
as Sign |
| 50 |
The whole Church is a sign of the Kingdom
of God; the act of ordination is a sign of God's faithfulness to his
Church, especially in relation to the oversight of its mission. To
ordain a bishop in historic succession (that is, in intended continuity
from the apostles themselves) is also a sign. In so doing the Church
communicates its care for continuity in the whole of its life and
mission, and reinforces its determination to manifest the permanent
characteristics of the Church of the apostles. To make the meaning
of the sign fully intelligible it is necessary to include in the service
of ordination a public declaration of the faith of the Church and
an exposition of the ministry to which the new bishop is called. In
this way the sign of historic episcopal succession is placed clearly
in its full context of the continuity of proclamation of the gospel
of Christ and the mission of his Church. |
| 51 |
The use of the sign of the historic episcopal
succession does not by itself guarantee the fidelity of a church to
every aspect of the apostolic faith, life and mission. There have
been schisms in the history of churches using the sign of historic
succession. Nor does the sign guarantee the personal faithfulness
of the bishop. Nonetheless, the retention of the sign remains a permanent
challenge to fidelity and to unity, a summons to witness to, and a
commission to realise more fully, the permanent characteristics of
the Church of the apostles. |
| 52 |
Faithfulness to the apostolic calling of
the whole Church is carried by more than one means of continuity.
Therefore a church which has preserved the sign of historic episcopal
succession is free to acknowledge an authentic episcopal ministry
in a church which has preserved continuity in the episcopal office
by an occasional priestly/presbyterial ordination at the time of the
Reformation. Similarly a church which has preserved continuity through
such a succession is free to enter a relationship of mutual participation
in episcopal ordinations with a church which has retained the historical
episcopal succession, and to embrace this sign, without denying its
past apostolic continuity. |
| 53 |
The mutual acknowledgement of our churches
and ministries is theologically prior to the use of the sign of the
laying on of hands in the historic succession. Resumption of the use
of the sign does not imply an adverse judgement on the ministries
of those churches which did not previously make use of the sign. It
is rather a means of making more visible the unity and continuity
of the Church at all times and in all places. |
| 54 |
To the degree to which our ministries have
been separated all our churches have lacked something of that fullness
which God desires for his people (Eph. 1: 23 and 3: 17-19). By moving
together, and by being served by a reconciled and mutually recognized
episcopal ministry, our churches will be both more faithful to their
calling and also more conscious of their need for renewal. By the
sharing of our life and ministries in closer visible unity, we shall
be strengthened for the continuation of Christ's mission in the world. |
| E |
A New Stage |
| 55 |
By the far-reaching character of our agreement
recorded in the previous paragraphs it is apparent that we have reached
a new stage in our journey together in faith. We have agreed on the
nature and purpose of the church (Chapter II),
on its faith and doctrine (Chapter III), specifically
on the apostolicity of the whole Church, on the apostolic ministry
within it, and on the episcopal office in the service of the Church
(Chapter IV). |
| 56 |
On the basis of this agreement we believe |
| |
|
that our churches should confidently acknowledge one another as
churches and enter into a new relationship; |
| |
|
that each church as a whole has maintained an authentic apostolic
succession of witness and service (IV A); |
| |
|
that each church has had transmitted to it an apostolic ministry
of word and sacrament by prayer and the laying on of hands (IV
B); |
| |
|
that each church has maintained an orderly succession of episcopal
ministry within the continuity of its pastoral life, focused in the
consecrations of bishops and in the experience and witness of the
historic sees (IV C). |
| 57 |
In the light of all this we find that the
time has come when all our churches can affirm together the value
and use of the sign of the historic episcopal succession (IV
D). This means that those churches in which the sign has at some
time not been used are free to recognise the value of the sign and
should embrace it without denying their own apostolic continuity.
This also means that those churches in which the sign has been used
are free to recognise the reality of the episcopal office and should
affirm the apostolic continuity of those churches in which the sign
of episcopal succession has at some time not been used. |
