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Anglican interest in ecumenical dialogue can be traced back to the time of the Reformation and dialogues with both Orthodox and Lutheran churches in the sixteenth century. In the nineteenth century, with the rise of the Oxford Movement, there arose greater concern for reunion of the churches of "Catholic confession". This desire to work towards full communion with other denominations led to the development of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, approved by the Third Lambeth Conference of 1888. The four points (the sufficiency of scripture, as the "ultimate standard of faith", the historic creeds, the two dominical sacraments, and the historic episcopate) were stipulated as the basis for church unity, "a basis on which approach may be by God's blessing made towards Home Reunion":
Although they are not considered members, some non-Anglican bodies have entered into communion with the Communion as a whole or with its constituent member churches, despite having non-Anglican origins and traditions, such as the Old Catholic Church and Lutherans of the Porvoo Communion, Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
Ecumenical dialogue has been particularly fruitful in three realms. The first is the World Council of Churches and its predecessors, in which Anglicans have been involved from the first. Anglican representatives were particularly involved in the development of the seminal Faith and Order paper, Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry, which sought to develop common ground concerning these issues, and have been at the centre of the process of developing recent work on the "Nature and Mission of the Church".
The second concerns dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. Long-term hostility between the two Communions was engendered by resistance in England to the declaration of royal supremacy, the confiscation of Church properties, the dissolution of the monasteries, the execution of priests, forced attendance at Anglican worship, forced payment of tithes to the state church and the illegalization of the Catholic faith. There was a brief restoration of communion with Rome during the reign of Mary I. Her death marked the end of Catholic attempts to reconcile by law the English Church to Rome. Subsequently, Pope Pius V's excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570 and authorization of rebellion against her contributed to official suspicion of the allegiances of English Catholics. This, combined with a desire to assert the claims of the established church, led initially to renewed persecution by the state, and to the continued enforcement of severe legal restrictions. Most of these restrictions endured for 250 years and were only relieved through several legislative reforms in the 19th century, cumulatively known as Catholic Emancipation. The prohibition on Catholics succeeding to the British Crown (and by extension the other Commonwealth realms) remains in effect.
Another fruitful realm of dialogue has been with various Lutheran churches.
Historically, the Church of England and the state churches of current (and former) mainland European monarchies where Lutheran Protestantism was the official doctrine, have had amicable relations. This has, in part, been nurtured by marriages between members of the Royal Family of Great Britain and the royal (Protestant) houses of Europe, especially the descendants of Queen Victoria (whose husband, Prince Albert, was a Lutheran). [1] [ full citation needed ] Since the monarch of England cannot (even today), by law, be a Roman Catholic, and forming familial royal bonds was historically deemed necessary at times to form alliances (and prevent war) between countries, there was a natural tendency for British princes/princesses to wed Lutheran (and therefore, not Roman Catholic) royals from the mainland and the Lutheran houses of Scandinavia. Also, a general agreement on doctrine between the Anglican and Lutheran traditions has helped relations, at least between the mainstream movements. Also, the fact that both still retain a strong liturgical tradition has helped immensely, since they are essentially the only Western churches outside of Roman Catholicism which have maintained official liturgies; indeed, the liturgies of both bodies are often nearly identical in wording to each other (as is the Roman Catholic Mass) and, thus provide a familiar bond between members who visit between denominations.
In the late 20th century, the Porvoo Communion was formed, bringing the Anglican churches of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland and the Episcopal churches of Portugal and Spain into full communion with the Lutheran Church in Great Britain, the Lutheran churches of the Scandinavian countries (Iceland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden), and the Lutheran churches of the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). [2] In 2001, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada achieved full communion through the Waterloo Declaration, [3] as did the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America under the joint document Called to Common Mission. [4]
In addition, full communion agreements have been reached between various ecclesiastical provinces and smaller denominations such as the Old Catholic Church after the Bonn Agreement of 1931.
Consultations with other Protestant churches apart from Lutherans have also been fruitful. However, movements toward full communion between the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada, as well as between the Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great Britain, were both derailed because of the issue of episcopacy, specifically, apostolic succession. The same problem applies to the Churches Uniting in Christ initiative in the United States. This, as well as Anglican stands on certain social issues such as the ordination of priests and bishops in public same-sex relationships and the practice of blessing gay unions, has likewise hindered dialogue between Anglicans and conservative evangelical Protestant denominations. This has not prevented a range of reports by bilateral commissions producing descriptions of converging theology and practice however, such as Conversations around the World (2005), a report of conversations between the representatives of the Anglican Communion and the Baptist World Alliance. In the Indian subcontinent, most Anglican churches have entered into formal union with other Protestant denominations, with the resulting United Protestant churches being a part of multiple communions, including the Anglican Communion and World Communion of Reformed Churches for example. These agreements, which date from the 1940s and 1950s, led to the creation of the Church of North India, the Church of South India, the Church of Pakistan and the Church of Bangladesh. The united churches maintain an episcopal and synodical structure and consecrate bishops in apostolic succession while incorporating distinctives from other traditions such as that of the Moderator, which comes from Presbyterianism. As a percentage of the total population in the region, these united churches are not significant, but aside from Bangladesh, they are numerically very substantial.
Those that did not join with the union agreements in South Asia retained the name Anglican Church of India, or adopted a similar name containing "Anglican". The total membership of these churches has been estimated at 800,000. Most have recently entered into communion with churches of the Continuing Anglican Movement and have North American parishes.
Outside of Asia, direct consultations with other Protestant churches apart from Lutherans have, for the most part, been less fruitful. Movements toward full communion between the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada were derailed because of the issue of episcopacy and the mutual recognition of ordained ministry (specifically, apostolic succession). The same issue blocked the first attempt at a covenant between the Church of England and the Methodist Church of Great Britain, but such a covenant was eventually signed in 2003. [5] This issue also has held back the Churches Uniting in Christ initiative in the United States.
The issue of apostolic succession, as well as the willingness of some North American dioceses to offer partnership blessings and priestly ordination to people in same-sex sexual relationships, have hindered dialogue between Anglicans and evangelical Protestant denominations.
Dialogue has also been fruitful with the Orthodox churches.
In 1922 the Patriarch of Constantinople recognised Anglican orders as valid. He wrote: "That the orthodox theologians who have scientifically examined the question have almost unanimously come to the same conclusions and have declared themselves as accepting the validity of Anglican Orders." [6]
Historically, some Eastern Orthodox bishops have assisted in the ordination of Anglican bishops; for example, in 1870, Alexander Lycurgus, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Syra and Tinos, was one of the bishops who consecrated Henry MacKenzie as the Suffragan Bishop of Nottingham. [7] [ self-published source ]
In 1910, Raphael of Brooklyn, an Eastern Orthodox bishop, "sanctioned an interchange of ministrations with the Episcopalians in places where members of one or the other communion are without clergy of their own." [8] Raphael stated that in places "where there is no resident Orthodox Priest", an Anglican priest could administer Marriage, Holy Baptism, and the Blessed Sacrament to an Orthodox layperson. [9] In 1912, however, Bishop Raphael ended the intercommunion after becoming uncomfortable with the fact that the Anglican Communion contained different churchmanships within Her, e.g. High Church, Evangelical, etc. [8]
The current International Commission of the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue was established in 1999, building on the work of earlier commissions, which had published their work in the Dublin Statement, and the Anglican Oriental Orthodox International Commission was established in 2001. Thus far, most common ground has been established only concerning matters of the historic creeds.
In a move parallel to the parishes of the pastoral provision in the Roman Catholic Church a small number of United States Anglicans have been received into certain jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church while retaining the use of a revision of the Prayer Book liturgy authorised for use in the Orthodox Church by Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow in the early twentieth century.
Regarding mutual recognition of ministry, the Eastern Orthodox Churches are reluctant to even consider the question of the validity of holy orders in isolation from the rest of the Christian faith, so in practice they treat Anglican ordinations as invalid. Thus the favourable judgement expressed by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1922 and communicated by him to other Eastern Patriarchs (some of whom, including the Russian Patriarch, signed a contrary declaration in 1948) is in practice without effect. The Eastern Orthodox Church classifies Anglican clergymen who join it as laypeople, and, if they are to function as clergy, administers ordination to them. [10]
A number of jurisdictions identify themselves as "Anglican" but are not in communion with Canterbury. They therefore are outside the Anglican Communion. Several, such as the Free Church of England and the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States left the Anglican Communion in the 1800s in reaction to the inroads of the Catholic Revival and the controversy it produced in the church over ritualism.
Later, during the 1960s and 1970s, disagreements with certain provincial bodies — chiefly in North America and in the United Kingdom — over such issues as prayer book revision, the remarriage of divorced persons, the ordination of women, and the acceptance by a few of the bishops of homosexual relationships led to another and quite different schism. These Anglican churches are usually called "Continuing Anglican churches" because of their determination to preserve (or "continue") the episcopate in apostolic succession, as well as the faith, worship, and teaching of traditional Anglicanism and historical Christianity—which they believe the Anglican Communion has deviated from. The older Reformed Episcopal churches maintained the lineage of bishops without accepting the idea that sacraments are valid only if administered by clergy in such a lineage.
There are also independent jurisdictions unrelated to the preceding schisms. The Church of England in South Africa is conservative, long-established, and has a substantial membership. It is separate from the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, which is part of the Anglican Communion. Other churches, however, have adopted the Anglican name, the Book of Common Prayer, Anglican vestments, and — in some cases — the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, but have no historic connection to the Anglican Communion. Unlike the socially conservative Continuing Anglican churches and the Church of England in South Africa, some of these tiny jurisdictions are openly oriented towards the Gay and Lesbian community and do ordain women clergy.
Given the range of concerns and the grounds for schism, there is as much diversity in the theological and liturgical orientations of the free churches, the Continuing Anglican churches, and the independent Anglican bodies as there is among churches of the Anglican Communion. Some are Evangelical, others charismatic and Evangelical, and yet others are Anglo-Catholic. What they have in common is a conviction that mainstream Anglicanism in North America, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere has departed from acceptable principles of belief or practice, or both.
Ecumenical joint worship from an Episcopalian–Anglican perspective in North American takes one of the following forms:
There is a diversity of models for joint worship.
Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is considered by some Christian denominations to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Those of the Anglican, Church of the East, Eastern Orthodox, Hussite, Moravian, Old Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic and Scandinavian Lutheran traditions maintain that "a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this apostolic succession". These traditions do not always consider the episcopal consecrations of all of the other traditions as valid.
A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role or office of the bishop is called episcopacy. Organizationally, several Christian denominations utilize ecclesiastical structures that call for the position of bishops, while other denominations have dispensed with this office, seeing it as a symbol of power. Bishops have also exercised political authority within their dioceses.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. The word "bishop" here is derived via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term *ebiscopus/*biscopus, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος epískopos meaning "overseer". It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anglican, Lutheran and Methodist churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages.
In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders include the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic and some Lutheran churches. Except for Lutherans and some Anglicans, these churches regard ordination as a sacrament.
Full communion is a communion or relationship of full agreement among different Christian denominations or Christian individuals that share certain essential principles of Christian theology. Views vary among denominations on exactly what constitutes full communion, but typically when two or more denominations are in full communion it enables services and celebrations, such as the Eucharist, to be shared among congregants or clergy of any of them with the full approval of each.
Ecumenism – also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalism – is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ecumenical is thus applied to any interdenominational initiative that encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and churches.
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination vary by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is undergoing the process of ordination is sometimes called an ordinand. The liturgy used at an ordination is sometimes referred to as an ordination.
The Porvoo Communion is a communion of 15 predominantly northern European Anglican and Evangelical Lutheran churches, with a couple of far-southwestern European church bodies of the same denomination. It was established in 1992 by a theological agreement entitled the Porvoo Common Statement which establishes full communion between and among these churches. The agreement was negotiated in the town of Järvenpää in Finland, but the communion's name comes from the nearby city of Porvoo, where a joint Eucharist was celebrated in Porvoo Cathedral after the formal signing in Järvenpää.
The Free Protestant Episcopal Church (FPEC), later named The Anglican Free Communion and now entitled the Episcopal Free Communion, was formed in England on 2 November 1897 from the merger of three smaller churches. Others were to join later.
Apostolicae curae is the title of an apostolic letter, issued in 1896 by Pope Leo XIII, declaring all Anglican ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void". The Anglican Communion made no official reply, but the archbishops of Canterbury and York of the Church of England published a response known by its Latin title Saepius officio in 1897.
The term Evangelical Catholic is used in Lutheranism, alongside the terms Augsburg Catholic or Augustana Catholic, with those calling themselves Evangelical Catholic Lutherans or Lutherans of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship stressing the catholicity of historic Lutheranism in liturgy, beliefs, practices, and doctrines. Evangelical Catholics teach that Lutheranism at its core "is deeply and fundamentally catholic". The majority of Evangelical Catholic Lutheran clergy and parishes are members of mainstream Lutheran denominations.
Catholicity is a concept of pertaining to beliefs and practices that are widely accepted by numerous Christian denominations, most notably by those Christian denominations that describe themselves as catholic in accordance with the Four Marks of the Church, as expressed in the Nicene Creed formulated at the First Council of Constantinople in 381: "[I believe] in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church." The English adjective catholic is derived from the Ancient Greek adjective καθολικός, meaning "general", "universal". Thus, "catholic" means that in the Church the wholeness of the Christian faith, full and complete, all-embracing, and with nothing lacking, is proclaimed to all people without excluding any part of the faith or any class or group of people. An early definition for what is "catholic" was summarized in what is known as the Vincentian Canon in the 5th century Commonitory: "what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all."
The Catholic Church has engaged in the modern ecumenical movement especially since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the issuing of the decree Unitatis redintegratio and the declaration Dignitatis humanae. It was at the Council that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity was created. Those outside of the Catholic Church were categorised as heretics or schismatics, but in many contexts today, to avoid offence, the euphemism "separated brethren" is used.
The Convergence Movement, also known as the Ancient-Future Faith, whose foundation is primarily attributed to Robert E. Webber in 1985, is an ecumenical movement. Developed as an effort among evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal, and liturgical Christians and denominations blending their forms of worship, the movement has been defined for its predominant use of the Anglican tradition's Book of Common Prayer; use from additional liturgical sources common to Lutheranism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism have also been employed.
The term Eastern Protestant Christianity encompasses a range of heterogeneous Protestant Christian denominations that developed outside of the Occident, from the latter half of the nineteenth century, and yet retain certain elements of Eastern Christianity. Some of these denominations came into existence when active Protestant churches adopted reformational variants of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox liturgy and worship, while others are the result of reformations of Orthodox beliefs and practices, inspired by the teachings of Western Protestant missionaries.
The historic or historical episcopate comprises all episcopates, that is, it is the collective body of all the bishops of a group who are in valid apostolic succession. This succession is transmitted from each bishop to their successors by the rite of Holy Orders. It is sometimes subject of episcopal genealogy.
Pope Benedict XVI, who led the Roman Catholic Church as Pope from 2005 to 2013, continued manouevring the Church through the dynamics of modernity, which the Church had begun engaging in with the Second Vatican Council. Because the question of religious pluralism is a key issue raised by modernity, ecumenism, the establishment of harmony and dialogue between the different Christian denominations, is a significant concern of a post Second Vatican Council Church. Pope Benedict XVI's approach has been characterised as leaning toward the conservative while still being expansive and engaged, involving the full breadth of Christendom, including the Orthodox Churches and Protestant churches, as well as freshly engaging with other Christian bodies considered by Roman Catholics to be more heterodox, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Sister churches was a term used in 20th-century ecclesiology to describe ecumenical relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and more rarely and unofficially, between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican communion. The Catholic Church has since called on theologians to avoid the term, clarifying that "one cannot properly say that the Catholic Church is 'sister' of a particular Church or group of Churches. This is not merely a question of terminology, but above all of respecting a basic truth of the Catholic faith: that of the unicity [uniqueness] of the [Catholic Church]." The term is also currently used among Protestants to refer to different denominations of the same religious tradition.
Criticism of Protestantism covers critiques and questions raised about Protestantism, the Christian denominations which arose out of the Protestant Reformation. While critics may praise some aspects of Protestantism which are not unique to the various forms of Protestantism, Protestantism is faced with criticism mainly from the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, although Protestant denominations have also engaged in self-critique and criticized one another. According to both the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, many major, foundational Protestant doctrines have been officially declared heretical.