The Church of England did not abandon the historic apostolic ministry but sought to reform it. Ever since Anglicans have held that those ordained as bishops, priests and deacons, are ordained as bishops, priests and deacons of the Church of God. Change in that ordering of ministry is therefore a matter not just for the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but for all those Churches who claim to share that ministry. Developments in faith and order need this wider reference.
At the end of November I was privileged to have an audience with Pope Benedict, and was able to say to him that, as an Anglican bishop, standing in the catholic Anglican tradition, I ”” with others ”” wished to continue to witness to the catholic identity of Anglicanism, and received his encouragement to do so. The Anglican patrimony is not just a matter of hymn books and liturgy, of evensong and the English choral tradition, important as those things are. It is a sacramental way of living out a catholic identity, expressed in relation to the community and in a wise application of moral ideals to personal and pastoral realities. It is what the Churches of the East have sometimes recognised as a Western Orthodoxy. Above all it is about a faithfulness in a way of Christian living that expresses the beauty of holiness, which is about transfiguration into the likeness of Christ, living out… [Marco Antonio De Dominis’] maxim: “In essentials unity, in doubtful things liberty, and in all things charity.”
“It is what the Churches of the East have sometimes recognised as a Western Orthodoxy.”
Well, there’s the triumph of optimism over reality. That a handful of Orthodox bishops in extreme charity may *once* (many years ago) have had that opinion about an even smaller handful of Anglicans, long dead, is perfectly useless to notice. There isn’t an Eastern cleric who would say that now. I wonder if he noticed the Pope smirked a little if/when he said that? Making reference to such associations is like continuing to call the British monarch “defender of the faith” when it was applied to Henry VIII *against* the protestants! When he says Anglicans are ordained of the “church of God”….What exactly is that?? It is Anglican. That’s it.
Lovely man, and one can only wish him well. But how does he intend to “stand firm” in a tradition that is being demolished be legislation of its own General Synod?
This is the Wilfrid and Hilda pantomime that has so far conspicuously failed to impress. Are the bishops who have so long been canon-respecting and cautious suddenly going to rise up and seize their catholic rights and ensure their heritage? Wake me up when it happens.
We would all have liked to stay. But, in the end, one cannot stand firm in a bog.
Great words from Bishop Rowell — hip hip hooray!
It doesn’t matter whether churches of the east recognise we faithful Anglicans as “orthodox” or not. It is the Lord’s opinion that matters, and only His.
Alas the Anglicanism he speaks of died when synod was invented. The church we inhabit is nothing like Western Orthodoxy. Indeed it is Western hazy liberalism and there, Fr. Rowell, is the rub.
Do we face reality or pretend the church is something it manifestly is not in the hope it might one day become something we all know, deep down, it never can be?
Regarding the Anglicans as Western Orthodox, I think about 100 years ago some Orthodox got that impression because their only contact with Anglicans was with the only Anglicans who wanted to talk to them, Anglo-Catholics. They changed their minds (St Raphael of Brooklyn, when he was a bishop for the Arabs in the Russian Church in America, withdrew permission for Orthodox to attend Episcopal services, without receiving Communion, where there was no Orthodox service) when they found out most Anglicans didn’t/don’t believe as the ACs did.
Rugbyplayingpriest,
Fortunately for me, the Anglican church I belong to is exactly what it should be: biblical, evangelical, orthodox and catholic. So are the churches attended by most Anglicans in the world.
Now, #4 RPP, if you do decide to wander off to Rome, I trust you will embrace that completely and not join that sad band of former Anglicans who seem condemned like lost spirits to haunt Anglican blogs wailing and harbinging doom, while rattling their chains and doing their best to alarm the living.