Statement by Communication Service of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations regarding the decision of the Church of England to allow women to serve as bishops
At the session that took place on the 14th of July 2014, the General Synod of the Church of England made a decision allowing women to serve as bishops. The Communication Service of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations is authorized to make the following statement in this regard:
The Russian Orthodox Church has been alarmed and disappointed to learn about the decision of the Church of England to admit women to the episcopate, since the centuries-old relationships between our two Churches had shown possibilities for the Orthodox to recognize the existence of apostolic succession in Anglicanism. As far back as the 19th century, the Anglicans, members of the Eastern Church Association, sought “mutual recognition” of orders between the Orthodox and the Anglican Churches and believed that “both Churches preserved the apostolic continuity and true faith in the Saviour and should accept each other in the full communion of prayers and sacraments.”
The decision to ordain women, which the Church of England took in 1992, damaged the relationships between our Churches, and the introduction of female bishops has eliminated even a theoretical possibility for the Orthodox to recognize the existence of apostolic succession in the Anglican hierarchy.
Such practice contradicts the centuries-old church tradition going back to the early Christian community. In the Christian tradition, bishops have always been regarded as direct spiritual successors of the apostles, from whom they received special grace to guide the people of God and special responsibility to protect the purity of faith, to be symbols and guarantors of the unity of the Church. The consecration of women bishops runs counter to the mode of life of the Saviour Himself and the holy apostles, as well as to the practice of the Early Church.
In our opinion, it was not a theological necessity or issues of church practice that determined the decision of the General Synod of the Church of England, but an effort to comply with the secular idea of gender equality in all spheres of life and the increasing role of women in the British society. The secularization of Christianity will alienate many faithful who, living in the modern unstable world, try to find spiritual support in the unshakable gospel’s and apostolic traditions established by Eternal and Immutable God.
The Russian Orthodox Church regrets to state that the decision allowing the elevation of women to episcopal dignity impedes considerably the dialogue between the Orthodox and the Anglicans, which has developed for many decades, and contributes for further deepening of divisions in the Christian world as a whole.
Read it all and also this and you can find the response of the Catholic Church in England and Wales here
It is the law of unintended consequences. I wonder if the CofE Bishops understood [bar the three who did not vote in favour] that the consequence of their decision will be to remove their own theological claim to apostolic authority in the church?
I don’t think the TEC bishops who consecrated Gene Robinson understood that fully either when they acted in 2003, although in their case they probably did not care either.
Bishop Nazir-Ali’s committee produced an excellent report, which apparently nobody bothered to read [as Bishop Tom Wright noted].
While solely within the CofE, its bishops may retain some managerial and legal authority, the consequence for Christians in the world and those who are not congregationalists in the CofE will further be that the purported episcopal acts of CofE bishops will also be a nullity – confirmation, ordination, consecration. They will become like Episcopi Vagantes. Now if you are a congregationalist that probably will not matter, but congregationalists are not likely to want to be Anglicans in large numbers at the moment. The removal of Episcopal claims and pretensions in the CofE may however make unity with Methodists easier, and to facilitate that perhaps we should just get rid of these former bishops altogether, something which we have spent far too much time and energy obsessively debating.
No acknowledgement here of the traditionalist Anglo-Catholic attempt to preserve the historic episcopacy by way of the provision of traditionalist Anglo-Catholic bishops. I wonder if a non-geographical diocese or a 3rd province for traditionalists would have been acknowledged…
Pageantmaster, no, they don’t fully understand what they have done, nor do they seem to care. Being a bishop is not the same as being an accountant or an engineer or a business manager or all of the myriad other jobs women can do very competently. It’s not about “rights.” It’s about a connection to the apostles and the faith they taught and the church they established. And, essentially, it’s about acknowledging that in the case of the formal leadership of the church and in the case of the composition of human families, we are created male and female and we are not interchangeable.
As an observer, I found the CoE’s rejection of a third province/jurisdictional provision gravely disturbing and uncharitable. If this is how the CoE treated its fellow Anglicans, then one might well question its message and walk.
The fruit of CoE’s action is schism. This statement simply recognizes the CoE schism in the present. Of course, there is also a break with the historic church and those who preceded us – the CoE of today has cut itself loose, excommunicating hosts. This is a sad time, indeed.
And I concur – it appears that many simply do not care.
I greatly doubt if the Moscow Patriarchate would ever have recognized Anglican orders; this just gives them the perfect out. My late father, who spoke for the Western Church at meetings of the English branch of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, used to say that there was at least the possibility of recognition by Rome. Such was never a possibility, he thought, for the Churches of the East.
#5 Jeremy Bonner – that is very interesting background to your father’s involvement. Thank you.
My recollection from some reading years ago, was that there was a brief period in the Edwardian Summer before WWI and the Russian Revolution when it looked like progress was indeed possible, with serious contacts between our churches, and in the subsequent years English-speaking Orthodox congregations used our authorised version of the Bible and even parts of the Prayer Book. There were of course doctrinal thorny issues such as the Filioque but in theory the maintenance of the Apostolic Succession meant that it was not ruled out and there was a mutual respect and interest. It even looked more likely than relations with the RC Church which had been set back permanently it seemed by the 19thC declaration of the invalidity of Anglican Orders. But it seems to have been downhill since then.
I grieve the impact our actions have had on relations with the two largest groups of Christians before us in the world – one I think we are only now beginning to experience. Of course distant relations will continue and we will do worthwhile social stuff together, but of course we could do that with the Jains and the Moonies.
Pageantmaster (#6),
I agree with you that the period from about 1900 to 1917 does seem to be have been the high water mark of that period of Orthodox-Anglican ecumenism and with some of the other Orthodox churches it continued into the postwar period. Indeed Fr. Sergii Bulgakov (expelled from Russia in 1922 together with Nicholas Berdyaev) was the force behind the founding of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius in the first place. Yet my father, who joined in the 1950s at the prompting of Nicholas Zernov and was a contributor to [i]Sobornost[/i], felt that the Bulgakov was more of an ecumenist than his heirs, who seemed intent on explaining how the West had erred and what it must do to atone. You could argue that’s a form of ecumenism, I suppose, but it doesn’t leave much space for dialogue.
Pageantmaster [Katie bought Welby] @ #1,
Neither Canadian, nor Episcopalian, nor cOE bishops cared nor care.
It is not unintended. It is that the only “tends” that matter to these quaintly dressed acolytes to modernity and post-modernity are the ones secularly politically correct. They have sold their birthrights for pottage.
Subscribe.
I suppose there are those who are of the opinion that it is a “sin” to deny ordination to women, but I think the greater sin is Christian disunity and creating deliberate obstacles to further that disunity.
#1- Regrettably, PM, this was a consequence known in advance by the promoters (there is NO WAY that Canterbury and York could not know) as a near certainty, since similar statements had been issued previously to TEC, Canada, New Zealand and Australia by Orthodox and Catholic Churches upon their decisions to consecrate women bishops. In point of fact, while the consecration of VGR was an additional affront to Orthodoxy (and Catholics, and Evangelicals) worldwide, it was the consecration of Barbara Harris that destroyed any hope of TEC gaining recognition of its apostolic orders by the ancient churches. There may be some relationship maintained between the Orthodox and Anglo Catholics in England, as it was in the US, but only so long as they truly maintain their own orders and lineage, which, given how little time it took to break the vows made in the 90s by the CoE, is unlikely to be very long.
Unfortunately the revisionists pushing the current agenda of the CoE (as in TEC) view division of the Church as a feature, not a bug. They do not want to be held back by a bunch of “stodgy old men” who pay attention to tradition, read the Bible, or quote Athanasius.
#10 TJ
I have been pondering this strange time, with the Creedal doctrines under attack, gay bishops, women bishops, heretical bishops, often the same people who will preach in the pulpit against the Trinity, while informing us that the Holy Spirit is doing a New Thing. I have also been following the reports this week from the South Carolina Circuit Court’s deliberations over our friends there who are standing up for the faith they were first taught, the faith the Church has always taught.
I have also been pondering on Saint Athanasius, and wondering how he did it. How did this 4th Century Alexandrian Bishop, sent into exile 5 times by 4 different Roman Emperors, but always persecuted by the Arian Heretics, manage to not only survive but to yet return the Church to a true doctrine of the Trinity?
I wondered if one understood the answer to that, perhaps it would hold the key for this time where the heretics are in charge in the Western Church and our theological colleges will teach every strange and erroneous doctrine, indeed any doctrine save the one found in the Scriptures and the teaching of the Apostles and of Christ; how did St Athanasius do it? I have just had this nagging feeling this last few weeks that St Athanasius has something to offer us in this challenging time.
I have come to the conclusion that, notwithstanding his dire situation, St Athanasius never stopped teaching, never stopped doing the hard theological work of explaining and illustrating the true doctrine and writing extensively to refute the errors of the Arians and other heresies; he never gave up, even when hiding in his father’s tomb in fear of his life, and his followers who he fed with sound doctrine, even from exile, never gave up on him.
Perhaps that is the key – to keep reading the Scriptures, teaching, explaining, insisting, even though the heresies rage through the theological colleges and corridors of power in TEC, ACoC and Lambeth Palace: Never to give up – to be utterly determined to be like Athanasius Contra Mundum, and to never give up on prayer for God taking back His church and His people.
But then, perhaps I too am turning into a “stodgy old man”
#11 Pageantmaster
I’ve been thinking about Athanasius also and trying to gain wisdom and encouragement from him. However, what is clouding my thinking is the fact that we live in an institutionally divided and increasingly fragmented church, and he did not. He basically had no option but to stay and fight. The hypothetical question in my mind is this… If there had been 2 overlapping institutions in his day and he was in one which embraced Arianism, would he have gone over to the orthodox? Of course we don’t know… But that is what troubles me about staying at all costs. I think the relativisation of Christian truth in the CofE is dangerous to souls in the pews (not to mention my own). I know many people in the churches I have ministered in over the years have thought, “well, our vicar thinks that, but that’s just his opinion, I know many others, even bishops who disagree with him…” I’m inclined now to think people should flee the burning building… Where to, of course, is a totally different issue…
A few years ago when I was a priest in a northern Canadian diocese, we had a bishop come and speak to us for our clergy retreat on St. Athanasius. He was the diocesan bishop of a TEC diocese. We were exploring Athanasius’ example of faithfulness in the face of error and heresy. It was very encouraging. However that bishop has since gone on to be received into the RCC and is now the head of the ordinariate in the USA. So…
“the fact that we live in an institutionally divided and increasingly fragmented church, and he did not.”
This is said often, but it is not true; cf. my article
Thanks for that article, Dr.Tighe. You give details of what has always been my own understanding of Athanasius’s era. The church was bitterly divided, and orthodox believers refused the oversight of heretical bishops and accepted the ministry of orthodox priests and bishops ordained by orthodox bishops from other areas. In the fourth and fifth centuries the endurance of the orthodox teachings and church may have looked doubtful to those who nonetheless persevered.
#13 Very interesting article, Dr Tighe, and suggests that St Athanasius was not only a teacher but a tactician prepared to cross boundaries and do what he believed was right to preserve doctrine; and I also take your point that those, including Bishop Tom Wright, who claimed that the ecclesiatical lifeboats given to conservatives in North America by GS Primates contradicted the early councils of the church, are not supported by the history.
Just in passing though when you say with reference to Bishop Wright:
it seems to be implicit that you don’t think that Bp Wright had thought through how one assessed which differences do and don’t make a difference.
In fact I know that he came up with quite a considered and thought through scheme for considering the relative importance of differences and so what could be delegated to the local level [subsidiarity]. I can’t find the original quotes where he set this scheme out [it gets like that after a number of years of considerable overload of information], but he gives some indications in his address to Durham Diocesan Synod of 2010.
From recollection the gist of his scheme was that we could consider which decisions could be delegated to a local church level on differences according to the weight, extent and importance to which other churches [in and outside the denomination] regarded them as important; the extent to which the decision would mean that other churches would no longer be able to recognize them if they took such a decision [ie. it would affect the recognisability of communion in common doctrine, orders and sacraments]. He made a distinction of matters which although not credal, such as the Trinity would be creedal, were yet beyond the ability of local churches and provinces of a denomination to decide on their own and to change without consulting other member churches of their denomination, and even ecumenically.
So I do think that Bishop Wright did his best to wrestle with this issue, and to come up with a constructive framework in which to consider differences before making decisions. Unfortunately the CofE did not take his advice: to do the theological work; to consult both within the two English Provinces and across the Anglican Communion; to consult ecumenical partners; and to consider whether the decisions we are making are ones which ‘make a difference’ and to tailor our wishes according to the impact it has on other countries. Finally the CofE has not taken Bishop Tom’s warning that given the other tensions in the Communion that this was not the time to press the women bishops issue, and he turned out to be right as that directly led in England to the rolling out of the Ordinariate and the Anglican Mission in England.
I don’t think that we have even begun to consider the ecumenical aspects of the recent CofE decision, but the reactions of the Orthodox and RC churches make it plain that the CofE is in the Ecumenical Dog House as far as any future communion issues [common doctrine, sacraments and orders] and this is a serious matter for the Anglican Communion, where the CofE has previously been able to lead and control ecumenical discussions. The CofE is clearly as far as the Orthodox and RC churches an impediment to ecumenical progress, so the question for the wider Communion is whether they are prepared to accept this, or whether as has happened in the last few years with GAFCON and the Global South, they take over direct contact with Rome, Moscow and Alexandria from Canterbury. In a way Canterbury has become the problem for ecumenical relations.
I suppose my other thought having read about the initiative to push the Ordinariate [David Mills: Francis invites the Anglicans in], which apparently the Pope is quietly encouraging, is that Canterbury and some of the liberal/open evangelical bishops have been deluding themselves in thinking that Rome is now under a liberalising Pope who will accept them as equal partners and forego its predatory instincts to asset strip the Anglican Church of those it would like to take on board.
Thanks, Pageantmaster (and Katherine), but given this:
http://anglicanink.com/article/kenya-prepares-its-first-women-bishop
is there any real basis for thinking that GAFCON and Global South dealings with Rome and the East will be any more fruitful or hopeful than those of Canterbury? I also think that the matter of this “development” gives the lie to all those people (whom I account earnest, but deluded) who look to African Anglican churches to assist in safeguarding and preserving “orthodox Anglicanism.” Cf.: 2 Kings 18:21, Isaiah 36:6 & Ezekiel 29:7:
#16 Thank you Dr Tighe.
I believe that Archbishop Wabukala made it clear here today in response to press enquiries that there has been no change to the current Anglican Church of Kenya situation with regard to Women Bishops where the Constitution does not provide for them, notwithstanding some rather excited articles in ACNS, and that any change in this situation will be for their Synod after due consideration and consultation. In the meantime as he puts it “the status quo continues.”
As a leading member of GAFCON and the Global South, you are correct that many look to Kenya to show us how to consider and deal with these matters conciliarly, aware of our impact on one another in a global church, and of course on our ecumenical relations. Perhaps they will show us what the Church of England under its current liberal leadership is failing to demonstrate.
Thank you for the link to your helpful and interesting article Dr. Tighe. It gives me much to think about, but the context and the way the church was structured still does not provide a clear way forward in the ‘stay and fight’ vs ‘join Catholicism or Orthodoxy’ debate…
Subscribe
#18 L F Nowen
Notwithstanding the inadequacies of leadership in North America and Canterbury, the majority of the Communion is faithful and looking after the orthodox Anglicans and there is also a considerable remnant in the Church of England notwithstanding an increasingly rotten and manipulative regime at Canterbury and an acceleratingly liberal House of Bishops.
No one has to make a decision to join Catholicism or Orthodoxy any more than the leadership of the Borgia Popes meant people had to leave Catholicism.
Do though, please give us your prayers.
There is clearly much for us in England to think about in the witness of St Athanasius…
Pageantmaster, #17, the Anglican Ink article says that the Kenyans will soon change their canons to allow female bishops, whereas, Dr Tighe #16, the Kenyan statement says they can do nothing without action from Synod. I rather suspect they will go ahead, but I have no inside information at all. The last time I checked on the issue, the Diocese of Egypt and North Africa continues to refuse female ordination in part in consideration of the very good relationship it has with the Coptic Church. I only wish that the CofE had been similarly observant of the wider Christian world over the past decades.
#22 Katherine
I believe the statement I referenced is the latest on the subject, and it is, so to speak, direct from the horse’s mouth as we say.
I have just been watching Bishop Sutton [here thanks to Anglican TV] talking about the burgeoning ecumenical talks with the Orthodox, including the Moscow Patriarchate, as well as with the Roman Catholic Church and the various N. American Lutheran bodies. It appears that currently ACNA is the only Anglican body in fruitful ecumenical talks in the Communion and the only one the Russian Orthodox are taking seriously, and as I say the Global South will have to decide whether they will permit Canterbury to lead them into the dead end they have unilaterally made for themselves, or take direct control of those talks back from Canterbury and its rotting instruments.
I can’t speak for any of the other jurisdictions but the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) broke off all dialogue with TEC a few years back. The ACNA is the only Anglican body they currently talk with on any kind of serious basis. I recall former [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHRgCIPofc8]Met. Jonah’s very frank speech to the ACNA’s inaugural convention[/url]. It created quite a stir if memory has not failed.
Relations with the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches will not make the slightest difference to the thinking of the Church of England bishops. They will give them a few nice-to-hear comments, but really not be concerned how they react.
I am not saying that is a good thing, just the harsh reality for orthodox (small “o”) Christians in CofE
Does this mean the ROC statement was a waste of time? Not at all.
The Orthodox Church, like all churches is responsible to their Lord to witness to the truth. They have done so. The CofE almost certainly won’t listen, but the CofE will have to answer to the Lord for that.
Dr Tighe’s article linked at #13 above is excellent. I recommend it to everyone interested in what actually happened in the patristic church in situations like ours today.
[blockquote] “The theory of the inviolable integrity of diocesan boundaries has underpinned the statements of more than one or two Episcopal bishops in recent years, such as Peter Lee of Virginia and Neil Alexander of Atlanta. The result of the theory that “heresy is preferable to schism†and “schism is worse than heresy†has been the belief among influential conservative Anglicans that the faithful must put up with an unending stream of doctrinal absurdities and moral enormities” [/blockquote]
Well said. I would go so far as to say that “heresy is preferable to schism” is a lie of the devil, that has brought great spiritual suffering to those who have believed that lie.
The lessons for the church today go into much more detail, however. Athanasius and other bishops engaged unashamedly in border crossing:
[blockquote] “As time went on, the whole Church became divided over the question, with bishop opposing bishop. Athanasius was willing, as the conflict intensified—in his case, as early as the mid-340s—to intervene unilaterally in dioceses whose bishops were Arians or compromisers. The historians Socrates and Sozomen, writing in the middle of the next century, record that he ordained men in dioceses whose bishops were tainted with Arianism to serve the orthodox upholders of Nicea, and that he did so without seeking or obtaining the permission of those bishops.
…
And he was not alone. Other orthodox bishops acted similarly.
Theodoret of Cyrrhus, yet another historian (and bishop), tells us in his Ecclesiastical History that a contemporary and collaborator of Athanasius, Eusebius of Samosata, traveled around many of the eastern portions of the Roman Empire disguised as a soldier, and where he found Arian or Arianizing bishops, he ordained deacons, priests, and even bishops to care for the orthodox and oppose the official bishops and their supporters. He names five bishops Eusebius consecrated.
Another bishop, Lucifer of Cagliari, wandered throughout the Mediterranean world in support of those who upheld Nicea. Both Socrates and Theodoret record his intervention in the divided church of Antioch. In 362 he consecrated the leader of one of the orthodox groups, the leader of the other, larger group having early on in his career appeared to compromise with moderate Arians. The uncompromising orthodox group had never been willing to accept him as their bishop, and the consecration embittered the break between the two and led to a schism that was not to be healed for over fifty years.”[/blockquote]
Many today who are comfortable in their established churches will be filled with foreboding, and even anger at these lessons. But they have to be told. This modern liberal heresy is as pervasive as Arianism, and it will take just as many decades and just as much prayerful conflict to resolve.
The orthodox Anglicans, whether evangelical, anglo-catholic or broad church, should also realise that they stand in the shoes of their patristic forebears, and take comfort and guidance from them.
I was “rummaging through the guts” of an old file of writings of mine last night, when I rediscovered two things which I had forgotten: first, that the genesis of this article on the Windsor Report, etc., arose from a private correspondence between Dr. Harmon and myself in November 2004, which set me thinking about the whole issue; and, secondly, that I wrote a brief “sequel” to my article linked above (“Abusing the Fathers: The Windsor Report’s Misleading Appeal to Nicea”) entitled “Abusing Themselves: The Windsor Report and the Ordination of Women.” This sequel was never published, but (if I may say so myself) it isn’t too bad, and the parallel which I drew in it between WO and the promotion of homosexual pseudogamy has been borne out by events. I will gladly supply a copy of this sequel to antbody who cares to e-mail me requesting one at tighe.at.muhlenberg.edu.