THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDECH A Defence of ... - Rore Sanctifica

care, leadership of worship and so on-----what difference does it make for a person to be ordained?
We tried to answer that by . . . "In ordination a person is given authority to act on behalf of the
whole Church". 11
An important study entitled Lay Presidency at the Eucharist? was published in 1977. It is a booklet
which every Catholic could study with profit as it expresses the viewpoint of a body of Anglican
opinion which is growing in strength.
The Reverend Trevor Lloyd contributed an introduction favouring the appointment of "laypresidents"
for the Eucharist in which he makes the following points:
In what does presidency consist? If you have a doctrine of consecration which implies a "moment"
of consecration, whether by words or by manual acts, then you need someone to do and to say those
things with sufficient authority, given him by the Church to do so. If, however (and many would
say we had now moved into this position) there is no "moment" of consecration and it is the whole
action that gives significance to the bread and wine, it could be argued that there is no longer any
definitely "presidential" act. If there is, what is it? It surely cannot be the "compering" function
many presidents at parish Eucharists seem to have. And it is difficult to see it simply as the recital
of one prayer . . . it would seem far less damaging to license a number of leading lay people as
Eucharistic presidents, recognising the extreme diversity of gifts and ministries in the Church of
England (as in the Church in the New Testament), than to insist on "ordination" for such people. 12
There is also ample testimony available to prove that contemporary Lutherans have not departed
from any of their founder's fundamental axioms. In 1958 the United Evangelical Church of
Germany published an officially approved report entitled A Declaration concerning the Apostolic
Succession. 13 Among the points made in the report is that apostolic succession in the Catholic
sense can be accepted as a sign of "the real apostolic succession" if understood as "appropriate but
not objectively necessary". It will not accept this system of episcopal succession as the exclusive
means for transmitting the full authority of office.
. . . the mission to a pastoral office cannot be established in a uniform way of transmission and
succession from person to person, a real mission and authorization thereto can be effected by the
Holy Spirit through extraordinary means. Restriction of the transmission of authority to office
holders in the line of historical succession is contradictory to the sovereign freedom of the Holy
Spirit in the Church and the frailty of the earthly existence of the Church. Moreover, it accentuates a
separation of clergy and laity that is not in keeping with the reciprocity of the services between the
spiritual authority of the special office and that given to all believers.
The declaration states specifically that:
Indeed, the maintenance of the Church in the succession of the apostolic faith can also be preserved
by special acts of God, who in exceptional circumstances awakens true shepherds outside the
institutional succession of offices in the Church. They carry on the pure apostolic preaching.
Because episcopal succession in the Catholic sense is not accepted as the exclusive means of
transmitting the apostolic succession, denominations which do not practise it would not be required
to adopt it in the event of reunion.
We do not regard as necessary . . . the further extension of such an episcopal succession to churches
which do not already have it. Indeed such a policy could even be dangerous because it might give
rise to the misunderstanding that ordination in churches without episcopal succession is not fully
valid.
All this is commendably frank and is particularly relevant to the Agreed Statement, Ministry and