Why is the historic Ordinal bound into the classical Prayer Book as a Formulary?

A discussion starter

Few Anglicans ever read the services used for the ordaining of deacons and priests and the consecrating of bishops. Apparently, they do not see any direct relevance of these services to their attempts to live as Christians in the modern world. Maybe they do not even know where to find these services!

Well, inside the covers of the pew editions of The Book of Common Prayer (1662/1928/1962) there is the Psalter and also three basic texts – 1. that which is really and truly the Prayer Book, containing many services; 2. that which is the Book of Ordination Services or Ordinal, and 3. that which is the Confession of Faith, known as The Articles of Religion. The three together constitute the Formularies of the Anglican Way and are listed as such in the Constitution and Canons of Anglican Churches around the world. They provide form and shape, content and meaning, to the Churches known as Anglican, which profess the Christian Faith as Reformed Catholicism.

But why should the Ordinal, “The Form and Manner of Making Ordaining and Consecrating of Bishops Priest and Deacons,” be printed inside the covers of “The Book of Common Prayer” and why be a Formulary of the Church? The answer in simple terms is this: because the ordained Ministry is by Christ’s will and appointment an indispensable part of the shape and content of the Church of God, and thus this Ministry has to be defined, set apart and put in place within the [province of the Anglican] Church in an orderly and decent manner.

In the USA edition of The Thirty-Nine Articles, included within the 1928 edition of The Book of Common Prayer the following is found:

XXXVI Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers

The Book of Consecration of Bishops, and Ordering of Priests and Deacons, as set forth by the General Convention of this Church in 1792, doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering; neither hath it anything that, of itself, is superstitious and ungodly. And, therefore, whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to said Form, we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered.

The wording here of course is similar to, but not identical with, that in the English version of The Articles of Religion. The English version refers to the setting forth by the Crown and Parliament not by a General Convention or Synod of the Church in a newly independent nation.

The Preface to the Ordinal makes the claim that the Threefold Ministry may be traced back to the apostolic age and has been in place in the Church over the centuries. It insists that all ordinations are to be performed in a reverent and godly manner and that each candidate for holy orders is to be known to be “a person who is a man of virtuous conversation [= daily living] and without crime.” Then the content of each of the three services requires that candidates be properly called, examined and ordained. The charges to the deacon, priest and bishop give a most important picture of the vocation and work of the Threefold Ministry in the Church.

Most regrettably and foolishly, the Episcopal Church in 1976/79 set aside The Articles and the Ordinal, as well as The Book of Common Prayer (1928), as Formularies and put in their place one Formulary, the innovatory Prayer Book of 1979, in which are(a) an “Outline of the Faith” to replace the Articles, and (b) “Episcopal Services” for ordinations to replace the Ordinal [together with a Psalter in inclusive language to make traditional use of the Psalter as the prayer of Christ in his Body impossible].

What are some of the innovations in the present Ordinal of the ECUSA?

1. 
   The Christian Faith which is presupposed as that which the clergy are to teach and defend is the doctrine [= a type of 1960s liberal Catholicism] summarized in the Outline of Faith in the same Prayer Book wherein are the ordination services. Thus there is a question as to whether those ordained by this Ordinal are ordained into the historic Catholic Faith or whether they are ordained to teach and defend a revised form of Anglican Faith.
2. The Threefold Ministry that is presupposed by the Ordinal of 1979 is a Ministry which is composed of both sexes, female and male. And thus there is a question as to whether a new kind of Ministry began in 1979 which cannot be traced back further than the 1970s and is a Ministry which is different in character and nature to that presupposed and described in the Preface to the classic Anglican Ordinal. Certainly those ordained are legally ministers of the ECUSA, but are they more than this, ministers of the Catholic Church, in the historical succession of both Faith and Order?
3. The shape or structure of the services is based not upon Reformed Catholicism (as is the classic Ordinal) but on a reconstruction of what some scholars believe were the services of ordination before the reign of Constantine the Great and before the supposed “hellenization” of the teaching of the Church. Does this search for novelty suggest the desire to begin in the 1970s a new form of Ministry that sets aside the crucial developments of dogma and order in the major part of the patristic age and of the reforming movement of the sixteenth century?

It would seem that for doctrinal and pastoral reasons, and in order to deal with cases of conscience amongst clergy and laity, there are very good reasons to recover the classic Ordinal for immediate use (and if those to use it are unhappy with addressing God and ministers as “Thou” then the whole thing can be rendered into a decent contemporary English for the relief of their concerns and they can address God as “You”!). I guess that the American Anglican Council, the Network, the AMiA, Anglicans United and the FinFNA are all thinking seriously about these matters for they want surely to know that the Ministry they support is truly a Catholic and Apostolic one.

October 6, 2005 Peter Toon