On the Articles: Article XXIII

The Eighth Sunday after Trinity

O GOD, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation
It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.

The question of the leadership of the Church has been one contested for many years. In the time of the Reformation, it was continental reformers that decried the rights of the bishops and of Rome indirectly to appoint and control the clerics who ministered to the local parish. Local control was sought developed into numerous different models of church governance seen today among various protestant denominations. All had one thing in common: they rejected the Biblical pattern of Apostolic succession.

From the replacement of Judas’s office in Acts of the Apostles (1. 20-26) by St Matthias to the appointment of Titus and Timothy, and the calling of the first deacons, there has been a clear establishment in Scripture of the Apostolic succession, the laying on of hands

Although the three-fold order of ministry existed, at different times and at different places, the method of selecting a leader differed. Even into the fourth century, bishops were sometimes chosen by the laity by popular vote, while in other places the secular authority of the king of prince would be able to select who would become bishop. These ambiguities were used by the protestant reformers to argue in favour of their congregational models in which a congregation could call any person to minister for them.

By the time of the English Reformation, however, the Apostolic Succession had been firmly established. While there was room to differ in some of the manner of selecting of bishops, priests were ordained exclusively by bishops in apostolic succession for particular purposes, and to be priested you would first be ordained and serve as a deacon, which had a different role than the priest. The reformers explicitly preserve this practice in this article.

Whereas in a protestant church, if a minister was needed, any member could be called and effectively begin preaching and ministering the next day, in Anglicanism, there was a much longer period of discernment which ultimately required the authority of the bishop to ordain the person for their duty. It was never an accepted practice in Anglicanism, as Article XXIII makes clear, to allow any member of the laity to begin preaching or administering the sacraments.

Interestingly it has only been in recent years, since the Roman Catholic Vatican II Council, that there has been a general loosening of this provision. Roman Catholics, facing shortages, authorized the use of extraordinary lay administrants of the sacrament, lay people who could, in the absence of the necessary number of priests, help to administer, though not consecrate, the blessed sacrament. Following this, many other churches, including Anglican jurisdictions around the world, took this as a signal that they too could loosen the rules, such that deacons and lay people began to be permitted to preach with the authorization of the bishop, and lay people similarly began to be permitted to serve at the altar in new ways as well.

Interestingly, it seems to have been an accident of history in Canada, at least, that saw the diaconate fall into disuse. Due to that, many of the roles of deacons have been taken up by the laity, who only now are beginning to discover the number of lay people who may well have been called to serve as deacons.

In either case, the requirements of Article XXIII are still being fulfilled. The first sentence of the Article states that no one may preach or administer the sacraments unless duly authorized. At the time of its writing this meant that the process of ordination needed to be followed based on the ordinal, one of the other three Anglican Formularies, while today it remains consistent for a bishop to duly authorize lay people to administer those functions as lay people.

While modern practices show that this article is consistent with allowing some level of lay participation, without commenting on the degree to which lay participation in certain roles is desirable, it suggests a strong concern for the apostolic succession.

Apostolic succession is important not simply in terms of the practice of laying on of hands, and the ability to point to the bishop that consecrated your bishop who ordained you, but points to the transmission of the faith delivered once to the Apostles. Going back to Article XIX, the limitation of the preaching and administration of sacraments is not simply to clericalize the Church, but because it ensures that the pure word of God will be preached when those who are permitted to preach have been properly educated, tried and tested before they are so authorized.

This Article speaks to the issue of authority in the Church, and how the people can have confidence in the person that is preaching, and that what they are preaching is true and that the sacraments they are administering are indeed sacraments. This was of particular concern at the time of the English Reformation when there was concern over what was being preached, and particularly in light of the fact that among protestants almost anyone seemed to able to do anything, so whether or not that person truly was ordained.

In modern times, there are again concerns over legitimacy. As Christianity continues to fragment over issues of doctrine, it is always a helpful reminder that the goal of priests is to preserve the apostolic teaching. When someone is preaching, they have been authorized by a bishop in apostolic succession to do so, and their teaching is expected to be in accord with that tradition. At a time when that is not always the case, this Article serves as a reminder of what Anglicans ought to be doing.