Holy Orders
From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.
- This article is about the sacrament. Holy Orders was also the title of a 1908 book by Marie Corelli.
Holy Orders in the modern Roman Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Anglican churches, includes three degrees: bishop, priest, and deacon. Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox churches believe that Holy Orders is a sacrament, while Anglicans are divided on this matter. Other Protestant denominations have varied conceptions of the church offices, but none of them considers ordination a sacrament.
The Eastern Orthodox Church has two minor orders, those of reader and subdeacon. Candidates for ordination are receive the clerical tonsure prior to being ordained by the laying on of hands to these minor orders. There is a distinction between the laying on of hands for minor orders (chirothesis) and that for major orders (chirotony). Those in these lesser orders are not considered clergy in the same sense as those in major orders.
In former times, the Roman Catholic church also had four minor orders along with the major order of subdeacon, which were conferred on seminarians pro forma before they became deacons. The minor orders and the subdiaconate were not considered sacraments, and for simplicity were suppressed under Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council.
Such titles as Cardinal, Monsignor, Archbishop, etc., are not sacramental orders. These are simply offices; to receive one of those titles is not an instance of the sacrament of Holy Orders.
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Definitions
The word "holy" simply means "set apart for some purpose." The word ordo (order, in Latin) designated an established civil body or corporation with a hierarchy, and ordinatio meant legal incorporation into an ordo. In context, therefore, a Holy Order is simply a group with a hierarchy that is set apart for ministry in the Church.
Episcopalian concept of ordination
The episcopalian (from the Greek episkopos, meaning "overseer" and from which we get the word "bishop") form of church government is followed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches, and the Anglican Churches and centers around the hierarchy of bishops.
Meaning of priesthood
The word "priest" either derives ultimately from the Greek presbuteros meaning "elder" or the Latin praepositus meaning "superintendent." The Catholic church sees the priesthood as both a reflection of the ancient temple priesthood of the Jews and the person of Jesus Christ. The liturgy of ordination recalls the Old Testament priesthood and the priesthood of Christ. In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, "Christ is the source of all priesthood: the priest of the old law was a prefiguration of Christ, and the priest of the new law acts in the person of Christ" Summa Theologica III, 22, 4c. See Presbyterorum Ordinis for the Second Vatican Council decree on the nature of the Catholic priesthood.
Process and sequence
The arrangement given above, "bishops, priests, and deacons" is in the reverse order of ordination. For Roman Catholics, it is typically in the last year of seminary training that a man will be ordained to the diaconate, called by Roman Catholics in recent times the "transitional diaconate" to distinguish men bound for priesthood from those who have entered the "permanent diaconate" and do not intend to seek further ordination. Deacons, whether transitional or permanent, are licensed to preach sermons, to perform baptisms, and to witness marriages, but to perform no other sacraments. They may assist at the Eucharist or the Mass, but are not the ministers of the Eucharist. Orthodox seminarians are typically tonsured as readers before entering seminary, and may later be made subdeacons or deacons; customs vary between seminaries and between Orthodox jurisdictions.
After six months or more as a transitional deacon a man will be ordained to the priesthood. Priests are able to preach, perform baptisms, witness marriages, hear confessions and give absolutions, annoint the sick, and celebrate the Eucharist or the Mass.
For Anglicans, a person is ordained a deacon once they have completed their training at a theological college. They then typically serve as a curate and are ordained as priest a year later. Deacons must be at least 23 years old, and priests 24. Anglican deacons can preach sermons, perform baptisms and conduct funerals, but, unlike priests, cannot conduct marriages or celebrate the Eucharist. In most branches of the Anglican church, women can be ordained as priests, but usually cannot be ordained a bishop. Anglican priests have to be at least 30 before they can be chosen to become a bishop.
Bishops are chosen from among the priests in churches that adhere to Roman Catholic usage. Among the Orthodox (Eastern and Oriental), they must be both priests and monks. In either case, they are usually leaders of territorial units called dioceses. Only bishops can validly administer the sacrament of holy orders. In Latin-rite Catholic churches and Anglican churches, only bishops (and priests with authorisation by the bishop) may lawfully administer the sacrament of confirmation, but if an ordinary priest administers that sacrament illegally, it is nonetheless considered valid, so that the person confirmed cannot be confirmed again, by a bishop or otherwise. In Eastern-rite Catholic churches, confirmation is done by parish priests via the rite of chrismation, and is usually administered to both neonates and adults immediately after their baptism.
Recognition of other churches' orders
Roman Catholics recognize the validity of holy orders administered in Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches because they believe those churches have maintained the apostolic succession of bishops, i.e., their bishops claim to be in a line of succession dating back to the Apostles, just as Catholic bishops do. Consequently, if a priest of one of those eastern churches converts to Catholicism, he is automatically a Catholic priest. Eastern Orthodox bishops can, and frequently do, grant recognition to the holy orders of converts who were earlier ordained in the Catholic church (though there is much debate in the Orthodox Church about this); that is part of the policy called church economy.
Anglican churches, unlike most Protestant churches, maintain the succession, their bishops being successors of English bishops who converted to Protestantism in the 16th century. A controversy in the Catholic church over the question of whether Anglican holy orders are valid was dogmatically settled by Pope Leo XIII in 1896, who wrote that Anglican orders lack validity because the rite by which priests are ordained is not correctly performed. Eastern Orthodox bishops have, on occasion, granted "economy" when Anglican priests convert to Orthodoxy. Catholics do not recognize ordination of ministers in Protestant churches that do not maintain the apostolic succession.
Marriage and holy orders
The rules discussed in this section are not considered to be among the infallible dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church, but are mutable rules of discipline. See clerical celibacy for a more detailed discussion.
Married men may be ordained to the diaconate as Permanent Deacons, but in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church may not be ordained to the priesthood. In the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church and in the Eastern Orthodox Church married deacons may be ordained priests, but may not become bishops. Bishops in the Eastern Rites and the Eastern Orthodox churches are drawn only from among monks, who have taken a vow of celibacy.
There are cases of permanent deacons who, left widowed by the death of a wife, have been ordained to the priesthood. There have been some situations in which men previously married and ordained to the priesthood in the Anglican Church have been ordained to the Catholic priesthood and allowed to function much as an Eastern Rite priest but in a Latin Rite setting.
Chastity and celibacy
There is a difference between chastity and celibacy. Celibacy is the state of not being married, so a vow of celibacy is a promise not to enter into marriage but instead to consecrate one's life to service (in other words, "married to God"). Chastity, a virtue expected of all Christians, is the state of sexual purity; for a vowed celibate, or for the single person, chastity means the avoidance of sex. For the married person, chastity means the practice of sex only with the spouse, and can carry the expectation of intercourse with the spouse preferably solely for reproduction.
Other concepts of ordination
Several other varieties of ordination exist in the Protestant churches. Different churches and denominations specify more or less rigorous requirements for entering into office, and while the process of ordination is likewise given more or less ceremonial pomp depending on the group, it is certainly less magisterial than the sacramental versions used in the episcopalian churches. Many Protestants still communicate authority and ordain to office by having the existing overseers physically lay hands on the candidates for office and pray over them.
Presbyterian churches
Presbyterian churches, following their Scottish forebears, reject the traditions surrounding overseers and identify the offices of bishop (episkopos in Greek) and elder (presbuteros in Greek, from which the term "presbyterian" comes) because they seem to be used interchangeably in the Bible (Titus 1.5-9; cf. I Tim. 3.2-7). While there is an increasing authority with each level of gathering of elders (congregation to presbytery to synod to General Assembly), there is no hierarchy of elders, and each has a vote that counts the same as all the others at that level.
Similarly, presbyterians identify the men appointed by the laying on of hands to serve and to relieve the elders' burden in Acts 6.1-7 as deacons (diakonos in Greek, meaning "servant" or "table waiter"). They are to off-load the elders from important but relatively mundane tasks so that the elders can concentrate on their primary calling of "shepherding the flock." Consequently, they minister to those who are in need, to the friendless, and to any who may be in distress (e.g., widows, orphans, prisoners, the sick, etc.) and collect and distribute funds to that end, and they care for the property of the congregation. Deacons have no authority in teaching or church discipline (i.e., correcting error and holding members accountable to live in accordance with the Bible or face excommunication), and they are responsible to the elders.
Unlike the episcopalian schemes, the two presbyterian offices are different in kind rather than in degree since one mustn't be a deacon before he becomes an elder (though in practice deacons do often become elders and though in the absence of deacons, the elders are responsible for their duties also). Since there is no hierarchy, the two offices do not make up an "order" in the technical sense, but the terminology of Holy Orders is nonetheless still in use.
Officers are usually elected by the congregation and approved by the session or presbytery. Some churches place limits on the terms that the officers serve, while others ordain for life.
Congregationalist Churches
Congregationalist churches implement different schemes, but the officers usually have less authority than in the presbyterian or episcopalian forms. Some ordain only ministers and rotate members on an advisory board (sometimes called a board of elders or a board of deacons). Because the positions are by comparison less powerful, there is usually less rigor or fanfare in how officers are ordained.
Ordination of women
Some groups ordain women as elders and/or deacons, though many conservatives consider at least the offices of teaching and rule (called by whatever name) to be reserved for men only.
See also
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