Brothers and Sisters: Peace be with you.
I now continue this thread on Twelve Similarities Between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches by focusing on apostolic succession per sé, a belief held in common by the both communions, with slight – but important – differences. For example, the Catholic Church teaches that:
857 The Church is apostolic because she is founded on the apostles, in three ways:
- she was and remains built on "the foundation of the Apostles,"362 The witnesses chosen and sent on mission by Christ himself;363
- with the help of the Spirit dwelling in her, the Church keeps and hands on the teaching,364 The "good deposit," the salutary words she has heard from the apostles;365
- she continues to be taught, sanctified, and guided by the apostles until Christ's return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of bishops, "assisted by priests, in union with the successor of Peter, the Church's supreme pastor"……
861 "In order that the mission entrusted to them might be continued after their death, [the apostles] consigned, by will and testament, as it were, to their immediate collaborators the duty of completing and consolidating the work they had begun, urging them to tend to the whole flock, in which the Holy Spirit had appointed them to shepherd the Church of God. They accordingly designated such men and then made the ruling that likewise on their death other proven men should take over their ministry."374
862 "Just as the office which the Lord confided to Peter alone, as first of the apostles, destined to be transmitted to his successors, is a permanent one, so also endures the office, which the apostles received, of shepherding the Church, a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops."375 Hence the Church teaches that "the bishops have by divine institution taken the place of the apostles as pastors of the Church, in such wise that whoever listens to them is listening to Christ and whoever despises them despises Christ and him who sent Christ."
Similarly, the Orthodox Church teaches:
The Church is Apostolic because the first representatives of Christ on earth were the Apostles. Their successors, that is, the Bishops, must have apostolic succession, but also apostolic faith and teachings, and they must govern the Church as did the Apostles. In the true Orthodox Church there exists canonical and uninterrupted apostolic succession. It is only by means of apostolic succession, which is given through the sacrament of ordination, that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, the true body of Christ, the treasury of divine grace and truth, the ark of man's salvation. (CA)
…
Apostolic succession is the tracing of a direct line of apostolic ordination, Orthodox doctrine, and full communion from the Apostles to the current episcopacy of the Orthodox Church. All three elements are constitutive of apostolic succession.
It is through apostolic succession that the Orthodox Christian Church is the spiritual successor to the original body of believers in Christ that was composed of the Apostles. This succession manifests itself through the unbroken succession of its bishops back to the apostles.
The unbrokenness of apostolic succession is significant because of Jesus Christ's promise that the "gates of hell" (Matthew 16:18) would not prevail against the Church, and his promise that he himself would be with the apostles to "the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20). According to this interpretation, a complete disruption or end of such apostolic succession would mean that these promises were not kept as would an apostolic succession which, while formally intact, completely abandoned the teachings of the Apostles and their immediate successors; as, for example, if all the bishops of the world agreed to abrogate the Nicene Creed or repudiate the Holy Scripture.
Orthodox teachings today are the same as that of the first apostles, though their mode of expression has adapted over the centuries to deal with heresies, changes in culture and so forth. This form of the doctrine was first formulated by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in the second century, in response to certain Gnostics. These Gnostics claimed that Christ or the Apostles passed on some teachings secretly, or that there were some secret apostles, and that they (the Gnostics) were passing on these otherwise secret teachings. Irenaeus responded that the identity of the original Apostles was well known, as was the main content of their teaching and the identity of the Apostles' successors. Therefore, anyone teaching something contrary to what was known to be apostolic teaching was not, in any sense, a successor to the Apostles or to Christ.
In addition to a line of historic transmission, Orthodox Christian churches additionally require that a hierarch maintain Orthodox doctrine as well as full communion with other Orthodox bishops. As such, the Orthodox do not recognize the existence of apostolic succession outside the Orthodox Church, precisely because the episcopacy is a ministry within the Church. (OW)
Similarities and Differences
The similarities are patent: both the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches derive their claim of direct descent from the practice and teaching of the Apostles from an unbroken chain joining the Apostles to the bishops of the Church, in which the former pastoral roles of teaching, sanctification, and guidance are passed on to the latter by means of sacramental ordination, and kept in check by mutual intercommunion and recognition. Both Churches emphasize the unbrokenness of this chain of succession as a fundamental test for apostolicity, as well as the receipt, conservation, and teaching of a common apostolic doctrine.
There are two differences that I will discuss in brief. The first is that both Churches differ on the locus or “common center of reference” of their unity. The Catholic Church teaches that the locus of unity is the bishop who is successor to Peter in the primacy of the apostolic college of bishops. We know him as “the pope”, the Bishop of Rome. It is easier for the Catholic Church to determine when, for example, two diocesan bishops are in communion with each other: if they’re both in communion with the Bishop of Rome, then they are in communion with each other. As a result, these two bishops may consult each other, exchange clergy, and most importantly, concelebrate the Holy Mass together in the presence of both of their diocesan faithful.
Lacking a more formal center empowered with the Petrine charism the Catholic Church claims for the Bishop of Rome – since the Ecumenical Patriarch’s primacy in the East is mostly honorary and limited in power and scope – the Orthodox Church places a greater emphasis on the fact of canonical communion between her bishops as their locus. Like in the Catholic Church, a common Divine Liturgy concelebrated by two or more Orthodox bishops represents the ultimate degree of communion between two local Churches (dioceses). The mutual recognition between bishops in the Orthodox Church is so central that in their view, the fracture of communion would leave an errant bishop, his priests, and his flock, not only outside of the Church, but also deprived of apostolic succession and therefore of legitimacy as a local church. In Catholic theological terms, by sundering communion, an Orthodox bishop loses the sacramental character of his ordination, rendering any of his future liturgical actions not only illicit, but also invalid. A prelate in this condition is a layman, and probably a heretic – definitely a schismatic – before the other Orthodox bishops who are in mutual canonical communion.
An “ordination” where nothing happens: one held
outside the bounds of apostolic succession.
In practice, things are more complex due to what we may term “loopholes.” But I’ll come back to that later.
Special Ecclesiological Questions
Let us explore the Catholic concept of sacramental character a little bit. The Catholic Church teaches that:
1121 The three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders confer, in addition to grace, a sacramental character or "seal" by which the Christian shares in Christ's priesthood and is made a member of the Church according to different states and functions. This configuration to Christ and to the Church, brought about by the Spirit, is indelible,40 it remains for ever in the Christian as a positive disposition for grace, a promise and guarantee of divine protection, and as a vocation to divine worship and to the service of the Church. Therefore these sacraments can never be repeated.
Furthermore:
1581 This sacrament [of Holy Orders] configures the recipient to Christ by a special grace of the Holy Spirit, so that he may serve as Christ's instrument for his Church. By ordination one is enabled to act as a representative of Christ, Head of the Church, in his triple office of priest, prophet, and king.
1582 As in the case of Baptism and Confirmation this share in Christ's office is granted once for all. the sacrament of Holy Orders, like the other two, confers an indelible spiritual character and cannot be repeated or conferred temporarily.74
1583 It is true that someone validly ordained can, for a just reason, be discharged from the obligations and functions linked to ordination, or can be forbidden to exercise them; but he cannot become a layman again in the strict sense,75 because the character imprinted by ordination is for ever. the vocation and mission received on the day of his ordination mark him permanently.
The Catholic Church’s recognition of this “indelible character” is what enables her to recognize the valid orders of the Orthodox Church and her authentic apostolic succession, despite the occasional defection of high-ranking, yet fully sacramentally endowed prelates to non-Christian cults – like that of the former archbishop Emmanuel Milingo to the late Sung Myung Moon’s Unification Church – unless the person in question is reduced to the lay state (as Milingo was). The Catholic Church’s faithfulness to the teaching of sacramental character maintains, not only the internal integrity of the Catholic Church, but also a common framework of dialogue and reconciliation with true Apostolic Churches such as the Orthodox Church.
An Orthodox episcopal consecration
The Orthodox Church, however, does not subscribe to the expressed Catholic belief in the indelible character of ordination: it is their stated doctrine if a bishop (or anyone in holy orders) becomes a heretic or otherwise breaks with the Church, that man becomes a layman in the eyes of the Church. However, loopholes do exist and have been used by some throughout the history of the Church, producing strange circumstances of acknowledged disorder. For example, a bishop may be in communion with one principal church – say, the Orthodox Church in Greece – but not with others – say, the Russian Orthodox Church. As long as the bishop in question is “connected” to a canonical Orthodox church who recognizes in him neither heresy nor schism, he remains a valid Orthodox bishop (or priest, or deacon) in general good standing. The canonical Orthodox status of the Russian Church Abroad was not recognized as “canonical” by most Orthodox jurisdictions in North America and by the principal Orthodox patriarchates throughout much of its history. Nevertheless, not one Orthodox jurisdiction denied, to my knowledge, the validity of holy orders in the Russian Church Abroad, the integrity of its apostolic succession, and its intrinsic Orthodoxy.
A Blessed Assumption
These different views on the effects of the Sacrament of Holy Orders in the face of disobedience, heresy, and schism is what allows the Catholic and the Orthodox Churches to refer to each other as “Sister Churches” and engage in common prayer and in a discreet and highly regulated Eucharistic sharing by members of one Church in the liturgy of the other Church. Of course, purists on each side decry this sharing for exactly the same reasons – we are not one Church, ergo, we can’t receive the Eucharist at your place or worship – but principal prelates in both communions favor setting aside the prohibition in the interest of dialogue, cooperation, and perhaps eventual reconciliation.
In other words, the Catholic recognition of the validity of the Orthodox Church’s apostolic succession and the subsequent validity of their sacraments is what allows Orthodox Christian believers to receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church without requesting special permission from the Catholic minister of Holy Communion. This recognition also allows Catholic believers to receive Holy Communion at an Orthodox church in cases of extreme necessity, as well as sacramental confession and the Anointing of the Sick, with prior consultation with the Orthodox celebrant. (Orthodox believers, however, must seek the guidance of their own pastors before receiving the sacraments in a Catholic church; Orthodox pastors prefer that sacramental reception by their faithful in a Catholic church should only take place also in cases of grave necessity, if at all).
The consequence of – or better still, the unacknowledged assumption behind – the limited sacramental exchange taking place between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches is the recognition that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church exists in each other, and that some undefined level we are “one” despite our irregular relationship, an irregularity that, as we have seen, does not result in an ipso facto invalidation in the eyes of the Orthodox Church.
I call this unacknowledged assumption a blessed assumption, for it allows us to be One Church even when no other formal condition for reunion and reconciliation has been fulfilled. Sacramental blessings, graces, in fact the Triune God himself is moving back and forth between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches by this exchange, effecting what I it could be a healing of the schism in the grassroots, for only from the grassroots the healing of our estrangement most commence if it is to take hold at all.
In the next post in the series, I will discuss the common views both our Churches hold regarding the office of bishop.