Anglican ministry
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. Ministry commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church, either individually or in lower/assisting offices such as lector, acolyte, sub-deacon, Eucharistic minister, cantor, musicians, parish secretary or assistant, warden, vestry member, etc. Ultimately, all baptised members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ.
Each of the provinces of the Anglican Communion has a high degree of independence from the other provinces, and each of them have slightly different structures for ministry, mission and governance. However, personal leadership is always vested in a member of the clergy, and a priest and consensus derived by synodical government. At different levels of the church's structure, laity, clergy and bishops meet together with prayer to deliberate over church governance. These gatherings are variously called conferences, synods, conventions, convocations, councils, chapters and vestries.
History and background
The effect of Henry VIII's Act in Restraint of Appeals and first Act of Supremacy was to establish royal authority in all matters spiritual and temporal, even assigning the power of ecclesiastical visitation over the Church in the English Realm. Queen Elizabeth I, while declining the title of Supreme Head, was declared to be "Supreme Governor of this realm... as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal". Thus, although the Church of England was regarded in the sixteenth century as a church of the Reformation, it nonetheless maintained the historic church structure, including the maintenance of the threefold order of the ministry, with bishops, consecrated in apostolic succession, ordaining deacons, and priests.Ministry and the sacraments
In Anglican sacramental theology, certain ministerial functions can only be performed by individuals ordained into one or more of the three holy orders. There are two kinds of ministers in this sense. The ordinary minister of a sacrament has both the spiritual power to perform the sacrament and the legal authority to perform the sacrament. An extraordinary minister has the spiritual power but may only perform the sacrament in certain special instances under canon law. If a person who is neither an ordinary nor an extraordinary minister attempts to perform a sacrament, no preternatural effect happens.In the Anglican Communion, the following are ministers of the sacraments :
- Baptism: clergy.
- Confirmation: bishop.
- Eucharist: clergy.
- Reconciliation of a penitent: bishop or priest.
- Healing : bishop or priest.
- Matrimony: the individuals to be married.
- Holy orders: at least one bishop ordains deacons and priests; three or more bishops consecrate other bishops.
Threefold order
Bishops
Bishops provide the leadership for the Anglican Communion and the Church of England in accordance with episcopal polity. The Anglican sacramental theology of the episcopate can be found in the Church of England’s Ordination Services. “Bishops are ordained to be shepherds of Christ’s flock and guardians of the faith of the apostles, proclaiming the gospel of God’s kingdom and leading his people in mission.” The service continues in the Liturgy of Ordination to describe Bishops as “principal ministers of word and sacrament, stewards of the mysteries of God” they are to “preside over the ordination of deacons and priests, and join together in the ordination of bishops.” Moreover the rite describes Bishop’s as the church’s “chief pastors”. The principal consecrator continues with the prayer of consecration praying that the ordinand may be “bishop in the ministry of the gospel of Christ, the Apostle and High Priest of our faith” after the laying on of hands with the accompanying words “Send down the Holy Spirit on your servant N for the office and work of a bishop in your Church.” The principal consecrating Bishop continues with the prayer saying “Through your Spirit, heavenly Father, fill this your servant with the grace and power which you gave to your apostles.” After the prayer of consecration, the newly ordained Bishop is presented with the episcopal ring, pectoral cross and crozier.All bishops, constituting a worldwide College of Bishops, are considered to be equal in orders. However, bishops have a variety of different responsibilities, and in these some bishops are more senior than others. All bishops, of diocesan rank and below, are styled the Right Reverend; more senior bishops and archbishops are styled as the Most Reverend. Most bishops oversee a diocese, some are consecrated to assist diocesan bishops in large or busy dioceses, and some are relieved of diocesan responsibilities so they can minister more widely.
Anglican bishops are often identified by the purple clerical shirt and cassock they are entitled to wear. However, bishops are permitted to wear other colours, and a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is frequently seen wearing a black cassock. Bishops also usually wear a pectoral cross and episcopal ring. The choir dress or convocation habit for bishops, which used to be their only vesture until pre-Reformation vestments were revived, consists of the cassock, rochet, chimere and tippet. Bishops carry a crosier as the sign of their ministry, and, on formal occasions, often wear a mitre and cope. When presiding at the Eucharist, most Anglican bishops now wear albs, stoles and chasubles.
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primus inter pares, or first among equals, of the Anglican Communion. Although they have no formal authority outside of the Church of England, they host and chair the Lambeth Conference and Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting, and are president of the Anglican Consultative Council. For many, being an Anglican means being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury who is formally an instrument of Communion.Primates
Each member church of the Anglican Communion is an independent body headed by a primate. A primate is the most senior bishop of a member church. As well as being primus inter pares, the Archbishop of Canterbury is Primate of All England, the senior bishop in the Church of England. For historical reasons, the Church of England and the Church of Ireland also call their second most senior bishops primate: the Archbishop of York and the Archbishop of Dublin are the Primate of England and Ireland, without the All, respectively.Although some member churches of the Anglican Communion title their primates as Primate or Primate Bishop, most churches use other titles for their primates. Following the style of the Archbishop of Canterbury, many Anglican primates are styled Archbishop. They are either named after the most important episcopal see in the church or named after the province they lead. The Scottish Episcopal Church uniquely calls its primate Primus. Other churches have followed the example of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America by calling the primate Presiding Bishop, or President Bishop. These latter titles emphasize the collegiate nature of episcopate rather than the personal authority of the primate. The primates of the Church of South India, Church of North India, Church of Pakistan and Church of Bangladesh are called Moderators, reflecting their Methodist and Presbyterian heritage. Some primates head a diocese, but some are relieved from diocesan responsibility to concentrate on leading the wider church.
In recent years, the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has moved from the traditional leadership of an Archbishop of New Zealand, to a Presiding Bishop, and now to a triumvirate of Co-Presiding Bishops representing each of the tikanga, or cultural streams, in the church — Māori, European and Polynesian. However, the style of Archbishop is still sometimes used, especially by the Co-Presiding Bishop for the Dioceses in New Zealand.
Metropolitans
All of the member churches of the Anglican Communion comprise one or more ecclesiastical province, a grouping of dioceses for administrative purposes. In some provinces, one of the diocesan bishops has oversight of all of the other bishops of the province, and is known as a metropolitan bishop, or simply a metropolitan. Metropolitans are usually given the title of archbishop and styled Most Reverend. Some metropolitans have a fixed see, while others may have any see in province. The primate is often one of the metropolitans.In some provinces, all of the diocesan bishops share a collegiate metropolitical authority and there is no single metropolitan bishop. This is the case in all nine of the provinces of the Episcopal Church in the United States, which has no metropolitans, and the single province of the Scottish Episcopal Church. In these churches, the Presiding Bishop or Primus respectively is a primate without metropolitical authority over the dioceses of the church.