1. INTRODUCTION: The purpose of these notes is to indicate briefly the course of the history of doctrine from the Council of Chalcedon to the Reformation. Anglicans, including the clergy, remain poorly informed about a period of a thousand years in which important developments took place. These developments continue, unseen and unrecognised, to influence and shape the Churches of the present century.

2. WHY THE ‘GREY AREA’? There is a very long-standing attitude among Anglicans that the first four Ecumenical Councils are sufficient to establish fundamental Christian doctrine for all time. The Elizabethan Act of Supremacy reinforced this attitude by restricting questions of heresy to these four Councils. This attitude created a ‘grey area’ covering the period from Chalcedon to the Reformation. This ‘grey’ area was not entirely ignored; Anglicanism grew out of western medieval Christendom and aimed at restoring the Faith of the undivided Church. Nevertheless after the Eleventh Century Western Christendom was set upon its own course of development and doctrine had become the concern of specialists. For the faithful, clergy and laity, it was sufficient that a defined body of doctrine existed.

3. WHAT TO LOOK FOR: Taking the Council of Chalcedon as a starting point this paper looks for the continuities and discontinuities in the development of Christian doctrine up to the time of the Reformation. Such an enquiry will emphasise the doctrine of the Church - this is an exceptionally important factor, but is often taken for granted and left unexplored.

4. THE CHALLENGE: Following on from the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus the dispute over Christology (the doctrine concerning the person and identity of Christ) rumbled on. The views of Nestorius had been condemned by that Council; Chalcedon now condemned Eutyches the ‘monophysite’. Nestorius and Eutyches represented opposed and equally mistaken interpretations of Christology. The two sides accepted that Jesus was both God and man, but disagreed over the manner in which these two natures, divine and human, were united. The issue was far from trivial because the nature and hope of eternal salvation for humankind rests upon the answer. Taken to extremes, the ‘Nestorian’ view separated the divine and human elements (creating two natures side by side without a real unity) while with the ‘Eutychian’ view the human element was absorbed by the divine element. These divergencies reflected respectively the characteristic teaching of the great Antiochian and Alexandrian families of Churches. A balance needed to be struck and this Chalcedon achieved, but not to the satisfaction of a large section of Eastern Christendom.

5. GERMANIC AND PERSIAN BACKGROUNDS: The whole of this period was dominated politically by the pressures created by the Germanic peoples who crossed into the Roman Empire as they themselves were driven southward by the short-lived Hunnish empire. The chief tribal groups were the Ostrogoths and the Vandals - both of which embraced the Arian heresy. The Ostrogoths made themselves masters of Italy, even while the Western Roman Empire based on Ravenna still maintained a shadowy existence. The Vandals moved further west and south into southern Gaul and Spain (from where they were driven into North Africa by the Ostrogoths). Similarly the eastern frontiers of the Empire were constantly threatened by the Persians. From the point of view of the Imperial Roman government dissatisfaction with the Council of Chalcedon weakened the cohesion of the Empire.

6. THE ‘ROBBER SYNOD’ (EPHESUS II): Between the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon a further Ecumenical Council had been held, again at Ephesus. Pope Leo I claimed that this Second Council of Ephesus (449), the immediate forerunner of Chalcedon (451), was a shameful and irregular ‘Robber Synod’. Ephesus II was, in its time, a legitimately convoked Ecumenical Council which marked the complete triumph of Alexandria over Antioch in the dispute over Christology. Ephesus II was called by Emperor Theodosius II, a sympathiser with the ‘Alexandrian Christology’, but he died quite soon afterward - the result of a riding accident. The imperial power passed to his sister, Pulcheria, and her husband the Emperor Marcian. Marcian and Pulcheria inclined toward the Antiochian outlook and, perhaps even more so, were concerned to resolve a dispute which weakened the Empire in the face of serious external threat. A major concern was to reconcile Pope Leo and the Western Church alienated by Ephesus II.

7. LEO I : Leo I was a man of exceptional ability and influence. From his Roman background Leo had inherited and further promoted the view that The Roman See enjoyed a special status superior to all other Churches. This view, based on the claimed foundation of the Roman See by St Peter, endowed the bishops of the Roman Church with a unique status, a universal role and responsibility within Christendom. This view was not shared to the same absolute degree by the other great family groupings of Christians within the Empire. Leo, seeing himself as the divinely appointed mouthpiece of Peter, sent a letter, the Tome of Leo, to Constantinople expecting it to be read at Ephesus II. This ‘Tome’ was intended to be the final word of St Peter (through his successor Leo) in settlement of the Christological dispute.

8. THE TOME OF LEO: The Tome, although fundamentally orthodox, contained expressions which seemed to favour the ‘Nestorian’ heresy in the minds of strong supporters of Alexandrian Christology’. A particular point of contention was whether Christ should be described as existing ‘in’ two natures or ‘from’ two natures. St Cyril, the venerated representative of the ‘Alexandrian Christology’, had, in fact allowed the legitimacy of speaking of two natures ‘in’ Christ, but his successor. Dioscorus, took a harder line and insisted that ‘from’ alone was admissible. The Tome was never read at Ephesus II - it appears to have been swamped by the press of other communications read to the Council. Leo was not well pleased that the ‘voice of Peter’ should be thus ignored - hence his description of the Council as a ‘Robber Synod’.

9. CHALCEDON: The Council repudiated Ephesus II, deposed Patriarch Dioscorus, accepted the Tome of Leo as orthodox and produced the famous Definition (Oros) which acknowledged Christ to be ‘in’ two natures rather than ‘from’ two natures. Chalcedon was hardly a complete triumph for Leo; his Tome was acclaimed, but only after it had been compared with the writings of Cyril of Alexandria. Moreover the status of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as equal to Rome was confirmed and its jurisdiction was extended. This was done on the basis that Constantinople was now the effective capital city of the Empire. The message was that the primacy of honour held by Rome was based on its being the ancient imperial capital and not the mystical seat of the ‘Prince of the Apostles’ It was a principle first expressed by the Second Ecumenical Council, and reflected the fundamental sacramental equality of all bishops.

10. WINNERS AND LOSERS: If there was a winner it was the See of Constantinople, supporting imperial policy, and supported by the imperial government in turn. Rome was put firmly in its place and the Alexandrians routed. The chief loser was the hope that Chalcedon would restore unity to the Church. The sympathies of Egypt and much of Syria were with the Alexandrian Christology. The Tome and the Oros were branded as Nestorian reversals of the teaching of the Third Ecumenical Council. Those who took this view were, in turn, misrepresented as upholders of the extreme Alexandrian Christology and regarded as ‘Monophysite’ (Eutychian) heretics..

11. REACTION AGAINST CHALCEDON: The reaction against Chalcedon was swift and widespread - notably in Syria and Egypt. Marcian embarked on a policy of repression which further embittered the dispute. Constantinople and Rome found themselves allied in support of the Fourth Council against extensive opposition in the eastern half of the Empire. This rejection of Chalcedon involved the powerful opposition of well-educated clergy and laity and influential monastic communities. Meanwhile Rome, in particular, resisted any attempt to hold a further Council to review the dispute - this had to wait a further hundred years.

12 THE HENOTICON: One important attempt at conciliation was initiated by the Emperor Zeno in 482. The attempt was based on a document known as the Henoticon - probably written by Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople. The wording was carefully chosen, but hinted that it was possible to misinterpret Chalcedon. This was sufficient for Pope Simplicius to reject it, and demand total support for Chalcedon. This rejection initiated a schism between Rome and the Eastern Patriarchates.

13. ENTRENCHED POSITIONS: The Acacian Schism lasted for a period of more than thirty years. Zeno’s successor, Anastasius, reigned for twenty-seven years. Anastasius’s sympathies where with those who rejected Chalcedon; he signed the Henoticon because it did not demand unwavering support for the Chalcedonian Oros and the Tome of Leo. However Anastasius’s attitude and his favour towards such men as Severus, who became Patriarch of Antioch, was divisive. By the end of Anastasius’s reign it was obvious that the two sides had become so deeply entrenched in their opinions and had so misrepresented their opponents’ views that reconciliation was impossible.

14. SEVERUS OF ANTIOCH AND CHRISTOLOGY: Although anathematised by all succeeding Ecumenical Councils, Patriarch Severus was not a Monophysite. He opposed Chalcedon, regarding it as Nestorian since it allowed for the continuance of the two natures, divine and human, ‘in’ Christ after the Incarnation. Severus was convinced that this could only mean that the two natures were merely associated with one another - after the Nestorian manner - and not truly united. Severus’s own position was open to misunderstanding. His favoured terms ‘one nature after the union’ and ‘from two natures’ suggested that the original two natures had ceased to exist by a fusion which created a new and unique nature. This was indeed the position of the full-blown Monophysites, Eutychians or ‘Synousiasts’ (those who run the two natures together), but not of Severus and the vast majority of non-Chalcedonians. The non-Chalecedonians saw the terminology of St Cyril ‘one incarnate nature of the Word made flesh’ as a safeguard against both Nestorianism and Synousiasm. They argued that the addition of the term ‘incarnate’ indicated that Christ’s nature was composite (along the lines of the analogy that the human body and soul make up one composite human nature).

15. THE END OF THE ACACIAN SCHISM: Throughout the period of the Acacian Schism Rome clung doggedly to the Chalcedonian Oros and the Tome of Leo in a way which implied that these needed no further clarification. It looked as though this attitude was going to bear fruit because, with the death of Anastasius, the new Emperor, Justin I, recognised that the alienation between the two halves of Christendom must cease. Sections of the Eastern Empire were disillusioned with the policy of Anastasius and welcomed a restoration of relationships with Rome. The restoration came at a price - the wholesale adoption of Chalcedon and the condemnation of the Henoticon and its promoters such as Acacius and his immediate successors.

16. ECUMENICAL COUNCILS AND FLEXIBILITY: Large gatherings like the Ecumenical Councils could be brought together only through the administrative support of the Imperial government, and they reflected the needs of that government as much as those of the Church. For both unity was the goal to be achieved. Those who disagreed with the decisions reached by such Councils were treated harshly, for they had forfeited the right to be recognised as true Christian believers and also as law-abiding citizens. For this reason Ephesus II was not just a ‘Robber Synod’ to be disregarded as an unfortunate lapse, it was an Ecumenical Council which had to be dismantled in due form by its successor Council, Chalcedon. From the Church’s point of view the doctrinal discernment exercised by such Councils was gift of the Holy Spirit - Christ, as he has promised, was continuing to lead His Church into all Truth. Each Council refined and clarified the teaching of its predecessors in the light of new challenges. There was, therefore, a certain dynamic and constructive flexibility in the whole process, but not such as to overturn the clarifications made by previous Councils. The underlying authority was always the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by the Tradition passed down from the Apostles through the Fathers. The flexibility was based on and served an underlying stability

17. PERSISTING CHRISTOLOGICAL ISSUES: Although Chalcedon pointed the way forward it required further clarification because some of the actions of the Council gave out a confused message which obscured its continuity with the first and accepted Council of Ephesus. The Acacian Schism blocked this process for many years. By then the Non-Chalcedonian opposition was so entrenched that the prospect for further progress toward reconciliation was bleak indeed. The Christological issues were to re-appear again and again in different guises and this is why it has been necessary to deal at some length with the Council of Chalcedon.

18. JUSTINIAN: The nephew and successor of Emperor Justin, Justinian the Great, had been his uncle’s guide in matters of religious policy and persisted in his support for Chalcedon when he became emperor himself. Politically Justinian aimed at recovering as much of the Western Empire from the Ostrogoths and Vandals as was possible. Thanks to gifted generals Italy and North Africa were won back and Justinian could put pressure on Rome to agree to a constructive review the Council of Chalcedon. The fruit of this policy was the calling of the Fifth Ecumenical Council - Constantinople II.

19. CONSTANTINOPLE II: This was a Council of exceptional importance because its ultimate effect was to break the deadlock between Eastern and Western Christendom arising from the Acacian Schism. (Very recently also its clarifications have provided the means for a mutual recognition of their innate orthodoxy by both the Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox). Of particular significance was the Council’s acknowledgement that the distinction between the divine and human natures in Christ was ‘in thought alone’ thus rejecting any notion of Nestorian conjunction of the natures. The Council further clarified those aspects of Chalcedon which had seemed , unintentionally, to favour Nestorianism. At the time the opposition to Chalecedon was too intense to be overcome, even by an Ecumenical Council. The two groups drifted further apart, but Constantinople II provided positive direction for the Chalcedonians of both Rome and Constantinople for the future.

20. FURTHER CHRISTOLOGICAL ISSUES: The fundamental concerns of the next two Ecumenical Councils were also Christological. It is necessary to understand why this issue was so important and continues to be so. The entire hope of eternal salvation and its very character are bound up with the way in which the divine and human natures are united in Christ as the incarnate Son of God. The first two Ecumenical Councils were concerned to affirm the total divinity of the Second Person of the Trinity against Arianism and its offshoots. In a sense this was but a preliminary to the question of how this truly divine nature could be united with a full human nature in such a way that there opened up for mankind the possibility of participation in the life of the Holy Trinity - eternal salvation. The answer given by the Ecumenical Councils was through the Incarnate Son of God who, in His Person, united His already existing divine nature with the human nature taken from the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is through Christ’s human nature that we also can participate by grace in His divine life. This participation is made possible through the Death and Resurrection of the Incarnate Son and the consequent gift of Himself, through the abiding Holy Spirit, to the Church

21. THE LINK WITH ECCLESIOLOGY: The importance of ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church, now comes into view. It is through the Church, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that the resurrection life of Christ is mediated to all its members, making them the Body of Christ. (This is nowhere better expressed that in the fourth chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.) The Church, therefore, is Sacrament, meaning that it unites the uncreated divine life with the created existence of the world and mankind. The particular Sacraments administered to the faithful find their source in the living presence of Christ in His Church. The Church is at the same time distinguishable and inseparable from her Lord and ‘Where Christ is there is the Catholic Church’ in the words of St Ignatius of Antioch. For this reason every local congregation presided over by its bishop possesses the fullness of Christ’s presence in the Spirit and the same is true of the total sum of the Churches. Sacramentally all local Churches are equally Catholic because they all receive and mediate the fullness of the life of Christ - in this understanding resides the universality (catholicity) and unity of the Church. Any claim by one local Church to a special status disrupts this sacramental pattern and creates serious division.

22. HERACLIUS AND THE MONOTHELITE PROBLEM:. The Emperor Heraclius was a man of exceptional ability. The gains of Justinian’s reign were soon lost and the Empire began to dwindle once more. The divide between Chalcedonians and Non-Chalcedonians persisted, especially in the militarily sensitive eastern boundary areas of the Empire. Militarily speaking Heraclius brought stability to the eastern frontier, he also sought to bridge the gap, in the realm of religion, by supporting a teaching - monothelitism - which claimed that although Christ possesses two natures, divine and human, He has a single will. The teaching had a certain plausibility as it was unthinkable that Christ’s human will could be in conflict with His divine will. Initially the teaching appeared to achieve some success in bringing Chalcedonians and Non-Chalcedonians together in Alexandria. Pope Honorius I of Rome also gave support to this teaching (and was condemned by the Sixth and subsequent Ecumenical Councils).

23. THE SIXTH COUNCIL: In spite of Honorius, his successors rejected the Monothelite teaching. The true orthodox faith was expounded by the outstanding theologian of the period, St Maximus the Confessor, whose teaching gained wide acceptance and led to the calling of the Sixth Ecumenical Council. The Council affirmed the orthodox position that there were two wills in Christ working always in common. Monothelitism confused the notion of will as an activity of a nature with will understood as an integral part and endowment of that nature. The confusion reduced the human nature taken by Christ to something less than human.

24. THE COUNCIL IN TRULLO (QUINISEXT COUNCIL): The same Emperor, Constantine IV, who convoked the Sixth Council also held a subsequent gathering to promulgate a series of canons - something which the two previous Councils had not done. The initiative was Eastern and the Roman Church was not represented. Many centuries elapsed before Rome endorsed the canons of this Council - which reflected Eastern customs at the expense of Western traditions.

25. THE RISE OF ICONOCLASM: Towards the end of the first quarter of the Eight Century a movement to outlaw icons gathered pace under two exceptionally able Emperors, Leo III, and his son, Constantine V. Constantine went so far as to convene a Council in Constantinople to condemn the making and use of icons (religious pictures used in both public and private devotion) . Iconoclasm appears to have always been a movement led from the top ranges of society and was different from the iconoclasm which characterised the Western Reformation period. Of course the Old Testament prohibition against the making and worship of idols was prominent in the polemic against the icons, but as the controversy wore on the attack shifted to the underlying christological issue. In spite of the abuses which may have been promoted by superstitious use, the icons affirmed the reality of the incarnation. Professor George Florovsky traced the source of iconoclastic teaching back to a long persisting desire to worship an altogether other-worldly Christ at the expense of the reality of the Incarnation. This is certainly the direction that Iconoclasm took, but its attraction for the higher ranges of society and the loyalty felt by the Army to Leo III and his successors meant that its eradication was a lengthy and difficult process.

26. THE SEVENTH COUNCIL: Despite the long period of conflict, and even persecution of orthodox believers, the Empress Irene called an Ecumenical Council in the name of her young son, the grandson of Constantine IV. At this Council Constantine’s Iconoclastic council was overthrown. A moderate statement on the legitimacy and value of the use of icons, carefully defined as to the level of respect to be paid to them, formed the Oros. This was endorsed by Rome - which had hardly been touched by the controversy. The Emperor Charlemagne called a council at Frankfort which condemned the Oros on the basis of a totally misleading translation, but this also reflected certain of the Emperor’s political ambitions and never came to anything. After a further revival Iconoclasm died out as a force.

27. THE ICONOCLASM OF THE REFORMATION PERIOD: As a reaction against the use of religious images by the late medieval Western Church the Protestant Reformers condemned the use of images as idolatrous. This condemnation involved a further wide range of late medieval practices and created a revolution in the social life of Church in areas where the reforming movement became established. It was very different in character from the Iconoclasm of the Eighth Century.

28. CHRISTOLOGY AND THE EQUALITY OF LOCAL CHURCHES: Moving into the Ninth Century we find the Christological issue appearing in a different and divisive form. Earlier in this paper we saw that the quality of being truly Catholic involves the fundamental equality of all local Churches. This requirement arises out of the nature and purpose of the Incarnation and the mediation by the Church of the life of Christ to all believers. From the time of Pope Leo I, and indeed before that, the Roman Church had been attempting to depart from this necessary aspect of Catholic ecclesiology by claiming a special status and control over all local Churches. Although all other Churches acknowledge that the Church of the city of Rome enjoyed a ‘primacy of honour’, the rest of the claim was played dowm and its divisive potential only became apparent to all from the Eleventh Century onward.

29. THE ‘PHOTIAN SCHISM’: In the second half of the Ninth Century the Emperor Basil colluded with Pope Nicholas I to depose Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople at a Council convened at Constantinople. Within ten years Basil had changed his policies and called a second Council which reinstated Photius and, with the endorsement of Pope John VIII, suppressed the earlier Council. This second Council was held to be a true Ecumenical Council, the Eighth, for a period approaching two hundred years. It was them, in the Eleventh Century, that the Roman Church’s long established papalist notion of itself received a powerful endorsement from an entirely different source. The consequence was a persisting schism between Eastern and Western Christendom and a departure from mutually agreed doctrinal standards.

30. THE PROPRIETARY CHURCH: The missionary work of the Church in Western Europe resulted in the conversion of pagan societies to Christianity - but with a difference. From the beginning the Church had always been distinct from the society in which existed. Even with the conversion of the Empire this principle remained, but allowed for the understanding that Church and State were mutually supportive entities. In northern Europe, however, pagan society and its religion were one, with the secular head of the community being responsible for its religious needs as well. This did not change on the conversion of the community to Christianity. The secular head was now required to provide for the needs of the new religion as he had done for the old. In this way a layman controlled the religious aspect of his community and as its local ‘proprietor’ owned the church property and appointed the clergy. The Church, thus subordinated to civil authority, ceased to be a sacrament in itself and became instead a source for the provision of sacraments, that is, of the ministries which applied to the faithful the benefits Christ’s redemptive work. Although there appeared to be little outward change, the Church’s internal nature was profoundly secularised. On the larger regional scale the monarch, whether king or emperor, exercised a sacred as well as secular control over the Church.

31. THE GREGORIAN REFORM MOVEMENT: This lay control of the Church could and did lead to abuses. Since the ‘proprietor’ owned the church buildings and endowments he could alienate them to his own advantage. The solution to this abuse, both actual and potential, was to insist that the overall responsibility for the Church must be placed under one central authority. What is known as the Gregorian Reform movement saw the Papacy as fulfilling this role. It was such Germanic reformers who, in the Eleventh Century gained control of the Papacy and, in effect turned it into a universal Proprietary Church with the Pope as both its religious and secular head. The way for this transformation had been prepared by the long-standing papalism of the Roman Church, but it was now backed by a resurgent Western society used to the idea that the Faith was controlled by a centralised source.

32. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS: The Papacy, revitalised by the Gregorian Reform, was able to demand absolute control over the entire Church on earth. The differences in doctrinal emphasis between Eastern and Western Christendom now became insumountable dogmatic barriers to unity. The long series of crusades mounted by the West, culminating in the capture and despoiling of Constantinople, could only exacerbate the division. Moreover a revival of learning, involving a shift of education from the monasteries to the new universities, and the increasing legal control of the Church by the papal Curia transformed the religious character of Western Christendom.

33. THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES: The Western Church of the ‘high’ Middle Ages contained within itself problems which became increasingly serious. Secular rulers of countries developing self-conscious national feeling, were aware that the Papacy, itself a secular entity, could be controlled to their own advantage. The exercise of religion also was developing in the direction of an individual piety which would eventually see the legalism of the Western Church as an obstacle to the very salvation it existed to proclaim. Eastern Christendom, as represented by the Byzantine Empire, was now eclipsed by the Turkish conquest. The need for reformation was a constant concern for a century or more before the actual Reformation broke out. Western Christendom had to meet that crisis on the basis of the doctrinal modifications which had taken place during the previous years of separation from the East.

34. THE LEGACY OF THE ‘GREY AREA’: We have come to the end of the ‘grey area’, but its legacy permeates every aspect of the break-up of Western Christendom. In the distancing and final separation from Eastern Christendom certain tendencies came to dominate the Western Church, whether united under the papacy or divided by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Most significant, but least recognised, was the tendency to regard the Church as an organisation administering teaching and sacraments rather than as the sacramental Body of Christ. The concept of the Proprietary Church reinforced this tendency, stimulating the centralised legalist control of the Church typical of the high Middle Ages. Moreover doctrine became increasingly the preserve of specialists. Shut out from a meaningful articulation of their Faith, the laity first concentrated on personal piety. Later came the move to insist on the necessity of private individual judgement in matters of religion - while the consequent individualistic interpretation of Scripture opened the door to a rationalistic reduction of the Faith.

35. THE ROLE OF THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH - WESTERN RITE: All Western Churches claim either to have remained faithful to, or to have restored, the essential character of the undivided Church of the first Christian Millennium. The effect of the ‘grey area’ as sketched out above is to qualify such claims. In every case the incarnational and sacramental nature of the Church has long ceased to be the defining priority. The invention and development of Papalism (or ‘Vaticanism’ as it is now called) from the Second Century onward involved a secularising departure from that truly sacramental nature of the Catholic Church - which is the initial priority. The Reformation failed to correct that fundamental mistake. The responsibility of the HCC-WR is to demonstrate in a very practical way the necessity for restoring that true initial priority. This restoration involves a necessary sequence (in Greek a taxis) of mutually supportive elements - priorities. Once this sequence is disturbed division and loss of integrity are inevitable.

Next in the sequence is the doctrinal Tradition of the Church - available to all believers and explaining , maintaining and clarifying the initial sacramental priority. This is expressed not only through the Dcriptures and the doctrinal clarifications of the seven Ecumenical Councils, but mainly through the sacramental and liturgical ministry of the Church. The stability and flexibility of the doctrinal Tradition is discussed in section 16 above.

Thirdly, as the Body of Christ, the Catholic Church requires an abiding structure of mutually supportive ministries. The continuing apostolic ministry, expressed in the three-fold orders of bishops, priests, and deacons, is the most prominent, but all are called by the Holy Spirit to live out the personal ministries He bestows on them.

Finally there is the responsibility for the good-ordering of the Catholic Church on earth. This is required for the Church to be truly sacramental in character - a union of uncreated and created. This involves sound administration and canonical regulation to ensure that the preceding priorities are given due expression.