EASY OR DIFFICULT? The task of restoring Churches to their original, authentically Catholic, character and unity is easy to describe, but difficult to achieve. Even when Churches agree on all the other basic doctrines of the Faith, they take for granted the model of the Church they have inherited from the past; most Christians think of their own Church as an earthly organisation, with a pedigree derived directly from Our Lord and his Apostles.

 

CHURCH DIVISIONS: The model of the Church, its ‘ecclesiology, is of vital importance. Even when orthodox believers accept the Faith as set out in the venerable Nicene/Constantinopolitan Creed, they may not take into account the different interpretations placed on the words ‘one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church’. For some this implies the universal absolute jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, for others an association of Presbyterian structures - to name but a few of the many possible ecclesiological models. Somewhere in the midst of this confusion there is a truth which draws all into unity, but this is blocked by the diversity of models.

 

UNITY IN CHRIST: At this point the words of Bishop Rocco Florenza are worth pondering. “A community truly centred on Christ present in the Sacrament cannot be closed in upon itself, as though it were somehow self-sufficient; rather it must strive for harmony with other catholic communities.” This statement contains several points:

1) The Church is ‘centred’ on Christ’, it is His Body, and has no life apart from Him.

2) The Church on earth and the Church in heaven are two modes of the same reality and unity in Christ.

3) Authentic Christian communities on earth are centred upon Christ sacramentally.

4) An authentic Church community on earth, because it is centred on Christ, cannot be treated as a closed organisation in itself.

 

THE CHURCH AS AN AGENCY: While far from denying the unity in Christ of the Church in heaven and on earth, it is hardly surprising that the earthly dimension of the Church receives the greater attention. The danger, which has not been avoided, is that this earthly dimension of the Church tends to be redefined along secular lines. Thus the Church is seen as a religious agency for promoting Christ’s religion - his teaching, his directives, his sacraments, all that is required for eternal salvation. If this Church-cum-agency fails to deliver these things correctly it becomes a bogus agency or, at least, a defective ecclesial body. Thinking of the earthly Church as an agency, tends therefore to encourage division - both over major issues and sometimes over comparatively trivial points and personal conflicts - in sum, doctrine and administration become divorced from spiritual reality. The first step toward true unity involves a realignment with the original Catholic ecclesiolgy or model of the Church.

 

THE CHURCH - A SACRAMENT: One of the Constitutional Canons of the HCC-WR reads, “‘Where Christ is, there is the Catholic Church’ (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Smyrnaeans VIII). This Church acknowledges that the Catholic Church (of which it is itself a manifestation) is the sacramental Body of Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, abiding for all time in the Church, Christ bestows His Risen and Saving Life upon His Holy People. The Catholic Church is both distinguishable and inseparable from her Lord.”  These words reflect the ancient understanding of the nature of the Church. This is the ‘Tradition’ of the Fathers.

 

SALVATION AND TRUE FAITH: Salvation in Christ always involves personal experience on the part of the members of his Body, whether on earth or in heaven - Christ both knows and is known by His own. Whenever, therefore, the Church has been challenged by false teaching it is possible, through this instinctive knowledge, to distinguish the true Faith from the false. This was the task and achievement of all Seven Ecumenical Councils.*

 

THE AFFIRMATION OF ST LOUIS: It is helpful at this point to keep in mind the account of Continuing Anglicanism on the History Page of this web-site. For Continuing Anglicanism the task of restoring the original ‘sacramental model’ should have been made easier by the Fundamental Doctrinal Principles set out in the Affirmation of St Louis (see the Affirmation Page). The Affirmation describes the earthly aspect of the Church as “.. the manifestation of Christ in and to the world” and further on as “.. the Body of Christ at work in the world”. These statements are picked up and expanded in the HCC-WR Canon quoted earlier.

 

FAILURE: The Anglican Continuum on the whole has bypassed this crucial definition and has focused on the further statements on doctrine and morality set out as ‘Fundamental Principles’. This failure amounts to a return to the ‘Agency’ model and, inevitably, the endemic Anglican party disputes between Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals and Prayer Book loyalists have become the sources of division. The same model also encouraged the leadership to resort to ecclesiastical politics.

 

THE ROLE OF PIETY:  The ‘Agency’ model in no way discourages personal piety, if anything piety becomes a substitute for a fuller discernment of the nature of the Church. For this reason individuals of great sanctity and spiritual effectiveness are to be found in many Churches which are otherwise separated. Piety witnesses to the gracious ubiquity of Christ in the Spirit, but too great a reliance on piety (often disguised as doctrinal orthodoxy) can lead to an obstinate and divisive conservatism.

 

TRUE UNITY: Whilst the ‘Agency’ model also encourages the assumption that the unity of the Church is analogous to the unity of a secular organisation - a coordinating structure of authority and administration - the Fundamental Doctrinal Principles of the Affirmation point to a different form of unity:

1. The entire Catholic Church derives its essential unity from Christ, whose Sacramental Body  it is.

2. This unity is expressed on earth through the multitude of local Churches each possessing the fullness of Christ’s presence - a unifying identity of nature.

3. These many local Churches constitute a Family of Catholic Churches which maintain their unity through the unity of their bishops.

4. The bishops of each local Church represent not just a time-honoured form of Church administration, but a necessary element in that sacramental pattern by which each local Church is the Body of Christ.

5. The unity of the bishops is maintained through mutual agreement in the Faith marked out in any wider area by regular meetings - coordinated by one of their number nominated to represent their unity.

6. Agreement in the Faith is consonant with certain local expressions of that Faith; provided such expressions maintain the fundamental doctrinal and moral principles of the Catholic Church.

 

CARRYING OUT THE TASK: The History Page mentions that our Church, the HCC-WR, has restored full communion with the HCC-AR (broken in 1999 by the action of the HCC-WR’s previous leadership). The restoration was on the basis that both Churches subscribed to the Fundamental Doctrinal and Moral Principles of the Affirmation. A similar pattern is developing among other Continuing Anglican Churches. The Affirmation envisaged a single Church governed by a Synod which included episcopal, clerical, and lay members under the presidency of a Primate. This time, and more in line with the ecclesiology of the authentic Catholic Church, restoration of communion does not involve the establishment of a centralised authority. In this way the temptation to indulge in ecclesiastical politics is reduced and replaced by a sense of family responsibility among the individual Churches.

 

TRADITION AND PEDIGREE. The Task then is that of restoring authentic Catholic unity, but this must be done in a specific way. The ministry of James Mata Dwane (see the History-Africa Page) provides an heroic example of such restoration. The difficulty resides in encouraging the separated Churches (and not just the Churches of the Anglican Continuum) to accept that they must no longer rely upon those ‘pedigrees’ which justify their particular status against other Churches. The only pedigree that  matters is the Tradition of the Fathers. In its brief but pointed presentation the Affirmation is a reliable guide to what this involves.

 

*Note. It is little known that there is an 8th Ecumenical Council, but it is not the Council listed by the Roman Catholic Church. In AD 869 a council was held at Constantinople with the purpose of deposing the Patriarch Photios. The council was driven by the political agenda of the then Byzantine Emperor Basil. Ten years later another Council was held which restored Photios as Patriarch, declared the previous council null and void, and also condemned any addition to the Creed (the Western filioque clause was in mind). This council was fully endorsed by all five Patriarchs and for almost two hundred years thereafter was recognised as the 8th Ecumenical Council (880). Toward the end of this period the Church in Rome adopted the filioque clause unilaterally and some decades later ceased, again unilaterally, to recognise the true 8th Council in favour of the earlier abrogated council. This earlier council is the one still listed by the Roman Church as the 8th Council. These actions mark the final abandonment of the the authentic Catholic ecclesiology by the Roman Church in favour of papal absolutism.

 

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