The Anglican Branch Theory Part 3

Rome and Orthodoxy recognize that the visible expression of catholicity is eucharistic fellowship. If you don't share eucharistic fellowship, then how can you be in communion? If Anglicanism is catholic and Rome and Orthodoxy refuse to recognize Anglican catholicity then Rome and Orthodoxy are schismatic and not catholic which would leave Anglicanism as the exclusive catholic church which is something she has never claimed. The branch theory claims that the church is in schism but can the catholic church be in schism? Can Christ be divided? The branch theory really is Gnostic in the sense that the theory denies that the church is visibly one as Christ is visibly one. This visible oneness is experienced in the eucharistic fellowship of the one Catholic church. The fact that this visible oneness is not expressed in the branch theory troubled me as an Anglican. I was teaching my parish that we were catholic and yet I had a hard time understanding how that was without explaining it in a Gnostic way. Also, not all Anglicans hold to the branch theory and many evangelical Anglicans still hold that Rome and Orthodoxy practice idolatry and even hold heretical beliefs because of Rome and Orthodoxy's denial of the sola's of the reformation. After considering all of this I concluded that Anglicanism does not have a definition of catholicity but many definitions of catholicity. I started to ask what do we mean when we confess that the church is one and catholic in the Nicene Creed? What did the Fathers of the Nicene Creed mean when they said that the church was One and Catholic? I don't think they meant anything like the Anglican schismatic theories of catholicity. These questions and the lack of Anglican answers really troubled my soul. Orthodoxy understands the Catholic church to be visibly one which seemed to be more consistent with the intent of what is expressed in the Nicene Creed.

Another Orthodox Blog

I have recently discovered another good Orthodox blog by an Orthodox priest. His recent post on the Pope's visit with the Ecumenical Patriarch is very interesting. Click on the title above to go to the blog "Second Terrace".

A Must Read

I think one of the best things to read on the net is Fr. Stephen Freeman's blog. His most recent blog post is exactly what I have been thinking about recently. Fr. Stephen says, "Thus, the best advice you can give someone with regard to the Orthodox faith is: “Go to Church.” It is the Church that St. Paul calls the “Pillar and Ground of the Truth.” The internet is a wonderful tool. It can even function to give us the Scriptures electronically. Blogs can be nice. But none of them are the Church. Here you may read and by God’s grace good things will happen. But blogs will not give you the Body and Blood of Christ. Blogs cannot anoint you. Go to Church. Say your prayers. Remember God. And remember to pray for bloggers. " Read more of his recent post by clicking the title above.

The Anglican Branch Theory Part 2

The branch theory is one Anglican attempt at explaining how the Anglican Church is Catholic. (There are other views but they would deny the office of Bishop as part of the essence of catholicity.) This theory kept me in the Anglican Church for years because it was important to me that I was linked to the Church of Jesus Christ and His apostles in a visible way. I also thought it was great that the Anglican definition included Rome and Orthodoxy even though Rome and Orthodoxy excluded all of the other branches. One problem that I encountered when trying to work out this theory was that it simply does not work. The Roman Catholic Church bases her catholicity on the papacy. If a church is in communion with the Pope of Rome then that church is considered Catholic. The Orthodox Church claims that the churches must hold to the fullness of the faith and must be in communion with the Patriarchs in order to be Catholic. According to Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism has added to the apostolic faith and has broken communion with the other patriarchs and is not catholic. A church can have a line of apostolic success from the apostles and still not be Catholic because she would lack apostolic fellowship and faith. So Rome and Orthodoxy claim to be the exclusive Catholic church and they have different criteria for determining who is and who is not Catholic. Rome and Orthodoxy hold that these criteria are essentials of the Catholic faith. The branch theory claims that the criterion for catholicity is simply a faithful apostolic line of succession. According to this theory, since Anglicanism, Orthodoxy and Rome all share apostolic succession then all three make up the one Catholic Church. The Anglican definition is just as exclusive as the Roman Catholic and Orthodox ones. The Anglican criteria exclude Rome’s and Orthodoxy’s essentials of catholicity for her own. When Anglicans, Orthodox, and Rome confess the Nicene Creed during the liturgy they are not confessing the same thing since they do not mean the same thing when they confess Catholic. The Universalist claims to include all religions but really excludes all religions by their denial of the essentials of all religions such as Christianity’s claim that Jesus Christ is the exclusive way of salvation. I came to see the Anglican claim of an inclusive catholicity to be similar to the Universalist claim to include all religions. The problem is that the Anglican Church excludes the Roman Catholic and Orthodox essentials in order to be able to include them. This fact hit me while confessing the Nicene Creed one Sunday morning. Part 3 to come next.

Definition of the Branch Theory

…the theory that, though the Church may have fallen into schism within itself and its several provinces or groups of provinces be out of communion with each other, each may yet be a branch of the one Church of Christ, provided that it continues to hold the faith of the original undivided Church and to maintain the Apostolic Succession of its bishops. Such, it is contended by many Anglican theologians, is the condition of the Church at the present time, there being now three main branches, the Roman, the Eastern, and the Anglican Communions… From the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church

The Anglican Branch Theory

"The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." (Article 19 "Of the Church")

The 39 Articles of Religion are held by some Anglicans as containing the boundaries of Anglican theology. Some Anglican theologians have argued that the 39 Articles do not have binding authority and that some of the articles are even contrary to the apostolic faith. As an Anglican priest, I always struggled with the apparent vagueness of the 39 Articles. Article 19 quoted above is one such article. The article basically defines the visable church is where "the pure Word is preached" and "as one that administers the sacraments according to Christ's ordinance". Some have said that the "pure Word" includes the doctrine of justification by faith only (article 11) which would exclude the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches from being part of the visible church. Others have said that the "pure Word" simply means the Nicene creed which immediately brings to mind the controversy of the filiouque clause (article 5). Some have said that the article refers to the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion as the sacraments that define the church as opposed to the 7 sacraments that the council of Trent articulates. Other Anglican commentators on the 39 Articles have said that the 19th article implies Bishops as being necessary for valid sacraments. If this is what the article means then it would exclude the validity of most Protestant sacraments because they do not have an apostolic succession of the episcopate but many Anglicans are just unwilling to affirm that. So the 19th article can include all Protestant churches and exclude Rome and Orthodoxy or it could include Rome and Orthodoxy as sharers in apostolic succession and exclude most Protestant churches. The latter does not seem to fit with the historical context of the 39 Articles since the 39 Articles seem to be in part a response to Roman Catholic errors. In the 19th century the Oxford movement began to explain the catholic church in terms of a tree with branches.They said apostolic succession is what allows a church to claim catholicity. So the three branches on the catholic tree are the Anglican Church, the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. The Anglicans believe apostolic succession to be an episcopal form of government with a proven line of succession from the apostles to present day bishops. I had learned about this theory in seminary but I never grasped the meaning of it until I read Vernon Staley's book The Catholic Religion. I wanted to be catholic without excluing Rome and Orthodoxy so I thought it was a good way to explain how the Anglican Church is catholic and yet lacks unity with the other two branches. I was comfortable with this theory for a while until one day in the middle of the liturgy it hit me that the church was one which means undivided, yet the branch theory holds that the church is divided. It later occured to me that the branch theory of the church cannot be found as a way the historic apostolic church understood catholicity so that would make the branch theory not catholic but merely a creation of the Oxford Movement. I next want to explore next how the branch theory became unworkable for me.

The Entry into the Temple of the Most-holy Theotokos

When the Most-holy Virgin Mary reached the age of three, her holy parents Joachim and Anna took her from Nazareth to Jerusalem to dedicate her to the service of God according to their earlier promise. It was a three-day journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem but, traveling to do a God-pleasing work, this journey was not difficult for them. Many kinsmen of Joachim and Anna gathered in Jerusalem to take part in this event, at which the invisible angels of God were also present. Leading the procession into the Temple were virgins with lighted tapers in their hands, then the Most-holy Virgin, led on one side by her father and on the other side by her mother. The virgin was clad in vesture of royal magnificence and adornments as was befitting the ``King's daughter, the Bride of God'' (Psalm 45:13-15). Following them were many kinsmen and friends, all with lighted tapers. Fifteen steps led up to the Temple. Joachim and Anna lifted the Virgin onto the first step, then she ran quickly to the top herself, where she was met by the High Priest Zacharias, who was to be the father of St. John the Forerunner. Taking her by the hand, he led her not only into the Temple, but into the ``Holy of Holies,'' the holiest of holy places, into which no one but the high priest ever entered, and only once each year, at that. St. Theophylact of Ohrid says that Zacharias ``was outside himself and possessed by God'' when he led the Virgin into the holiest place in the Temple, beyond the second curtain-otherwise, his action could not be explained. Mary's parents then offered sacrifice to God according to the Law, received the priest's blessing and returned home. The Most-holy Virgin remained in the Temple and dwelt there for nine full years. While her parents were alive, they visited her often, especially Righteous Anna. When God called her parents from this world, the Most-holy Virgin was left an orphan and did not wish to leave the Temple until death or to enter into marriage. As that would have been against the Law and custom of Israel, she was given to St. Joseph, her kinsman in Nazareth, after reaching the age of twelve. Under the acceptable role of one betrothed, she could live in virginity and thus fulfill her desire and formally satisfy the Law, for it was then unknown in Israel for maidens to vow virginity to the end of their lives. The Most-holy Virgin Mary was the first of such life-vowed virgins, of the thousands and thousands of virgin men and women who would follow her in the Church of Christ.- The Prologue of Ohrid

An Anglican Seminary, Bp. Grafton and St. Tikhon

I will post some of my thoughts concerning the "Anglican Branch Theory" next week. One of my favorite American Anglican bishops was Bp. Charles Grafton who was very good friends with St. Tikhon. Bp. Grafton was very sympathetic to the Orthodox Church and her teachings. The following link is to a very good article on St. Tikhon's visit to Nashota House in the early 1900's. http://anglicanhistory.org/orthodoxy/hatfield.pdf

St. Gregory Palamas

"Gregory's father was an eminent official at the court of Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus. The gifted Gregory, completing his secular studies, did not want to enter the service of the imperial court, but withdrew to the Holy Mountain and was tonsured a monk. He lived a life of asceticism in the Monastery of Vatopedi and the Great Lavra. He led the struggle against the heretic Barlaam and finally defeated him. He was consecrated as Metropolitan of Thessalonica in the year 1347. He is glorified as an ascetic, a theologian, a hierarch and a miracle-worker. The Most-holy Theotokos, St. John the Theologian, St. Demetrius, St. Anthony the Great, St. John Chrysostom and angels of God appeared to him at different times. He governed the Church in Thessalonica for thirteen years, of which he spent one year in slavery under the Saracens in Asia. He entered peacefully into rest in the year 1360, and took up his habitation in the Kingdom of Christ. His relics repose in Thessalonica, where a beautiful church is dedicated to him."- The Prologue from Ohrid

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi is Latin for the law of prayer is the law of belief or paraphrased your prayer forms your belief. This idea was hammered home to me in seminary. It is probably the most important thing that I took away from my seminary education. I wanted my beliefs to be formed through my praying of the Anglican liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). Many of the prayers have roots in the ancient liturgies with a few Protestant revisions made by the prayerbook's compiler Thomas Cranmer. The prayerbook struggles in a few places it is intentionally vague but the overall ethos that one gains from praying daily praying the prayers in the BCP is a very ancient one. If one prays these prayers often, I believe it will form in them with a very Benedictine ethos. As many of you know St. Benedict's Rule is rooted in the tradition of the Desert Fathers. So the closest thing in Anglicanism to Orthodoxy is her liturgy. The Anglican liturgy formed my beliefs and ethos more than any theological book ever did. It was through my daily praying of the BCP that prepared my very being for a conversion to Orthodoxy. It was often during my praying of the liturgy that theological doctrines would become clear to me. One day during Holy Communion at Holy Cross we were confessing the Nicene Creed when it hit me that the church is "one and catholic". What did we mean that the Catholic church is one? I had thought about this before but all of the sudden in the middle of the liturgy it hit me that my branch theory understanding of this is problematic. In my next post I want to explore the "Anglican branch theory" and what I, as an Anglican, believed about how the one church is catholic.

An Excellent Read

I have been reading this biography of over 1000 pages in my free time. I had no idea that Fr. Seraphim was such an intellectual. Also, this biography has many good pictures of Fr. Seraphim and those who influenced him. "This epic biography of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose tells the unique story of a man who, having grown up in a typical American home in southern California, became one of the greatest teachers of Orthodox Christianity in our times, loved and revered throughout Russia and Eastern Europe. Quoting at length from his letters, journals, manuscripts, recorded lectures and published writings, this book traces Fr. Seraphim’s intense search for truth and his philosophical development, setting forth his message and offering a glimpse into the soul of a man who lived, even while on this earth, in the otherworldly Kingdom of God".

A Quotation from Fr. Seraphim Rose

"Orthodoxy is better than Bach!"- Fr. Seraphim Rose

Orthodox Ecclesiology

I think the best Orthodox blog is Fr. Stephen Freeman's "Glory to God for All Things". His recent post on the "Pillar and Ground of Truth" is a good one. Also read his piece on St. Isaac of Syria. Well, just read his whole blog. http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2006/11/02/the-pillar-and-ground-of-truth/

Lutheran Pastor to Convert to Orthodoxy

Lutheran pastor John Fenton shares a statement of resignation on his blog "Conversi ad Dominum". It is a painful process to give up your parish ministry and your career so please pray for pastor Fenton and his family as they travel along the difficult but joyful path to Orthodoxy. Click title above to read his blog.