Apostolic succession of bishops

[Anna K.]

Hello dear all,

I have a question about the apostolic succesion. How many bishops are required for a new bishop to be appointed, is two proper? Are more needed and what if someone only has had two bishops laying hands on him? Will he still be a true bishop? Idon't know if I should even be asking this but I am.

Thank you, in Christ,
Anna, struggling

[Herman Blaydoe]

In Orthodox practice, three or more bishops generally participate in the ordination of a bishop. But it also requires the existance and participation of a flock for that bishop to be over as well. And that bishop is only a bishop in as much as he is faithful to the Apostolic Witness that has been entrusted to him, as determined by the symphonia of concensus of his fellow bishops and the Church as a whole.

[Father David Moser]

Anna,

Traditionally, no less that two bishops are necessary for the consecration of a new bishop, however, it must be noted that those two bishops are acting in concert as the visible agents of the Synod of bishops to which they belong. Before a new bishop is consecrated, he is also elected by the synod of bishops of which he will be a part. Ordination, like any of the other sacraments, is not magical - you can't just gather all the ingredients, say the magic words and no matter what the magic happens. Ordination is an organic act of the whole Body of Christ and so must be done within the Church in accordance with the will of the Church as expressed by the Synod of bishops. Because we in the west have a more "magical" view of sacraments (thanks in no small part to the teaching of the Roman Church about the "indelible mark of the priesthood" and the concepts of the "validity" and "licit-ness" of sacraments) there have arisen a number of "pseudo-bishops" who think that because they got all the right words and actions and vestments and a "paper trail" of apostolic succession that they are really bishops. They are not. They are not, because while they may have all the external forms right, because they are not connected to the living Church there is no life to those forms. Rather than a living bishop, they are more like a statue of a bishop.

Fr David Moser

[Anna K.]

Thank you Herman!

I'm struggling between two options of jurisdictions EP, the "official" finnish Church or the MP, two small private parishes, founded here in 1927 when the finnish Church took the new calendar (and the western Pascha-timing), now that I am soon hoping to join the Orthodox Church.

I don't know who to turn to, the issue is somewhat "political" here, and it would be a very strange thing here to turn to those small parishes not being a Russian or Russian-speaking person... But their practises that I know of seem right (services not shortened, traditional dress to Church, which I would really want to be able to have)

This seems like a temptation to make things just plain difficult for me! But too many things I see and hear in the Finnish Church dissappoints me and since I'm weak and don't really know, it makes me judge and feel resentful and I don't know if I can afford that (in terms of my salvation). So I'm thinking if I should take the very small minority option, don't know!

Guess I'll just have to collect all my courage (they only serve in Slavonic) and go see the MP-parish and pray for guidance.
A part of the parcel is that here it is said that it is uncanonical to have churches of different patriarchates in the same area, but I just read one of Father Raphael's old posts (in the thread "ROCOR") where he said there is no wrong practise in that. Which releived me somewhat.

In Christ Anna

[Anna K.]

Thank you also, Father David, Bless, your reply came while I was building up mine.

Pray for me to eventually find the right thing to do.

Trying to be patient
In Christ Anna

[Kosta]

Join the MP, I have a big problem with the Finns celebrating Pascha with the western groups. That they would choose to celebrate it with the heterodox than the Orthodox feels like a stinging slap to my face. Not to mention a few pan-Orthodox councils have condemned the new paschalion. I'm also disappointed by my finnish Orthodx brethren that they are not calling out to a return to the Pascha calculated at Nicea

[Anna K.]

I just read Father David's post again. You said the local Synod of bishops elect the new bishop. Here in the Finnish Church we have a different system, it's the Church council (including the bishops, and half of the members priests and half laymen) that elects the new bishop.
I'm surprised. Again.

In Christ
Anna

ps I tried to add a "confused"-smilie but seems I couldn't :-(

[Herman Blaydoe]

There is no single way to choose bishops. In the Acts of the Apostles, they cast lots! As has been said by sundry people at divers times, we do not belong to any organized religion, we are Orthodox!

[Anna K.]

Thank you Herman!

Anna

[Father David Moser]

I just read Father David's post again. You said the local Synod of bishops elect the new bishop. Here in the Finnish Church we have a different system, it's the Church council (including the bishops, and half of the members priests and half laymen) that elects the new bishop.

Yes, there are many "systems" - but in the end the Synod of bishops has the final approval of a candidate for the episcopacy. If they do not agree and consent to the ordination, then no matter how many people vote for him, then he is still not a bishop. And that's my point - it is an act of the whole synod, speaking in the name of their whole flock, not just one man or three men acting independently.

Fr David Moser

[Nina]

And that's my point - it is an act of the whole synod, speaking in the name of their whole flock,

Fr David Moser

Yes and that is why we have the tradition that the flock present approves the decision by confirming it with Axios = Worthy. There was one time that I know of, that some people said 'unworthy', but they were not members of the flock, thus were not even Orthodox.

[Anna K.]

Thank you all for your patience with me, and your answers.
I realise I have quite a heavy case of convert fever that makes me want definite answers about whatever crosses my path...

I notice my appetite for books has also increased again to the same amounts as it was when I first "met" Orthodoxy, so that either may ease your load here, or, maybe not.. :)

In Christ
Anna

[Nina]

Thank you all for your patience with me, and your answers.
I realise I have quite a heavy case of convert fever that makes me want definite answers about whatever crosses my path...

I notice my appetite for books has also increased again to the same amounts as it was when I first "met" Orthodoxy, so that either may ease your load here, or, maybe not.. :)

In Christ
Anna

Anna, feel very comfortable asking and do not worry about loads. I have many questions that need definite answers too and I am not a convert (although a convert now and then from sin, convert from atheism in early childhood).

Please do share what books are you reading because we are always interested in recommendations (actually I love the book on theosis you recommended here), and of course question and discussion. We all are learning.

[Michael Astley]

Anna,

Traditionally, no less that two bishops are necessary for the consecration of a new bishop, however, it must be noted that those two bishops are acting in concert as the visible agents of the Synod of bishops to which they belong. Before a new bishop is consecrated, he is also elected by the synod of bishops of which he will be a part. Ordination, like any of the other sacraments, is not magical - you can't just gather all the ingredients, say the magic words and no matter what the magic happens. Ordination is an organic act of the whole Body of Christ and so must be done within the Church in accordance with the will of the Church as expressed by the Synod of bishops. Because we in the west have a more "magical" view of sacraments (thanks in no small part to the teaching of the Roman Church about the "indelible mark of the priesthood" and the concepts of the "validity" and "licit-ness" of sacraments) there have arisen a number of "pseudo-bishops" who think that because they got all the right words and actions and vestments and a "paper trail" of apostolic succession that they are really bishops. They are not. They are not, because while they may have all the external forms right, because they are not connected to the living Church there is no life to those forms. Rather than a living bishop, they are more like a statue of a bishop.

Fr David Moser

Thank you for this, Father. I am often at pains to explain to my Catholic and Anglican friends how we understand these matters. It is difficult because Catholicism's official teaching, adopted by many Anglo-Catholics, sees the Sacraments as being capable of existing and operating separately from, and independently of, the Church. That is why there has traditionally been such a problem in the west with the phenomenon of episcopi vagantes. While many such vagantes claim to be Orthodox, they number nowhere near as many as those who claim to be Catholic because they know that their claims to legitimacy will not be recognised by Orthodox people, for we simply do not see the Sacraments that way. They are intrinsically bound up with the life of the Church, for the sanctification of its people, and to suggest that they are operate independently seems to me to reduce them to nothing more than magic spells.

One analogy that I like to draw is that of a mobile phone. It is manufactured as a mobile phone but will only function as such within signal range, when it is part of a network and is able to make and receive telephone calls. If you were to take it to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it wouldn't change the fact that it had been manufactured as a mobile phone but it would become defunct because it would be removed from the context in which it has any real meaning: it cannot function independently of the network. Similarly, a bishop who leaves the communion of the Church and performs the externals of the rite of ordinations, baptisms, chrismations, divine liturgies, and so forth, is not actually functioning as a bishop, because such things cannot possibly exist separately from the Church, which they feed and in which they have their meaning as means of the grace of God for the salvation of those within.

This is so different from what my Catholic and Anglican friends have been taught that it is often difficult for many of them to grasp my meaning. I first found myself having to explain such things when I made it known that I was to become Orthodox and people asked why, (my initial reasons were due to my learning of the nature of the Church, ecclesiology, the place of the Sacraments within that, and that my priest was not a priest, my baptism was not a Baptism, and so forth). It came to a head when I was baptised into the Church and some of my friends considered this to be heretical, as I had already been baptised in the Anglican church. It was so difficult to explain to them why I could not consider the rite performed on me in the Anglican church as a Baptism in any sacramental sense without them understanding the obvious implications that this had for how I understood their baptisms, and thereby becoming offended. I often didn't handle these situations well at all and wish that I had spoken more graciously at times.

How does one go about witnessing the Truth while doing so in a loving way? So many people have been steeped in ideas that are so far removed from Christianity that they find it genuinely foreign when they encounter beliefs that don't fit with the model that is all that they have ever known as Christian. Things like joint prayer in spite of opposing confessions and resultant severed communion, and the branch theory and similar ecclesiologies, are things that are so taken for granted that people are shocked to hear such things condemned. I don't make a point of saying to my friends, 'You're all wrong and you have no Sacraments, na-na-na-na-na!' At the same time, there are times when they invite me to things or ask me to help with services, and I feel I have to decline, or I go because they're my friends and it's important to them but I sit discreetly near the back and don't join in, and they ask why. On one occasion, a friend who asked me to help with music for a service was bending over backwards to make the service Orthodox-friendly, not realising that this was futile, yet he was genuinely being as kind as he could, which made it all the more difficult to say 'no' each time he made a new concession. In the end, I helped with the music and joined in nothing else, seeing my participation in the same way that many singers do when they sing at services as part of a choir because they enjoy choral music, even though they would describe themselves as atheists or agnostics. They see themselves as professional musicians providing a service or doing a favour for a friend, and not as worshippers. Even then I wasn't entirely comfortable.

Has anybody read Fr Thomas Hopko's Speaking the Truth in Love, and, if so, have you found it helpful?

Thank you so much.

Pax,
Michael