RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Ordericus Vitalis Ordination
confused), and discarding several symbolical ceremonies which had gathered around and sometimes obscured the earlier and necessary forms. In all the early rites, according to L. Duchesne (Christian Worship, p. 377, London, 1904), " the ceremony of ordination consists especially of a prayer recited over the candidate in a public and solemn assembly. This prayer is accompanied by the imposition of hands." This solemn prayer is preceded in the English ordinal by an examination of the candidate in the presence of the people, with a challenge to any to object to the ordination of an unworthy man, by a bidding to prayer and the saying of the litany with special suffrages, by the invocation, in the case of the ordination of a priest or a bishop, of the Holy Spirit in the ancient hymn Veni Creator Spiritus. The imposition of hands by the bishop is accompanied by an imperative formula: (1) " Take thou Authority to execute the Office of a Deacon in the Church of God committed unto thee; in the Name," etc. (2) " Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven, and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments; in the Name," etc. (The American Book has an alternative formula: " Take thou Authority to execute the Office of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands. And be thou a faithful Dispenser, etc."). (3) " Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Bishop in the Church of God, now committed unto thee," etc.
In the ordination of a priest, the attending priests unite with the bishop in the laying on of hands; in the consecration of a bishop three bishops concur. This is followed by the delivery of the New Testament to a deacon, of a Bible to a priest and to a bishop with an appropriate commission or charge. In the ordinal of 1550 the priest received with the Bible a chalice and bread, and the bishop with the Bible a pastoral staff. These relics of the porrectio instrumentorum (a comparatively late feature in the conferring of the holy — as distinct from the minor — orders) were dropped in 1552. The idea undoubtedly was to emphasize the supreme importance of the teaching office of the ministry, its prophetic and pastoral aspects having been overshadowed by an exaggerated stress laid on the sacerdotal side. But authority to minister the sacraments was explicitly conferred along with the preaching of the Word. For all these changes from the more elaborate rites ample sanction will be found in the earlier forms of ordination, such as those given in the Canons of Hippolytus, the Apostolical Constitutions, and the Prayer Book of Serapion, Bishop of Thmuis in Egypt (q.v.).
The whole rite of ordination is interwoven, as of old, with the service of the holy communion, deacons being ordained between the Epistle and the Gospel (that one of them may exercise his prerogative of reading the appointed Gospel in its proper place), priests after the Gospel and bishops after the Creed, A. C, A, Hall,
Bibliography: L. Duchesne, Christian Worship: its Origin and Evolution, chap, x., London, 1904; F. Proctor and W. H. Frere, A New Hist, of the Book of Common Prayer, pp. 648-673 et passim, ib. 1905; J. H. Blunt, Annotated Book of Common Prayer, pp. 32, 460, 657 sqq., New York, 1908.
ORDINARY: In canon law this expression denotes the bishop of the diocese as the ordinary judge, that is, the regular and customary possessor of jurisdiction within his diocese. In contradistinction to the ordinary are all those churchmen who are regularly in possession of jurisdiction, but only through a delegation of the power from the ordinary, such as the vicars-general and officials, also those who for especial reasons have been exceptionally summoned by the pope to the direction of the ecclesiastical affairs of a diocese, such as the coadjutors. All bishops are not ordinaries; for instance, the suffragan bishops, and especially all the so-called titular bishops. See Bishop; Bishop, Titular. E. Sehlinq.
ORDINATION: The solemn act by which men are set apart for the Christian ministry. The ordinance is differently understood in different branches of the Church and the manner of its administration varies. The Greek and Roman Catholic Churches hold ordination one of the seven sacraments (see Sacrament). The Council of Trent declared that by it " a character is imprinted which can neither be effaced nor taken away "; the words of the bishop, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," impart this character; hence those who have once been duly ordained can never again become laymen (session xxiii., Doctrina de sacra- The Greek mento ordinis). The " character " is and Roman independent of the person or life of Catholic either ordinant or candidate, and, like Churches, baptism, ordination may not be repeated. To ordain belongs to the bishop and every bishop has the power; but in certain cases presbyters may ordain to the four minor orders (e.g., an abbot may ordain one already subject to him in his monastery). Every ordination by a properly ordained bishop is " valid " (valida), but that it be also " lawful " (licita) certain provisions of canon law must be complied with, e.g., the bishop must not be a heretic, a schismatic, or suspended, and must act within his competency. Hence ordination by Swedish, Danish, and Anglican bishops is not recognized by Rome. As to competency, the principle is that the candidate must be under the jurisdiction of the ordinant according to canon law. The bishop is bound to exclude the incompetent and unfit (see Irregularity), and to observe the rules as to rite, place, and time.
In the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, ordination has not the significance of a sacrament; the view of the English Reformers was not that the laying on of hands conferred any grace. Bishops The alone have the right to ordain; and Anglican the generally accredited view is, that Churches, ordination not performed by episcopal hands is invalid. Presbyterial ordination, however, was acknowledged by the Reformers of the Elizabethan period. The custom now prevails universally, of reordaining clergymen
Ordination Organ