Validity of Protestant Holy Orders

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I’m in a discussion with some protestants about ordination and who can validly give the sacraments, and I’m seeking a simple explanation that I can give them. I can’t figure out how to vocalize what I’m thinking (and I’m not so sure it’s 100% true anyways), so I need some help.

So far, I’m mostly asking them questions, trying to find out what they’re thinking. I asked them how they think ordination works, if they believe that their ministers need to be ordained by someone who can trace their ordination back to the apostles, and how breaking off and forming schismatic or heretical groups would impact the sacraments those people perform. Then it occurred to me that I don’t fully understand how this works. For example, why is it that we recognize the Orthodox as having valid sacraments, but not any protestants?

Any help would be appreciated, even not-so-simple resources that I can look at later for my own benefit.
 
Most Protestants today do not accept the sacrament of Holy Orders, most of the other sacraments, or the concept of Apostolic Succession. Many Protestants do practice baptism and many have a form of communion, although it is very different from the Catholic/Orthodox Eucharist.

The Eastern Orthodox Churches maintained valid bishops in apostolic succession and all seven sacraments after their break with Rome. Martin Luther and the other Protestant reformers developed somewhat different theologies regarding the sacraments. The sacrament of Holy Orders was soon lost to them. According to the Catholic Church, the only valid sacraments that Protestants have are Baptism and Holy Matrimony, as these two do not require valid clergy in apostolic succession.
 
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As an ex-Lutheran who attended a pentecostal leaning group for a few years, now a Catholic,I can say that the term ordination is loose in many denominations. For instance, in one such campus group the title of pastor meant you interned for one year at a campus group as an adminstrator while learning their doctrines. Then the next year you were considered a pastor who could admistrate, bless “communion”, do baptisms, and pretty much any other function a pastor would do. While I was Lutheran, to be ordained LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod), you had to be a graduated seminarian with atleast one year of LCMS Lutheran devoted studies, if you came from another sect of Lutheranism. You then could be “called” to lead a church by the individual church board. Pretty much if a church chooses you via interview and it is considered blessed you are a called employee.

In many cases the word ordination does not quite fit. I find when talking with my protestant friends, saying called. But in terms of explaining how it is passed on, the problem is the way in which schisms occured.

As a past Lutheran, we did not have an Original Catholic Bishop to ordain any priests beyond Luther. So, if Luther became ex-communicated and stripped of his ability to practice valid sacraments as did his successors (who could not be ordained without a bishop), no Lutheran to date was ever truly ordained. Without a bishop to confer priesthood the ordination line effectivly died. The same is true of baptists and the like who now even have their own sacremental theologies.
 
The real issue has to do with sacramental theology. The Protestants do not have sacraments in the sense that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox understand as sacraments. There was a question and about the Anglican Communion for a number of years but this question was put to bed when Pope Leo XIII declared that the Anglican orders are also invalid. They made a change to the episcopal ordination and that all of the Anglican ordinations were not valid. Without valid orders there is no priesthood.
At the time of Vatican II, there was the hope that with good will and dialog this could be resolved but with the Anglican ordinations of women this has taken them further from that possibility.
 
Generally speaking, Protestant views of ordination fall into 2 basic categories (and that’s just a start).

A–those who do not believe in any kind of Apostolic Succession at all. To those in this category, it a non-issue, an irrelevant question. Their local leaders (pastor, preacher, bishop, apostle, presider, etc. whatever word they might use) are simply whomever they choose. They might have certain requirements such as minimum age or minimum education, but they don’t have any real spiritual requirements beyond that of being chosen by the local community.

B–those who do believe in some form of succession. This category gets complicated indeed. Please note that I am going to be very brief here—so please, no snippy retorts like “you failed to mention…”

First of all, none of them actually have Apostolic Succession currently. Every community arising out of the Reformation of Luther has either lost or never had Apostolic Succession.

Each community will have its own response. Some will simply say that they never lost Succession. Some will say that even though they lost the direct line of succession, somehow or another the community either created or discovered a substitute form of Succession. Sometimes this is ordination by a presbyter (ie priest non-bishop) or ordination by the lay members of the congregation. Some will say that being chosen and appointed by the local community is itself the essential form of Succession. Some will say that even though their particular denomination cannot claim direct Succession by itself, they did receive it from another denomination who (in their judgement) had it at the time–for example, a group that is only 20 years old but claims that their bishops received Succession from another denomination.

The point here is that there is no one, single way of looking at Succession that can be labeled “Protestant.”
 
90% of Protestants won’t even know what you are talking about.
 
FrDavid96 said:
Generally speaking, Protestant views of ordination fall into 2 basic categories (and that’s just a start).

A–those who do not believe in any kind of Apostolic Succession at all. To those in this category, it a non-issue, an irrelevant question. Their local leaders (pastor, preacher, bishop, apostle, presider, etc. whatever word they might use) are simply whomever they choose. They might have certain requirements such as minimum age or minimum education, but they don’t have any real spiritual requirements beyond that of being chosen by the local community.

B–those who do believe in some form of succession. This category gets complicated indeed. Please note that I am going to be very brief here—so please, no snippy retorts like “you failed to mention…”

First of all, none of them actually have Apostolic Succession currently. Every community arising out of the Reformation of Luther has either lost or never had Apostolic Succession.

Each community will have its own response. Some will simply say that they never lost Succession. Some will say that even though they lost the direct line of succession, somehow or another the community either created or discovered a substitute form of Succession. Sometimes this is ordination by a presbyter (ie priest non-bishop) or ordination by the lay members of the congregation. Some will say that being chosen and appointed by the local community is itself the essential form of Succession. Some will say that even though their particular denomination cannot claim direct Succession by itself, they did receive it from another denomination who (in their judgement) had it at the time–for example, a group that is only 20 years old but claims that their bishops received Succession from another denomination.
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Do all the ecclesial communions that claim apostolic succession for themselves consider the RCC to have it also? My guess is that, aside from a few tiny cults, most or all would.
 
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The ones I’m speaking to do. They say that their church has valid holy orders even though they had to get their “apostolic succession” from the Catholic Church.
 
Thom18 said:
The ones I’m speaking to do. They say that their church has valid holy orders even though they had to get their “apostolic succession” from the Catholic Church.
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Okay I am not a Mormon so please do not take my word for it.

But I would argue the Premise that it needed to come from the Catholic Church. That would be assuming we all agree the early Church was in its essance the same Catholic Church as today. Which is the part I would challenge.

Side note: Please don’t discuss with me the mormons. I think we will agree too much.
 
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I wasn’t talking about mormons. The protestants I’m talking about are Anglican.
 
commenter said:
Do all the ecclesial communions that claim apostolic succession for themselves consider the RCC to have it also? My guess is that, aside from a few tiny cults, most or all would.
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With the qualification not to take the word “all” too literally, as far as I know, yes. And as you said, there might be some small ones who do not.

I would caution though, that accepting that Catholics have Apostolic Succession might not always translate into accepting it the same way that Catholics would accept valid Succession in non-Catholics. In practical terms, Catholics do not re-ordain to the same order, so if someone has been validly ordained a priest (even outside the Church) re-ordination is not possible. In contrast, some Reformation communities believe that ordination only applies to that particular local congregation—so even a minister with decades of experience in the same denomination must be “ordained” somehow by the local community before functioning there. Again, in practical terms, they might accept him as a visiting preacher, or a substitute for the pastor’s vacation, but not allow him to lead their version of the Lord’s Supper without first being “ordained” somehow by the local community.
 
Thom18 said:
I wasn’t talking about mormons. The protestants I’m talking about are Anglican.
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That really does change things.

It changes the whole conversation. Because now we’re talking specifically about Anglicans we don’t have to address what other Protestants might or might not be thinking.

If you’re speaking specifically to Anglicans, and not just to some group of divers Protestants in general, that puts things into an entirely different perspective.

For the most part (as much as we can generalize) Anglicans believe the same thing about Apostolic Succession as do Catholics. They have a much looser way of defining it in practical terms, and would accept all sorts of succession that Catholics would never even consider, but as far as their general definition goes, it’s close enough to Catholic to be almost identical.

The issue of Anglican attempts at Ordination is actually a very frequent and (searching for a word here) documented topic. A lot of theological academic work is dedicated to this specific topic. And I do mean a lot!

There was a Papal bull on the Nullity of Anglican Orders (called “Apostolicae curae”) issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1896. There is a link to it at the beginning of this thread.

The part of the conversation that doesn’t change though is that Anglican attempts at ordination are null and void. Despite what they claim, they do not have Apostolic Succession.
 
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It’s okay. I was responding to your first post. I just now realized you made a second.
 
I think most of our protestant friends have a very different idea of ordination. My neighbor borrowed a black tie from me a few months ago as he was entering the diaconate at a baptist church he had just jointed a few months prior to that.

They really don’t have the long formation programs or anything, they just move them right on into various tasks.

Years ago, I belonged to a union. If a member came to a meeting to show interest, they could be pretty certain they would be elected to be chapter secretary or something, to obligate them to coming. I think that’s the same way some protestant churches move people into the supporting roles.
 
Why is this important to you in your discussions with them?
How does “we are right you are wrong” help even if they do not have “validity” as we understand it.
 
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It’s a moot point…if protestants acknowledged all Church teachings, doctrine, dogma, rites, laws, instructions, etc., they would be Catholic.

The burden is on us, disciples in full communion with the Church to take on the awesome and difficult responsibilities and obligation to catechise them.

We must always remember, especially given the Gospel message proclaimed at Mass today, that while in our Church they may be aliens, we are to love them, not judge them.

Christ will judge, but whether or not they accept, acknowledge, or receive the Sacraments as we do, will not necessarily block their salvation.

As the Church has definitively, the Beatific Vision, and Heaven is not the exclusive property of Chrisians or Catholics.
 
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