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Weren't there some Lutherans in Detroit who left the ELCA in the last couple of years and went over to WR Orthodoxy under the Antiochian Archdiocese?

Regardless of the state of Anglican orders in the 19th century, today their line of apostolic succession is hopelessly corrupted because of the ordination of women to the episcopate. These women have, in turn, ordained men to the presbyterate who in their turn have become bishops. Since their ordinations to the presbyterate were highly irregular, any priests ordained by them would not have valid orders in turn. As these men rise to the episcopate, the situation becomes even more confused. The ordination of women has a corrosive and corrupting effect on Anglican orders.

And we haven't even gotten to the point of addressing the ordination of active homosexuals to the episcopate, yet.

All that aside, there is more to the validity of orders than merely an unbroken chain of hand-laying. If that were the case, then all those Orthodox vagante bishops would be canonical, and they aren't. Ordination is an ecclesial act, which implies not just meeting some legal preconditions, but also acting according to the mind of the Church--which, most assuredly, the Anglican communion has not done since its inception in the 16th century.

Careful! The Church long ago condemned Donatism as a heresy - the morals or lack thereof in either the ordaining prelate or the ordinand cannot invalidate the ordination.

Fr. Serge

It's not a matter of morals per se, but that the Anglicans proceeded to ordain a man who, by his own admission, routinely violated canons that would disqualify him from any Church ministry, and who, again by his own admission, insisted he would continue that particular mode of behavior after his ordination. That would indicate that the ECUSA (or TEC if you prefer) was not acting in accordance with the mind of the undivided Church when it ordained him. His ordination, therefore, would be null even if, by some miracle, an unbroken line of succession had been maintained--which it was not, insofar as Catherine Jefforts Schiori was one of the bishops ordaining him.

IIRC, Pope Leo stated that the rite of Anglican ordination itself had been defective for some centuries. Consequently, it couldn't be used to validly ordain anyone.

One of the priestly instructors involved in my formation to the diaconate once stated in class: "Thank God that we are not Donatists!"

Dn. Robert

In my area, there are two Roman Catholic parishes and an Anglican parish. Liturgically, the Anglican parish can run circles around the Roman parishes and thier Novus Ordo mass. The Anglican parish celebrates the Tridentine mass in Elizabethian English while the Roman parish celebrates the Novus Ordo in modern English.

Likewise, I hear orthodox doctrine preached from the Anglican pulpit, but liberal politics from the Roman. What I have stumbled upon is "Lex orandi, lex credendi" in action. The law of prayer establishes belief. The Anglican parish is both orthodox and orthopaxic, while the Roman is neither.

The Vincentian Canon is "that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That is truly and properly 'Catholic'." So which parish is Catholic? The Anglican or Roman? Which parish preaches and holds fast to the faith once delivered to the saints?

I'm from Detroit, and I think those folks belonged to St. John's Episcopal Church and Zion Lutheran Church. Zion is actually Misourri Synod.