A Review of Eucharistic Presidency: A Theological Statement by the House of Bishops of the General Synod

By John Richardson

On July 10th 1994, the General Synod of the Church of England passed a motion stating:

Given this wording, and the people to whom it was directed, the outcome was always a foregone conclusion. (Can anyone imagine the House of Bishops departing from Anglican tradition without external pressures on them?) Hence reading Eucharistic Presidency is a bit like watching an episode of Columbo, the detective in the dirty raincoat who always has an inkling 'who dunnit' within the first ten minutes of any episode. We know lay presidency is going to be rejected - the only matter of 'plot' interest is how. But here, to switch comparisons, the Bishops' plot has more inconsistencies in it than Independence Day.

However, unlike the latter, this report has only two 'special effects'. First, it is in A4 format, which means it won't sit on your bookshelf next to other Anglican reports. Second, the content of every paragraph is summarised in the margin of each page. After reading a selection of these summaries I decided they were only edited 'quotes' from the text itself and ignored them entirely from then on. To me this seemed an unnecessary gimmick. Most people who want to do so will be capable of reading the report as it stands and don't need the sort of 'help' which simply makes it bigger than necessary.

The Preface to the report starts boldly enough by recognising the need to test inherited traditions. It further states that the Bishops invited 'a number of theologians of different denominations and theological traditions to help with the enquiry' including 'scholars known to be in favour of lay presidency'. [Note: P ix] For this we must be grateful, though who they were is a matter for conjecture, since the report is too coy to name them. However, the report itself is hardly in the spirit of Ralph Nader, or even a decent MOT. No danger here of the tradition being 'tested to destruction'. It would be interesting to know, for example, how many of those involved in the final composition of the report favoured lay presidency. However, the report is offered 'for study and reflection' [Note: P xi] and it is to be hoped that a more aggressive challenge to the assumptions of the past will be accepted as part of this process.

The report proper begins with some definitions of terms. The 'clergy', for example, 'are those of the laity called by God and ordained by the Church to ministry in the orders of bishop, priest/presbyter or deacon.' [Note: 1.2, p 1] The concessionary use of presbyter is, one feels, rather offset by this early example of the report's tendency to use the capitalised 'Church' indiscriminately for 'the Universal Church' and 'the Church of England', as well as the begged questions as to (a) the validity of the notion of 'orders' and (b) whether bishop and presbyter are indeed different.

Meanwhile, the laity are defined as those not so ordained, but it is important also to know how the report defines 'lay presidency'. Eschewing the notion that presidency is merely 'the consecration and administration of the sacrament' (whilst simultaneously begging several more questions) the report defines lay presidency as:

This definition is subtle and crucial since much of the argument of the report hinges on the notion of 'the overseeing of the entire ... celebration'. More of this later.

The report continues by outlining the past history of this issue in the Church of England - or, as it suggests, the significant lack of such a history. However, here as elsewhere it fails entirely to take account of the similar situation regarding women's ordination. When the report says 'It would be foolish to set aside lightly the long, sustained and many-sided tradition which has resisted lay presidency', [Note: 1.18, p 5] we are entitled to respond 'Certainly foolish if done lightly - but clearly not impossible after due consideration.' Similarly, when the report quotes a 1976 report saying that if a bishop licensed a lay person to celebrate communion it would be 'a real cause for division' [Note: 1.24, p 7] it invites the response, 'Indeed - but so was the ordination of women.' The fact that women's ordination has the tacit support of most of the House of Bishops must surely disallow any argument on their part which is based simply on a lack of past precedent or potential for future division.

Having laid out its ground-rules (and largely revealed its hand in the process) the report then proceeds in its second chapter to an examination of the nature of the Church in the light of Trinitarian theology. Those who feel the current interest in Trinitarianism to be more of a fad than a faith may be forgiven a certain cynicism at this point. However, in fairness to the report, it does recognise the variety of ecclesiologies which may be supported by various notions of Trinitarianism - reflecting, no doubt, the hand of the theologians in its original drafting. Even so, when the third paragraph declares that 'we seek in this chapter to outline an ecclesiology which will best serve our main concerns', [Note: 2.3 p 13, emphasis added] those cynical alarm bells ring again.

However, the bells positively fall off the wall in the section on 'Church and Spirit' (2.20-2.28). Immediately before I reached this section, I made the marginal note 'Christ as head not mentioned yet'. Lo and behold, he is mentioned as such in the very next paragraph - yet pejoratively:

The report calls this 'an over-strong orientation to christology' [Note: 2.20, p 19] which, it claims, 'will tend to lay too heavy a stress on the past historical and so institutional aspects of ecclesiology'. [Note: 2.20, p 19]

Even allowing for the fact that the three asserted characteristics of Western ecclesiology given above may be scored respectively 'wrong', [Note: The church originates in the Old Testament, not the New.] 'right, but only in the present era' and 'right', it is surely astonishing to adduce an emphasis on Christ as Head of the Church as evidence of a wrong ecclesiology! If the bishops mean what they appear to be saying at this point, we are in far more serious trouble than I ever imagined.

But worse follows. The report goes on to assert 'it is arguable that ecclesiology needs to be based as much on pneumatology as on christology'. [Note: 2.21, p 19, emphasis added] Of course it is true that a proper ecclesiology must reflect a rounded Trinitarianism. Nevertheless, to suggest that ecclesiology might be based 'as much' on the person and work of the Spirit as on the person and work of Christ is questionable, if not actually heretical. Of course, if the term 'as much' simply means 'properly', then there is no problem although there is a truism. In this sense, ecclesiology also needs to be based 'as much' on our understanding of the Father as on pneumatology and christology. However, the instances of the influence of christology given above suggest a belief that there is too great an emphasis on Christ in our ecclesiology, quite apart from the under-emphasis of pneumatology. This assertion must be challenged urgently since the outcome is a subtle weakening of the link with the past work of Christ in favour of a present work of the Spirit:

Irreplaceable as the foundational history of Jesus is, we are related not simply historically through time to a 'past Christ' but by means of the Spirit to the living Christ now[.] [Note: 2.28, p 21]

Whilst the meaning of this statement is nuanced by its context in a discussion of institutionalism, the drift it represents from 'christocentric' to 'pneumatocentric' ecclesiology is disturbing, and (as I hope to demonstrate) ironically contributes to the report's own 'institutionalist' conclusions.

Meanwhile, the discussion of the Trinity is related, via an analogy, to the third section of the report entitled 'The church's ministry and ministries':

It seems to escape the attention of the report's compilers that in 1 Corinthians, as in Romans 12:3-8, the apostle Paul argues for diversity in the church by analogy not with the Trinity but with the human body. And yet the former analogy was presumably available to him in some form since he draws on differences within the godhead when he speaks of the differences of behaviour between men and women in the same letter (ie 1 Cor 11:2-16). Given the similarity between his argument at this point and that used in the report (cf. 3.5, p 23), it is noteworthy that he chooses a more mundane model of diversity to speak about the church. This makes one wonder about the appropriateness of the whole section on the Trinity in the report, particularly regarding the ontology of its argument for diversity.

In any case, the argument quickly turns into an apologia for the existing institutional forms of ministry. In this section the report particularly displays its inability to critique the present (or indeed the past) radically in the light of biblical and theological discussion. We pass seamlessly from an admission that 'all attempts to read off one divinely authorised form of ... ministry from the New Testament are futile' [Note: 3.12, p 25, emphasis added] to an acceptance that for some 'our view of [the developments which led to the institutionalising of the ministry] may be that they took place under the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit' (albeit 'not free of ambiguities and dangers'). [Note: 3.15, p 26, emphasis added] Even though it is implied that not all take this view, there is little serious recognition of the gulf between our modern institutionalism and the fluidity (not to say liberty) of the New Testament. Thus, for example, it is acknowledged that the Anglican 'three-fold order of bishop, priest/presbyter and deacon has become established', [Note: 3.18, p 27] without reflecting on either the preceding recognition that the New Testament bishops and presbyters were one and the same (3.13) or the fact that the Anglican diaconate is (usually) a mere 'probationary presbyterate'. [Note: Surely few scholars today would agree without qualification to the assertion in the Ordinal that 'It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.' However, valuable the Ordinal may be, it is not without its own culturally conditioned presuppositions.] Further discussion of the difference between lay and ordained is similarly lacking in biblical referents.

Crucially, the concept of ordained ministry which emerges in this section is of,

This role gives the minister 'a distinctive relationship to the Church as a whole' which, according to the report, is 'a permanent relationship, signified by the use of the traditional term character'. [Note: 3.29, p 31. There seems to be some tension, however, between the assertion of the permanence of 'character' (cf also 5.18) and the apparently critical view of indelibility expressed later (4.29). In fact, medieval theology paired the two terms of character and indelibility.] However, given its significance, it is a serious omission that there is no acknowledgment of the lack of any similar view in the New Testament. In this new relationship, it is further asserted, the ordained express the 'four "marks" of the Church' representatively on behalf of the community which, it is alleged, 'elicits, tests and ratifies the ordinand's calling'. [Note: 3.30, p 31] Yet there is again no demonstration of a New Testament parallel or an unambiguous theological source for these ideas. Nor is there any proof that episcopal ordination is the necessary or best way of achieving this supposed end.

Notwithstanding these glosses, this concept of the ordained ministry is next brought to bear on the issue of 'Eucharistic Presidency'. But here the report performs another audacious piece of question-begging:

Consequently, there is no analysis of Eucharist theology - only a series of unexamined assertions. Yet this sits rather awkwardly alongside the acknowledgment in the Preface that the Bishops received 'a precise and particular request to elucidate eucharistic theology and the respective roles of the clergy and laity within it'. [Note: P x, emphasis added] The report excuses itself thus: Yet how can there be a discussion of the roles of clergy and laity without some examination of the theology behind the term 'Eucharist'? Unfortunately, one suspects that at this point the bishops looked at the label on the can and realised it said 'Worms'. Not surprisingly, therefore, having decided to duck the big issue, this chapter continues to beg questions at every turn: 'To begin with, we affirm that the Eucharist is a means of a genuine sharing in Christ'. [Note: 4.2, p 34] But how and why? And is there any relationship between what we do and what the New Testament describes? The list is potentially endless and increases with every paragraph.

Most bizarrely, in this section the report returns to its earlier emphasis on the Holy Spirit with the assertion that, 'The epiclesis - the invocation of the Holy Spirit - is ... a crucial part of the eucharistic action'. [Note: 4.7, p 36] For an action which is so crucial, it is amazing, therefore, that the Church of England managed to do without it for four hundred years. Cranmer expunged the epiclesis of the 1549 Prayer Book from his 1552 revision, and so it remained from 1662 until the latter part of this century. [Note: The words of 1549 are: 'Hear us (o merciful father) we beseech thee; and with thy holy spirit and word, vouchsafe to bl†ess and sanc†tify these thy gifts and creatures of bread and wine, that they may be unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved son Jesus Christ.' In 1552 these were replaced by, 'Hear us O merciful father we beseech thee; and grant that we, receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed body and blood ...' The epiclesis of the Holy Spirit disappears and the effect of the prayer focuses on the recipients, not the 'elements'.]

This section also contains frequent use of the report's 'Snarkian' Rule of Two. In The Hunting of the Snark whatever was said three times was true. Similarly, whatever is said in this report and in a statement from one of the forty-four other reports quoted, is taken as true (eg 4.4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and especially 46 which refers to five such reports in one note). Someone should have pointed out that agreement is not the same as evidence! One writer has already complained of the 'self-referential committee culture' of modern Anglicanism. This report clearly approves of (and undoubtedly will add to) that culture. Yet unless these reports agree with the word of God in their conclusions, they are but 'shifting sand'. The tendency merely to repeat conclusions rather than test them is at best irritating, at worst self-delusory.

However, the reason for the lack of hard evidence in this section is not hard to find since, as the report itself acknowledges, 'there is an extreme sparsity of unambiguous reference to the Eucharist in the New Testament'. [Note: 4.22, p 42] Actually, if by 'the Eucharist' we mean what this report clearly assumes, namely a liturgical 'service' held by president and a congregation which focuses on the reception of consecrated 'tokens' of bread and wine, it would be fairer to say there is a complete absence of any unambiguous reference. However, that does not stop a foregone conclusion being reached. The immediately preceding section faces the same problem, but has its own solution. There, in spite of a similar acknowledgment that 'Evidence about the role in worship of the earliest Christian community-leaders is extremely sparse', [Note: 4.20, p 41] the report continues from what 'may be supposed', via what 'is probable', to the conclusion that 'it is possible' that the elders of whom we know so little 'were (or became)' the liturgical leaders of the community. This, in spite of also acknowledging that 'as far as eucharistic presidency is concerned, there is no indication anywhere in the New Testament of an explicit link between the Church's office and presiding at the Eucharist'. [Note: 4.21, p 41, emphasis added] But even though certain conclusions may be 'possible' or even 'probable', if we have little evidence for the nature of the Eucharist as such (and what we have suggests it was quite different from what we now do, cf especially 1 Cor 11:21), or for a Eucharistic ministry, or for Eucharistic prayers, how can we assume dogmatically that the Eucharist as we know it existed then or that, if it did, we are practising it correctly now? We cannot simply duck the question, as the report does, and then apply a theology of ministry to the liturgical status quo. Thus although the report goes on to examine how the understanding of the Eucharist became institutionalised and clericalised, it does not really confront the critical questions this raises about our current practises which clearly owe much to this era of departure from biblical understanding.

When this historical survey comes to the Reformation it is particularly irritating. The report makes frequent play of the assertion that 'the Reformation doctrine of the "priesthood of all believers" meant a corporate sharing in the one and unique priesthood of Jesus Christ'. [Note: 4.32, p 46] The implication drawn is that an individual 'priesthood' was never envisaged and that the concept therefore has little bearing on the current debate. [Note: 5.6, p 53, 'the priesthood of all believers is ... not an individual mandate'.] However, as the report fleetingly acknowledges (4.34), for Martin Luther at least, the concept meant precisely that lay celebration of the Eucharist was perfectly permissible. Thus, in a startling 'down-grading' of the Eucharist, he wrote,

Luther did restrict the performance of this ministry to those whom the congregation called, since no-one should annex to themselves a function to which all were entitled. However, when Luther spoke of the church exercising this calling he meant the local congregation, as is made clear by the title of his 1523 tract, That a Christian Assembly or Congregation Has the Right and Power to Judge All Teaching and to Call, Appoint, and Dismiss Teachers, Established and Proven by Scripture. [Note: Thus Luther wrote, 'if a little company of pious Christian laymen were taken prisoners and carried away to a desert, and had not among them a priest consecrated by a bishop, and were there to agree to elect one of them ... this man would as truly be a priest, as if all the bishops and all the popes had consecrated him' (To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation).] This is in direct opposition to the later conclusions of the report, that calling is not a matter for the congregation (5.8). Again, Luther reached a different conclusion from the report when he taught that just as someone could be called to the ministry of word and sacrament, so they could return to their former role at any stage in the future (contra 3.29, 5.18). Whilst it appears that Luther's more radical ideals were not taken up generally, the implication in the report that his doctrine of the priesthood of all believers supports its conclusions and has no bearing on lay presidency is belied by the evidence.

The conclusion of this section begins with the assertion that 'the president's role is not to do something instead of the people ... but ... to ensure that the whole people together properly celebrate the sacrament'. [Note: 4.43, p 48, emphasis original] As such, the president is to be, in particular 'a sign and focus of the unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity of the Church and the one who has primary responsibility for ensuring that the Church's four marks are expressed, actualised and made visible in the eucharistic celebration'. [Note: 4.45, p 49, emphasis original. The 'four marks' are, of course, unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity.] Thus it is finally concluded that

It is at this point (on the ground of its own choosing) that the report is at its most persuasive. Provided we accept its view the nature of the Eucharist, the Christian community and the ministry, this conclusion does, indeed, seem 'distinctly appropriate'. But none of this has been proved and until it is we must not allow ourselves to fall in with this conclusion. The report has described the historical development of ministry which led to the present Anglican orders, but, in spite of its appeal to Trinitarianism, it has made no necessary connection between our existing orders and either the biblical material or our understanding of the nature and purposes of God. Indeed, it would be reasonable to conclude from the evidence presented that only one of the existing Anglican orders, namely the presbyterate, even remotely resembles anything which can be found in the New Testament. Moreover, in spite of its commission, the report has entirely avoided any analysis of the theology of the Eucharist so that a discussion of the roles of clergy and laity within it again rests on untested assumptions.

Perhaps not surprisingly, therefore, it is in the final sections that even greater inconsistencies in the 'plot' begin to emerge. In particular the stress on 'overall pastoral oversight' (4.46) as the precondition of presiding at the Eucharist creates real conundrums in practise. The report is emphatic that 'separating liturgical function and pastoral oversight runs the risk of inhibiting the realisation of the four marks of the Church'. [Note: 4.46, p 50] Indeed, it is here that the earlier statement about presidency consisting of 'overseeing the entire celebration' becomes crucial. Oversight of the celebration belongs to the person who has oversight of the community. However, if this is so, why do we allow curates to preside? The likely response that the curate 'shares in pastoral oversight' misses the point. The argument is ontological - presidency belonging specifically to those with 'overall pastoral oversight of the community', which the curate most decidedly lacks (witness his status during an interregnum). What he or she does have in the Church of England is episcopal ordination, but the report repeatedly tries to avoid saying that mere ordination is the sufficient qualification for presidency (cf 5.9). Nor does it ever imply that only an ordained person can make the Eucharist happen. Eucharistic presidency is explicitly linked to ordination via the pastoral role in the Christian community. But if the necessary pastoral role is 'overall oversight' then the incumbent or priest-in-charge surely qualifies as the sole president.

In fact the report itself recognises the problem of allowing Eucharistic presidency to visiting clergy or those 'without any or much pastoral responsibility', [Note: 5.11, p 56] such as visiting clergy (or, we might add, the retired). Its response to this dilemma, however, is rather lame:

However, this argument from an imputed pastoral role suggests that the fact of episcopal ordination to the order of the presbyterate is ultimately more important than the function of being a presbyter.

Moreover, although the report has repeatedly stressed that in its own view Eucharistic presidency is delegated by the Christian community, it is to be noted that in practise it only allows delegation by the delegates - the bishop (and the presbyter in the case of the curate). If a thoroughgoing 'priesthood of all believers' undergirded its theology, it would, as Martin Luther proposed, allow the community to delegate for itself any whom it chose. This option, however, is specifically rejected on the grounds that, 'The ordained are part of networks within which the wholeness and inter-relatedness of the Church can be achieved and made visible'. [Note: 5.8, p 54] By implication, therefore, the laity are not. Yet not only is this conclusion astonishing in its effrontery, but it implies an incompetence in the clergy to carry out the very task this report assigns them, for as we noted earlier, it proposes that the clergy are 'a gift of God to his Church to promote, release and clarify all other ministries in such a way that they can exemplify and sustain the four 'marks' of the Church'. [Note: 3.26, p 30, emphasis added] Surely this means that if the clergy are doing their job the laity (once properly equipped) can indeed express the catholicity of the church in themselves and hence through their own networks. (And since they are priests and members of the body of Christ, why should this not be so?) The restriction of Eucharistic presidency to the ordained on the grounds suggested is sustainable only if we accept that they alone can embody the 'four marks of the church' as individuals and that actually they cannot 'promote, release and clarify' any (much less 'all') other ministries to this effect.

Thus ultimately, this report fails to grapple critically or coherently with the questions raised by the issue of so-called 'lay presidency', beginning with whether, biblically speaking, there is anything to preside at in the first place. And one suspects that behind this, in spite of the denials in the Preface, lies a fundamental fear. The report asserts brashly that 'no serious supporter of lay presidency is suggesting anything like a "free for all" situation where anyone can assume the role of eucharistic president as they see fit'. [Note: 5.2, p 52] The reason would appear to be the assertion in the same paragraph that 'Fears about lay presidency "opening the floodgates" and introducing anarchy in the Church are understandable'. Yet such a statement betrays, in the end, a deep mistrust of the people of God coupled with an alarming hubris amongst the ordained. Does anarchy reign in Judaism, just because any household can celebrate the Passover? Why, then, should it reign in the church of God? And is it so certain that an episcopally restricted Eucharistic presidency is a certain safeguard against evil? What if, as the Prayer Book acknowledges is possible, 'the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments'? [Note: Article XXVI] Must the people of God, to whom belongs the priesthood of all believers, simply accept this state of affairs passively?

The report acknowledges 'an apparent shortage' of people it allows to preside at the Eucharist, yet it avoids the most obvious solution to the problem and omits to mention the most reasonable justification for that solution. And the reason for this would appear to be its own faulty ecclesiology, for the ecclesiology of the New Testament is ultimately Christocentric. The so-called 'four marks of the Church' of oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity are surely held together in him who is the head of the body. Significantly, the report is keen to assert that the Eucharist 'actualises and makes visible ... not only the particular, worshipping congregation but the universal Church'. [Note: 4.11, p 38. Of course, members of Reform and others have been arguing for some time that the church is made visible in specific activities, principally in gathering to hear the word of God (cf Article XIX). Whatever the difference in emphasis on the particular activity, the recognition that the church is actualised locally is, at least, to be welcomed.] If this is so, it should surely be acknowledged that the Head of that universal church is present when it meets. The question of who should preside over any congregational activity is subordinate (even within this report) to the fact of that activity taking place as a function of the church universal. [Note: Nowhere does the report suggest or imply that the Eucharist can only be effected by an ordained priest/presbyter.] Yet if these local activities indeed actualise the universal church, then the head of that universal church is surely present and the individual Christian acts under his delegated ministry, not that of another Christian located possibly scores of miles away in an arbitrarily chosen 'diocesan centre'. [Note: This is not to deny the usefulness of Dioceses, only their theological significance.] Unfortunately, the report has earlier closed its mind to this way of viewing the dynamics of the church meeting when it denigrated the notions that 'Christ inaugurated the Church, the Church comprises those who confess Christ as Lord, and Christ is the every-present Head and Lord of the Church'. [Note: See our comments above.] With such a fatally weakened theology a weak ecclesiology is bound to emerge, and with it an imbalanced view of ministry.

Whatever the arguments, the practical outcome of this report is that episcopal ordination to the order of presbyter qualifies one necessarily and sufficiently for Eucharistic presidency. That is the Anglican tradition which the Introduction reminded us is 'incompatible' with lay presidency. The rest is padding.

John Richardson is Anglican chaplain to the University of East London

Eucharistic Presidency: A Theological Statement by the House of Bishops of the General Synod (London: Church House Publishing, 1997), ISBN 0 7151 3804 9, 72 pp (+ xi) paperback, £5.95

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Last updated 29 September 1997