As so often, I need help from readers who possess the capacity to help me. As so often, my train of the thought has been stimulated by a fine recent piece from the ever-admirable Peter Kwasniewski. And, as so often, PF is at the bottom of it all.
In that first Christian millennium, what and who were the occupants of that great wealth of Minor Orders? And I think I mean, primarily, what and who were they sociologically?
Back in the days of Christendom, were all those Doorkeepers and Acolytes, Readers and Exorcists ... as we might say ... full-time employees of the Church, maintained by the Church? Or, like the servers and readers and Eucharistic Ministers and Permanent Deacons of today, were they essentially keen and worthy part-timers, not paid by the Diocese, who put on an alb on Sundays and, with the intention of enriching the Liturgy, lend a hand?
I think this matters, because it bears upon the question of what are the laity; what is their calling. There are massive practical consequences, such as "Are we clericalising the Laity?" (See PK's article in NLM). My strong instinct is to say "Yes we are and we shouldn't be". But I haven't thought all this through properly.
I do find some very suggestive help in the old Pontificale Romanum. It is in what the Bishop says to the candidates before Ordination to the Subdiaconate: "Up till now, you are free, and it is licit for you at your will to move over to worldly callings. Because if you receive this order [the subdiaconate], it will no longer be possible for you to jump back from what you have set before you ... [Hactenus enim liberi estis, licetque vobis pro arbitrio ad saecularia vota transire; quod si hunc Ordinem susceperitis, amplius non licebit a proposito resilire ...]."
And he goes on to specify celibacy, and the subdiaconal obligation to be in Ecclesiae ministerio semper mancipati.
So ... all those in minor orders could walk away, grow their hair, and get a different, secular, job, and (this seems to be implicit) find a wife. I am afraid that I cannot follow Bishop Schneider's opinions, expressed in a recent article, that "to carry out any, even a more humble, service in public worship, it is necessary that the minister receive a stable or sacred designation" [My emphasis]. The pre-Conciliar Pontificale makes it perfectly clear that those in minor Orders are at liberty, if they feel like it (pro arbitrio), just to walk away from (transire) that ministry and grab a votum saeculare. When the Pontiff made clear that subdeacons were semper mancipati (like pieces of merchandise permanently purchased), he implied that this had not previously been their status.
But, as long as they remained functioning as doorkeepers, etc., were they an integral part of the clerus Romanus; fed a mensa pontificali, recognisable by their tonsure? Or were they like the modern laity lending a hand?
This method of enquiry ... getting into the ancient Roman texts ... offers us the the most robust and simple way into the problem of what were the occupants of the 'Minor Orders'; and what are the men and women admitted to the two 'ministries' invented by S Paul VI?. And what is a layperson?
There seems to be an equivocation in the discussion. Of course, in one older sense of the term, anyone who occupied some stable role in the Church through the blessing of the hierarch was in an 'order,' including all consecrated persons. 'Clerics' were those exercising a specifically liturgical role, and those playing roles not reserved to the ordained occupied minor orders. But the term seems to have later become equivalent with the 'clerical state,' in the modern CIC sense of the term. The subdiaconate in the Byzantine church was never an entry into the clerical state in the sense of taking on the obligations proper to deacons and priests, and yet even though those in minor orders were 'clerics'. This perhaps highlights a problematic equivocation that is, I think helpfully, removed by the use of the term 'instituted ministries,' clunky and inelegant though it is.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me a good idea to tie liturgical ministry to the hierarchy in a more explicit way. Easterners do not typically have non-ordained persons serving and reading; everyone must be ordained or blessed in their ministry by the hierarch. This strikes me as the right idea. Just grabbing volunteers gives an overly 'business casual' feel to liturgical ministry. So I think Ministeria Quaedam and Spiritus Domini take the right tack. A person who enters a minor order does not enter the clerical state or perform tasks proper to those in that (properly) ordained state.
The Council of Trent in the paragraph ordering that the functions of the minor orders should only be exercised by those who actually are minor clerics explicitly allows that – if celibate clerics cannot be had – married men can receive the minor orders (sess. XXIII, decree of reform, can. 17).
ReplyDeleteI also remember that, in those far-off days when the Pope was not only head of half square kilometer on the Vatican hill, not a few of the prelates governing the City of Rome were clerics – obvious in the case of prelates –, but had not received major orders.
One of the last prelates in only minor orders was probably Teodolfo Mertel, who was Doctor utriusque juris and came to be Minister of the Interior and of Grace and Justice in 1853 after being tonsured and ordained to the minor orders in 1843, when he was made a prelate; only after being made Cardinal by Pius IX in 1858 was he ordained to the diaconate. However, his main task was working as a lawyer (the Constitution of the Papal States was almost entirely his work).
As a sometime Orthodox I find the question "what were the minor orders" odd, since many of what were "minor orders" are still in use in the Orthodox Church. I presume (though I do not actually know) that the same is true of the Eastern-rite Churches in communion with Rome. Perhaps our friend Dr Tighe can enlighten us on that point.
ReplyDeleteIt has been a long time since I was Orthodox, so my memory may be faulty or (less likely, since this is Orthodoxy we are talking about) things may have changed, but according to what I was taught and experienced (as an ordained Reader myself), this is what the minor orders are(not were):
* All those in minor orders are considered clergy. That is the meaning of the tonsure which is given before a man is ordained as a Reader.
* Married men may be ordained to any order except the episcopate**. If an unmarried man being ordained intends to marry, he must state that intention before his ordination to the subdiaconate, and in that case may marry after ordination; but in no case can a single man marry after ordination to the presbyterate.
* Those in minor orders generally do not earn their living by their ministry. "Keen and worthy part-timers" is quite an apt way to describe the situation (just as other Christian bodies have "keen part-timers" serving as Baptist deacons, Lutheran elders, etc).
Commenter StMichael was, I think, mistaken in saying Easterners do not typically have non-ordained persons serving and reading; everyone must be ordained or blessed in their ministry by the hierarch, at least in the jurisdiction (OCA) to which I belonged. Lay men (and sometimes women) usually read the Epistle at the Divine Liturgy. A parish might, or might not, have an ordained Reader among its membership, but if there were an ordained Reader he would take his place in the rotation for Epistle reading alongside the non-ordained readers.
**In principle a married man may be ordained even to the Episcopate. A bishop must be single not because married men may not be ordained as a bishop, but because he is a monk. Orthodox bishops must -- as a matter of discipline, not doctrine -- be monks, and therefore celibate. There can be single, non-monastic priests (as most widowed priests are); but there can be no single, non-monastic bishops.
Depending on the time and place of course, merely being literate could have put one in a tiny minority --- possibly on a fast track to ordination. Relying on memory as usual these days, I am certain that many of the spiritual leaders of the chiliastic sects described in Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium were failed monks or renegade would-be clergy in minor orders --- intelligent men, bitter at their rejection by the institutional church but observant enough to have learnt to play the role of a priest.
ReplyDeleteChris Jones, get yourself back to church. We're waiting for you.
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about Chris Jones's questions and observations. I'm a member of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and so know a bit more about it than I do the other Eastern Catholic ecclesiae sui juris especially the non-Byzantine ones. That said,
ReplyDeleteAll those in minor orders are considered clergy. That is the meaning of the tonsure which is given before a man is ordained as a Reader
I am afraid this has ceased to be the case, in practice at least.
Married men may be ordained to any order except the episcopate**. If an unmarried man being ordained intends to marry, he must state that intention before his ordination to the subdiaconate, and in that case may marry after ordination; but in no case can a single man marry after ordination to the presbyterate
In most, if not all, Eastern Catholic churches the canonical requirement has been altered, in the case of bishops, from being monks, even nominal monks, to simple celibacy. (The best example of "nominal monks" is to be found among the so-called Nestorians, who have had no monasteries or nunneries since the early 18th Century, but whose bishops still must take monastic vows - a requirement adopted by them only in the 13th Century, before which time their bishops, like their presbyters and deacons [since the late Fifth Century] could marry and, if widowed, remarry (without limitation of number of times) both before and after ordination.)
Question for Chris Jones: in the paragraph of yours which I have excerpted above I was a bit surprised that its final word is "presbyterate: where I would have expected "diaconate." I know of no Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox churches in which a man can marry after ordination to the dioaconate but not after ordination to the presbyterate or episcopate. do you know of such?
Those in minor orders generally do not earn their living by their ministry. "Keen and worthy part-timers" is quite an apt way to describe the situation (just as other Christian bodies have "keen part-timers" serving as Baptist deacons, Lutheran elders, etc)
This is true among Eastern Catholics generally, I believe.
... Lay men (and sometimes women) usually read the Epistle at the Divine Liturgy. A parish might, or might not, have an ordained Reader among its membership, but if there were an ordained Reader he would take his place in the rotation for Epistle reading alongside the non-ordained readers
Very few, if any, Eastern Catholic parishes, except, perhaps, among the Melkites, have ordained Readers among their members AFAIK; for the most part "lay men (and sometimes women) usually read the Epistle at the Divine Liturgy." One does find the occasional life-long "vocational deacon" who assists at the parish church to which he is attached (especially among the Melkites).