§ 75. The Right to Ordain

The right to ordain belongs solely and exclusively to the bishop,[1] and to no one else in the Church.[2] In order that a bishop may canonically exercise this right, the canons prescribe certain precisely defined conditions which, if they were not observed, would render the ordination invalid. Of these conditions, some arise from the episcopal office itself as such, and others from the bishop’s position in the hierarchy of jurisdiction.

Ordination, as we have said, cannot be repeated, and this constitutes one of its fundamental properties. In order, then, that it have full ecclesiastical significance and validity, such that every possibility of its repetition is excluded, it must be performed by a bishop who possesses full and unimpeachable authority to perform it; and he will possess that authority if he received it in the lawful way[3] from those who are called by law to confer it, and who themselves received that same authority through an unbroken hierarchical succession from the apostles—for, according to the Church’s belief, it is precisely this succession, unbroken from the apostles to the present day,[4] that constitutes the basis of the hierarchy’s legitimacy. Besides this lawful succession of authority, in order to perform ordination lawfully—and thereby introduce someone into the hierarchy—the bishop himself must occupy a lawful place within that hierarchy and be a full member of it. Accordingly, if the bishop himself is not such a full member of the hierarchy, he will not be able to perform a lawful ordination, nor will such an ordination, even if performed, have any significance in the Church. This will be the case if a bishop takes monastic vows,[5] if he has been deposed,[6] if he has departed from the unity of the Church by following some heretical teaching,[7] and finally, if he was not himself appointed by lawful bishops and is therefore not the bearer of a lawful hierarchical succession.[8]

Besides these conditions, in order that an ordination performed by a bishop have full effect also in the legal sense, the observance of certain other conditions is required, conditions arising from the bishop’s position in the hierarchy of jurisdiction. By his episcopal rank alone a bishop is not yet empowered to ordain and to introduce into the hierarchy whomever he wishes, wherever he wishes; rather, he must be guided in this by the legal prescriptions that mark out the bounds of his activity in this respect. First of all, in this regard, a bishop must possess hierarchical jurisdiction over a defined territory, and indeed an independent jurisdiction, lawfully received from the competent authority.[9] With such jurisdiction he is fully entitled to ordain within the bounds of that territory to which his jurisdiction extends, and he is accordingly forbidden to ordain beyond those bounds,[10] and thereby to infringe the rights belonging to another bishop.[11] This may be permitted to him only when, owing to certain circumstances, the bishop of another territory is himself unable to do so and so authorizes him to ordain in his place,[12] or else when, owing to extraordinary events in the life of the Church, disorder arises in some territory such that the need emerges to depart from the existing legal prescriptions.[13] When someone is to be ordained for a definite place of service in the Church, in respect of which other established factors also have the right to voice their opinion, then the bishop’s competence is not unconditional, but must be conditioned by, and governed according to, the voice of those factors.[14]

The right to ordain presbyters, deacons, and all the lower servants of the Church is recognized by the canons as belonging personally to a single bishop: “Let a presbyter be ordained by one bishop (ὑπὸ ἑνὸς ἐπισκόπου χειροτονείσθω),” and likewise a deacon and the other clergy.[15] But a single bishop by himself does not have the right to appoint another bishop; this right is given to an assembly of bishops, of three, or at the least of two.[16] The reason for this is that all bishops are equal to one another, just as the apostles too received equal rights of authority from Christ,[17] and accordingly no bishop by himself alone can have the right to appoint other bishops, but this belongs only to their joint authority;[18] whereas the fact that a single bishop has the right to ordain presbyters and other clergy is founded on this, that the legal relations arising from that act are limited only to the bounds of the territory of the bishop concerned, and do not introduce the one ordained by a single bishop into the sphere of legal relations beyond the bounds of that eparchy in which he was ordained.

A bishop with independent jurisdiction has, as we have said, the exclusive right to ordain to all hierarchical degrees from presbyter downward. This right of his he may, within the limits canonically prescribed, delegate to established persons, who in such a case exercise this right in the bishop’s name and by virtue of his authorization. Among such persons the canonical sources mention chorepiscopoi. These chorepiscopoi had received episcopal ordination, and as regards the performance of the sacred rites they had all the same authority as any other bishop; but, owing to their dependent position in the constitution of the Church, they could not exercise that authority independently, since they did not possess independent jurisdiction, but could exercise it only in the name of, and according to the authorization given them by, the regular eparchial bishop.[19] As concerns ordination, the canons grant chorepiscopoi the right to ordain, in the districts entrusted to them, subdeacons, readers and other lower clergy;[20] presbyters and deacons they could ordain only when authorized to do so by the eparchial bishop, and without such authorization they were not entitled to do so, under threat of removal from their post.[21]

Like the chorepiscopoi, the former assistant bishops (boēthoi), who were attached to certain eparchial bishops,[22] likewise had the right to ordain presbyters and deacons in the name of, and by authorization of, the eparchial bishop, as do today’s vicar bishops (ἐπισκοπικοὶ ἐπίτροποι).[23]

In the name of, and by authorization of, the bishop, the superior of a monastery also has the right to ordain readers,[24] and even subdeacons,[25] but solely and exclusively for his own monastery.[26]

These are the only cases mentioned by the canons in which someone other than the regular eparchial bishop may perform an ordination.

Footnotes

[2] On the basis of one place in Jerome’s commentary on the Epistle to Titus, where he proves the equality between episcopacy and presbyterate, and that bishops only later appropriated to themselves authority over presbyters, it has been put forward that presbyters also have the right of ordination, as do bishops. Jerome writes as follows: “Idem est presbyter qui et episcopus, et antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent, et dicerentur in populis: ego sum Pauli… communi presbyterorum consilio ecclesiae gubernabantur. Postquam vero unusquisque eos, quos baptizaverat, suos esse putabat, non Christi, in toto orbe decretum est, ut unus de presbyteris electus superponeretur ceteris, ad quem omnis ecclesiae cura pertineret, ut schismatum semina tollerentur? Putat aliquis non scripturarum, sed nostram esse sententiam, episcopum et presbyterum unum esse, et aliud aetatis, aliud esse nomen officii, relegat apostoli ad Philippenses verba.” Jerome himself later corrected this thought of his, still asserting the equality between presbyter and bishop, but acknowledging that ordination belongs only to the bishop: “Quid enim facit episcopus, excepta ordinatione, quod presbyter non faciat?” (Ep. 85. ad Evagr.). This thought was preached especially by certain heretics, and Epiphanius (haeres. 75. n. 4), refuting Aerius, who asserted this, writes: Πῶς ἔσται τοῦτο δυνατόν; ἡ μὲν γάρ ἐστι πατέρων γεννητικὴ τάξις· πατέρας γὰρ γεννᾷ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἡ δὲ πατέρας μὴ δυναμένη γεννᾶν, διὰ τῆς τοῦ λουτροῦ παλιγγενεσίας τέκνα γεννᾷ τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, οὐ μὲν πατέρας, ἢ διδασκάλους. Καὶ πῶς οἷόν τε ἦν τὸν πρεσβύτερον καθιστᾶν, μὴ ἔχοντα χειροθεσίαν τοῦ χειροτονεῖν; ἢ εἰπεῖν αὐτὸν εἶναι ἶσον τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ. Cf. on this the historical-dogmatic dissertation by Dr. A. Kurz, Der episkopat der höchste vom Presbyterate verschiedene Ordo. Wien 1877

[5] The reason for this is set out in the 2nd canon of the council held at Constantinople in the church of St. Sophia: “Since certain bishops, who had taken upon themselves the monastic habit, endeavored to remain still at the height of the hierarchal office, and no attention was paid to such conduct of theirs, therefore this holy and ecumenical council, with the intention of correcting this negligence and of setting in order, in accordance with the ecclesiastical institutions, so disorderly an affair, ordains that, if any bishop or other one of hierarchal dignity should wish to devote himself to the monastic life and to place himself in the position of penitence, he can no longer appropriate to himself episcopal dignity. For the vows of monks represent the duty of obedience and discipleship, and not of teaching or of leadership, and the person in question promises, not that he will be the shepherd of others, but that he himself will listen to the shepherds. For that reason, as has already been said, we establish that no one who has been enrolled in the episcopal and pastoral roll may step down to the place of those who are shepherded by the shepherds and who do penance. And whoever should presume to do this, after the proclamation and publication of the ordinance now enacted, such a one, since he has removed himself from the episcopal degree, is no longer to return to his former dignity, which he has degraded by his own deeds.”

§ 75. The Right to Ordain

§ 75. Право рукополагања