The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: Its Structures and Ministries
Common Statement
of the
Tenth Round of the
U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue
Preface
Introduction
- Koinonia Ecclesiology
- The Church Shares in Salvation
- The Church Shares Salvation
- The Church is a Community Shaped by Salvation
- Summary
- Recent Developments in Koinonia Ecclesiology
- The Local Church within the Koinonia of Salvation
- The Local Church in Catholic Ecclesiology
- The Local Church in Lutheran Ecclesiology
- Catholic-Lutheran Similarities on the Local Church
Realizations of Ecclesial Koinonia §32
- The Congregation or Parish
- Lutherans on the Congregation
- Catholics on the Parish
- The Synod or Diocese
- Lutherans on Synodical Realizations
- Catholics on Diocesan Realizations
- National Realizations of Koinonia
- Lutherans on National Realizations
- Catholics on National Realizations
- Worldwide Realization
- Lutherans on Worldwide Realization
- Catholics on Worldwide Realization
- Ministry in Service of Communion
- A History of the Present Differences Between Lutherans and Roman Catholics
- Ordained Ministry Serving the Congregation or Parish
- Catholics
- Lutherans
- Ordained Ministry Serving Regional Communities
- Catholics
- Lutherans
- Ordained Ministry Serving the Universal Church
- Catholics
- Lutherans
- Ministry and the Continuity with the Apostolic Church
- Succession in Apostolic Mission, Ministry, and Message
- The Bishop as Sign and Instrument of Apostolic Succession
- Local and Regional Structures and Ministries of Communion
- The Relationship between Local and Regional Churches
- The Relation between Priest/Presbyter/Pastor and Bishop
- Recommendations for an Ecumenical Way Forward
- Toward a Recognition of the Reality and Woundedness of our Ministries and Churches
- Catholic Discernment
- Lutheran Discernment
- Common Challenges
- Universal Church and Universal Ministry
- Catholic Reflections on Universal Ministry
- Lutheran Reflections on Universal Ministry
- Toward Deeper Communion
- Biblical Foundations for the Church as Koinonia of Salvation in Jesus and the Christ Event
- The Shape of Early Christian Communities
- Historical Development after the New Testament
- Developments in Service to Koinonia
- Church Structures and Leadership
- The Special Nature of Metropolitan Churches
- Communion and Ministry in the Patristic and Medieval Church
- The Lutheran Reformation
- The Nature of the Church as Communion and its Ministry
- Communion and Local Church
- The One Office of Pastor/Bishop
- Structures for Regional Oversight
- The German Lands
- Nordic Countries
- Beyond the Local and Regional: the Universal Church
- The Sixteenth-Century Catholic Reformation
- The Council of Trent
- The Roman Catechism (1566)
- Subsequent Catholic Developments Regarding Structures and Ministry
- Responses to Reformation Positions on Pastor/Bishop
- Vatican I and Subsequent Developments
- The Second Vatican Council
- The Papacy
- Episcopacy
- Presbyterate
- Subsequent Lutheran Developments
- The Reformation Heritage Continued
- Specific Developments in North America
- Aspects of Ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Light of World Lutheranism and Ecumenism
It is a joy to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), signed by representatives of the Catholic Church and the churches of the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. Pope John Paul II and the leaders of the Lutheran World Federation recognize this agreement as a milestone and model on the road toward visible unity among Christians. It is therefore with great joy that we present to the leadership and members of our churches this text, the tenth produced by our United States dialogue, as a further contribution to this careful and gradual process of reconciliation. We hope that it will serve to enhance our communion and deepen our mutual understanding.
Catholics and Lutherans are able to “confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works” (JDDJ §15). We also recognize together that: “Our consensus in basic truths of the doctrine of justification must come to influence the life and teachings of our churches. Here it must prove itself. In this respect, there are still questions of varying importance which need further clarification” (JDDJ §43). In this spirit we offer the following modest clarifications and proposals.
We are united as Christians in our common baptism, common affirmation of Scripture and common life in Christ; as Lutherans and Catholics by our common commitment to the goal of full communion, our common affirmation of justification, and our common understanding that more agreement is necessary before full, sacramental communion can be restored. In this text we recognize the importance of our agreement, propose new stages of agreement, and celebrate the gifts we can receive from one another in our practice and understandings of ministries and structures within the Church as community of salvation.
This dialogue also recognizes that we are not proposing to settle all of the church-dividing issues before us. We have not attempted to resolve the important ecclesiological issues of the ordination of women or the authority by which such a decision is made, nor the full meaning of apostolic succession in ordained ministry and how we might be reconciled. We have not addressed the level of communion in ministries and structures that would be necessary for even interim Eucharistic communion. We are, however, convinced that the clarifications and research represented by this text make an important contribution in the stages toward reconciling these and other elements along the path toward full communion.
The reader will find this text a bit longer than earlier publications of this dialogue. Biblical and historical material that was prepared and presented in supporting essays over the years of this study has been summarized here. Needless to say, not all of the historical, biblical, and theological research on which this text is based is presented here nor is it included in the supporting essays. It will be important for the reader to review some of the earlier research of the U.S. and international dialogues to clarify further the context of these arguments.
This agreed text may be published both by itself and in a volume with some supporting essays. In the volume of essays, only a selection of those which contributed to the dialogue is published. Those not summarized in the final document but which further clarify the historical background, are included. Some of the biblical, historical research, and overview of previous dialogues will be published as articles elsewhere. As we build a common understanding of our biblical and historical heritage, this research becomes an increasingly important resource for our teaching and preaching. It adds to the serious theological literature produced in an ecumenical mode.
The method used to present our conclusions takes account of the “internally differentiated consensus” method employed by the Joint Declaration. “Lutheran and the Catholic explications of justification are in their difference open to one another and do not destroy the consensus regarding the basic truths” (JDDJ §40). As our dialogues approach the ecclesiological issues noted above, in the context of the Church as community of salvation, we will continue to seek agreement on matters that have been seen as church dividing. These agreements, of course, will be tested by the faith of our people and the appropriate leadership structures in our churches before they attain the level of reception and authority we now accord the Joint Declaration.
It is only by reappropriating our common heritage in Scripture and the shared tradition that we can follow the call of Christ to that common future for which he so earnestly prayed on the night before he was delivered for us. We can only humbly receive that grace of unity by the power of the Holy Spirit, obediently continuing on the pilgrimage to which God has called us. The labors of our biblical and theological scholarship are one element in the mosaic of our common prayer, service and life together, as we step out into that mysterious and arduous path that lies before the Church.
Bishop Charles Maahs, Bishop Richard Sklba, cochairs
Lutheran Roman Catholic Dialogue in the United States, Round X
1. From 1965 to 1993, the continuing dialogue between Lutherans and Roman Catholics in the United
States addressed doctrines and issues that have united or separated our churches since the sixteenth
century. Considerable convergences and even at times consensus have been expressed in nine rounds of
discussion on the Nicene Creed; baptism; the eucharist; the ministry of the eucharist; papal primacy;
teaching authority and infallibility; justification; the one mediator, the saints, and Mary; and Scripture and
tradition.(1) The summaries, joint or common statements in these volumes of findings and supporting studies
have been important for relations between our churches and for wider ecumenical discussion.
2. A Coordinating Committee(2) was appointed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops'
Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and by the presiding bishop of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America after the completion of Round 9 in 1993. It met 1994-96 to plan for a new
round of dialogue and to take part in the development and reception process for a statement on justification
by faith and the reassessment of the condemnations connected with justification in the sixteenth century.
The Coordinating Committee made a common Lutheran/Catholic response to a draft of the Joint
Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in 1995. It also developed the topic proposal dealt with in
this volume, "The Church as Koinonia of Salvation: Its Structures and Ministries," and the guidelines(3)
accepted by our sponsoring church authorities for a new dialogue team.
3. This tenth round of Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue, begun in 1998, carried out its study of
ecclesiology and ministries with a new basis in the important results from earlier discussions affirmed in a
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ). An Official Common Statement confirming the
Joint Declaration, accompanied by an Annex to the Official Common Statement, was signed by
representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church,(4) at Augsburg,
Germany, October 31, 1999.
4. The U.S. dialogue volume VII, Justification by Faith, completed in 1983, was among the
resources(5) that contributed to this worldwide agreement, especially with its own Declaration that set forth
the gospel we encounter in Scripture and church life:
Thus we can make together, in fidelity to the gospel we share, the
following declaration:
We believe that God's creative graciousness is offered to us and to
everyone for healing and reconciliation so that through the Word made flesh, Jesus
Christ, "who was put to death for our transgressions and raised for our
justification" (Rom. 4:25), we are all called to pass from the alienation and
oppression of sin to freedom and fellowship with God in the Holy Spirit. It is not
through our own initiative that we respond to this call, but only through an
undeserved gift which is granted and made known in faith, and which comes to
fruition in our love of God and neighbor, as we are led by the Spirit in faith to
bear witness to the divine gift in all aspects of our lives. This faith gives us hope
for ourselves and for all humanity and gives us confidence that salvation in Christ
will always be proclaimed as the gospel, the good news for which the world is
searching.(6)
5. The Joint Declaration was a harvest from such statements in the U.S. and international dialogues.
In Germany the Joint Ecumenical Commission and Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic
Theologians dealt between 1981 and 1985 with the condemnations by Catholics and Lutherans in the
sixteenth century on justification and related topics.(7) The Joint Declaration sets forth a common
understanding of justification (§§14-18), in light of the biblical message (§§8-12), with explication in seven
problem areas of what Lutherans and Catholics can confess together ecumenically, as well as the distinctive
accents of each, now acceptable to the other (§§19-39). In light of the "consensus in basic truths of the
doctrine of justification" (§40), the Joint Declaration states that "it becomes clear that the mutual
condemnations of former times do not apply to the Catholic and Lutheran doctrines of justification as they
are presented in the Joint Declaration" (Annex §1; cf. JDDJ §41; Official Common Statement §1). But it
is also recognized that this consensus "must prove itself" in "further clarification" of topics that include
"ecclesiology, ecclesial authority, church unity, ministry, the sacraments, and the relation between
justification and social ethics" (§43).
6. The Joint Declaration has great implications and holds much promise for life in our parishes, in
reshaping preaching, teaching, worship, and daily life. It has found expression in agreements and
covenants between local congregations, synods and dioceses, and in national celebrations in the U.S., even
among Christians neither Catholic nor Lutheran, not to mention reflections in other parts of the world. For
our dialogue it has given fresh impulse and encouragement to our work together.
7. As we have dealt with structures and ministries, we have been mindful of how rounds four and five
(1968-80) took up the topic of ministry in connection with the eucharist and then papal ministry (also in
six, Teaching Authority and Infallibility). Our review of much of the work done in rounds four and five
made us aware of how helpful and significant these contributions were. Round four dealt only with local
ministry in the local congregation where the eucharist is celebrated and the Word preached. Round five
dealt with a universal ministry and the possibility of a renewed papacy. The present round considers the
interrelation among local, regional, national, and worldwide ministries and church structures, in the context
of an understanding of the church as koinonia of salvation.(8) Thus, in continuity with past dialogues and the
Joint Declaration, our analysis moves from Christ and the gospel of salvation to koinonia. We understand
this gospel particularly as the message of justification by grace through faith, and treat koinonia as a lens
through which to view ecclesiology and ministries of those ordained, within the whole people of God.
8. This report will proceed from a general consideration of koinonia ecclesiology (Section I) and the
specific concept of the "local church" (Section II) to a consideration of the particular structures of koinonia
in our two churches (Section III) and the ordained ministries that serve them (Section IV). A brief
discussion of the ecumenically significant question of apostolic succession and its relation to ministry
follows (Section V). All of this analysis and description then forms the background for an argument for a
fresh vision of how structures and ministry can be understood including recommendations (Sections VI,
VII, and VIII).
9. This new vision confronts us with the wounds to mission and ministry that are the result of our
continuing division and calls us to repentance and greater fidelity to the gospel. It invites us to partial
mutual recognition of ordained ministry. It opens new paths in the exploration of a universal ministry of
unity. The analysis offers a basis for a deeper recognition of each other's churchly reality and of our local,
regional, and universal ministries and structures. This recognition will involve stronger acknowledgment of
the churchly reality of the parish for Catholics, and of the theological significance of synods for Lutherans.
10. There are good reasons why viewing the church as koinonia came into prominence ecumenically in
the latter decades of the twentieth century (see B. (§§15-20) below). The basic word, koinÇnia in Greek, is
ancient, occurring 22 times in the Bible,(9) but it was not a term or concept prominent in Catholic or
Lutheran documents of the sixteenth century. Thus it has been spared some of the partisan usage that often
has made other concepts divisive. Koinonia has never been a church-dividing issue for Lutherans and
Catholics. It is a useful lens through which this present dialogue reconsiders our differences concerning
ministry and church structures. We speak together about this lens in three propositions: the church shares
in salvation; the church shares salvation with others; and the church is a community shaped by salvation.
All three are expressed in Scripture through words related to koinonia.
A. The Church Shares in Salvation
11. We, the justified, share in salvation from God in Christ in a number of ways. We are called by
God into the fellowship of his Son (1 Cor. 1:9).(10) We share in the gospel (Phil. 1:5). We share in Christ's
body and blood in the bread we break and the cup we share as presentation for us of Jesus' death on the
cross and its benefits for us (1 Cor. 10:16). We participate in the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:13; Phil. 2:1) and share
in faith in all the good that is ours in Christ (Phlm. 6). We also share in Christ's and each other's affliction
and sufferings (Phil. 3:10; 4:14), amid which there is consolation (2 Cor. 1:7) and the promise of
participation in joy and future glory (1 Pet. 4:13; 5:1; 2 Pet. 1:4, future sharing in God's own nature).
Witnesses share the kingdom as well as persecution and patient endurance (Rev. 1:9). The sharing in the
Spirit that characterizes Christians is also part of the basis for the love and agreement with one another that
we, the church, are called to have (Phil. 2:1). The fellowship that 1 John 1:3-7 depicts is with God the
Father and his Son, as well as with one another.(11) In God's plan of salvation, Gentile Christians too came
to share, as branches, the riches of the olive tree, Israel (Rom. 11:17).
B. The Church Shares Salvation
12. Koinonia characterizes not only the way we receive salvation but the way it is offered to others
through the church. Through evangelization we share the gospel with others (Phil. 1:5, 7) as part of its
advance (Phil. 1:12, 25; 4:14-15) in mission (Matt. 28:19-20). This sharing transforms the church itself as
well as the world. The agreement between Paul and other church leaders to evangelize both Jews and
Gentiles cuts across boundaries of racial and ethnic divisions of the day; it was a mutual pledge for
mission, unity, and support for the poor (Gal. 2:9-10). We support the proclamation of the gospel through
our financial gifts (Phil. 4:15); we share our resources with the poor and those in need throughout the
world. In Paul's time, that meant a collection from his Gentile churches for "the saints," impoverished
Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (2 Cor. 8:4; 9:13; Rom. 15:26-27), economic aid that showed concern for
the unity of the church (Gal. 2:9-10).(12) Acts depicts Christians in Jerusalem as sharing not only the gospel
message but also their temporal resources (Acts 2:42, 45; 4:32). In subsequent centuries, such active
sharing, koinonia, has become the norm for Christian life and has been manifested in sharing food, time,
and the results of all sorts of human abilities, as well as money.
C. The Church is a Community Shaped by Salvation
13. The koinonia of salvation has called forth a type of community, the church, appropriate to the
grace and calling we have received. We are a koinonia called in Christ by and for the gospel (1 Cor. 1:9;
Phil. 1:5), a community that comes from the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:13). The vertical and horizontal
fellowship with God and fellow believers (1 John 1:2-7) results in a people conformed to Christ's death on
the cross (Phil. 3:10, cross and resurrection of Jesus; 1 Pet. 4:13, suffering and rejoicing). That means for
the justified an existence determined by God's love and faithfulness, a life lived with love, in faith and trust,
marked by hope. This vertical and horizontal fellowship exists in and with the world and its institutions. It
is shaped internally by its relationship with God through Christ and the Spirit and by the participation in
Christ and salvation of all members of Christ's body. Externally the church relates to the world, not
merely as a social institution, amid the other public structures (ta koina) of the Greco-Roman world,(13) but
more importantly as a sign of God's will that all share in salvation. Divisions in fellowship blunt the
impact of our witness to salvation.
D. Summary
14. In sum, therefore, koinonia in the New Testament especially concerns the relationship of justified
believers with God and Christ (1 Cor. 1:9; 1 John 1:2-7) and the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:13), thus with the Trinity
(The word koinonia does not refer in the New Testament to fellowship within the Godhead, as it does in
patristic writers who spoke of koinonia between the Father and the Son(14)). Koinonia has also
ecclesiological (Gal. 2:9; 2 Cor.13:13) and eucharistic connotations (1 Cor. 10:16). The concept appears
as a basis for ethical admonitions (Phil. 2:1) and can also itself be an admonition to share, both in the church
and with the poor (Rom. 15:26-27). The New Testament references speak of sharing in sufferings (Phil. 3:10)
and console people through sharing in consolation (2 Cor. 1:7). Koinonia connects with themes like
mission, life together (Acts 2:42), stewardship, and future hope.
E. Recent Developments in Koinonia Ecclesiology
15. From New Testament usage, koinonia came to be employed over the centuries as "communion"
(communio) and in many other renderings, particularly with reference to the church. While the terminology
did not play a role of any importance in sixteenth century Reformation or Catholic theology, it became
more prominent in the twentieth century.(15)
16. In Eastern Orthodoxy, koinonia ecclesiology has recently centered on eucharistic communion with
Christ.(16) Ecclesiology can be called "a chapter of Christology"(17) as long as it also is pneumatological. The
terminology also came into the World Council of Churches, especially through the work of the Faith and
Order Commission: "fuller koinonia" is the goal of life together in Christ.(18) Bilateral dialogues have found
the theme helpful,(19) as have theologians from a variety of traditions.(20)
17. Among Catholics, communion was used to speak in a non-juridical way of "a network of
sacramentally focused local churches bound together ultimately by the mutual openness of their eucharistic
celebrations," with the bishop of Rome "as the focal point of the network of churches linked together in the
catholic, or universal, communio."(21) Communion as "the permanent form of the unity of the church" was
articulated on the eve of the Second Vatican Council.(22) J.-M. R. Tillard explored communion ecclesiology
as conforming "best to the biblical notion and to the intuitions of the great ecclesiological traditions."(23) The
1985 Synod of Bishops recognized communion ecclesiology as "the central and fundamental idea" of the
documents of Vatican II.(24) The concept of communion came to be applied in a wide range of contexts. The
1992 statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Some Aspects of the Church as
Communion," explained that "ecclesial communion is at the same time visible and invisible" and this link
"makes the church 'sacrament of salvation.'"(25) The 1993 Directory for Ecumenism stressed the presence
and activity of the universal church in the particular churches.(26) John Paul II said in 1995 that the
"elements of sanctification and truth" shared by "the other Christian communities" show that "the one
Church of Christ is effectively present in them." This is the reason for the communion that persists
between the Catholic Church and "the other Churches and Ecclesial Communities," in spite of their
divisions.(27)
18. For Lutherans, the term koinonia was used in German discussions in the 1950s on Protestant
church fellowship.(28) In the latter part of the twentieth century the Lutheran World Federation increasingly
employed koinonia/communio themes.(29) In 1990 it defined itself as "a communion of churches which
confess the triune God, agree in the proclamation of the Word of God and are united in pulpit and altar
fellowship."(30) Lutherans and Catholics in dialogue have related koinonia to the doctrine of the Trinity and
ecclesiology.(31)
19. Koinonia encompasses all Christians and the salvation of all who share in the gospel. Koinonia
ecclesiology has many aspects but no uniform definition. The New Testament references to koinonia do
not directly relate the term to "church," let alone to "ministries," but repeatedly deal with all the faithful.
In presenting the church as koinonia, the Lutheran-Roman Catholic International Commission placed the
church within a series of biblical images, beginning with "people of God," and added that in both our
traditions "we rightly speak of the 'priesthood of all the baptized' or the 'priesthood of all believers.'"(32) All
structures and ministries, as instruments of koinonia, serve God's people. Whatever is said, then, of
"koinonia ecclesiology" and "ministry in service of community" is to be embedded in this context: the
people of God, all Christian believers.
20. This dialogue now wishes to contribute further to these varied understandings of the church as
koinonia. The following sections will focus on koinonia ecclesiology in the context of historical and current
Lutheran-Catholic relationships. Our ecclesiologies and our ordained ministries of presbyters and bishops
are viewed afresh through the lens of koinonia. Our dialogue is intended to foster reconciliation between
our churches and is offered to the wider ecumenical community for study and reflection.
21. An important element in much recent koinonia ecclesiology of particular significance for this
report's analysis is the concept of the "local church," understood in similar but different ways by our two
traditions. On the one hand, both Lutherans and Catholics agree that there is a local body which is not
merely a part of the church, but is wholly church, even if not the whole church and not in isolation from the
rest of the church. Our traditions agree: "The local church is truly church. It has everything it needs to be
church in its own situation.... The local church is the place where the church of God becomes concretely
realized."(33) To say that the local church is "church" in an integral sense is to say that the essential elements
of the community which participates in, shares, and is shaped by salvation are present in a complete and
integral way.
22. On the other hand, Lutherans and Catholics differ over what "local church" designates. For
Lutherans the local church is the congregation; for Catholics it is most often the diocese.(34) This difference
is closely related to a parallel set of differences over the status of the ordained ministers who minister to
these two communities: the minister of the congregation or parish (the pastor, priest, or presbyter) and the
minister of the regional grouping of these communities (the bishop). This difference is rooted in the
complex history of the development of local and regional church bodies (§§159-195).
23. This complex history begins with the variety of community structures and ministries within first-century Christianity. By the second and third centuries the pattern was established of local communities
gathered for worship around the bishop, who was surrounded by a council of presbyters and assisted by
deacons.(35) During the profound changes of the late patristic and early medieval periods, the role of the
bishop and the nature and size of the communities he headed changed. The primary Christian community
for most Christians in the West came to be the parish under the care of a presbyter or priest. The diocese
headed by the bishop came to include many such parishes. These shifts contributed to the medieval
uncertainties about the relation between priest and bishop and lie at the root of the Lutheran-Catholic
difference about what is to be designated "local church" (§§172-175).
A. The Local Church in Catholic Ecclesiology
24. In continuity with one aspect of the early church, Roman Catholics define the local church (or,
more often, the particular church or diocese) as "a portion of the people of God whose pastoral care is
entrusted to a bishop in conjunction with his priests. Thus, in conjunction with their pastor and gathered by
him into one flock in the Holy Spirit through the gospel and the eucharist, they constitute a particular
church."(36) The basic unit of the church is therefore defined both eucharistically and ministerially. The
ministry of the bishop is a constitutive element of the most basic ecclesiastical unit, the diocese, which
includes all that is necessary to be a church. The link between the parish eucharist and the bishop is not
obvious to most Roman Catholics, however, since they only occasionally experience a eucharistic assembly
with their bishop presiding, even though they mention the bishop by name in every eucharistic liturgy the
parish celebrates.
25. The descriptions of the local or particular church in the documents of Vatican II emphasize both
elements. On the one hand, it is said that "the faithful are gathered together through the preaching of the
gospel" and the eucharist.(37) On the other hand, it also is said, "the principal manifestation of the church
consists in the full, active participation . . . at one altar, at which the bishop presides . . . ."(38) Since the
bishop cannot always or everywhere preside over the whole flock, he establishes multiple assemblies of
believers. "Parishes, organized locally under a parish priest who acts in the bishop's place, are the most
important of these, because in some way they exhibit the visible church set up throughout the nations of the
world."(39)
B. The Local Church in Lutheran Ecclesiology
26. Lutherans, in continuity with a different aspect of the early church, have generally held that the
congregation is church in the full sense. As the international Roman Catholic-Lutheran Joint Commission
expressed it in Church and Justification:
Lutherans understand the una sancta ecclesia to find outward and
visible expression wherever people assemble around the gospel proclaimed in
sermon and sacrament. Assembled for worship the local congregation therefore is
to be seen, according to the Lutheran view, as the visible church, communio
sanctorum, in the full sense. Nothing is missing which makes a human assembly
church: the preached word and the sacramental gifts through which the faithful
participate in Christ through the Holy Spirit, but also the ministers who preach the
word and administer the sacraments in obedience to Christ and on his behalf, thus
leading the congregation.(40)
This understanding can be seen as a return to the pattern of the early church in which the basic
ecclesial unit was a face-to-face assembly. Nevertheless, such a return involves a break with the pattern,
both patristic and medieval, in which the bishop heads the local church. The office of ministry is included
as an essential element of the local church in the Lutheran understanding, but this office is seen as
exercised by the pastor/presbyter.
C. Catholic-Lutheran Similarities on the Local Church
27. This difference between what Lutherans and Catholics designate as the local church masks a deep
structural similarity: Lutherans and Catholics each experience the church in a geographically local, face-to-face assembly where the word is preached and sacraments celebrated: the parish or congregation. In
addition, for both of our churches this local assembly is not free-standing, but exists within a regional
community of such assemblies, namely, a diocese or synod. These groupings reach to the national and
international level, but the diocese or synod, as the primary regional community, forms the immediate
institutional context of the life of the congregation or parish. Lutherans and Catholics differ as to whether
the face-to-face assembly or the primary regional community is the local church in the theological sense,
but the institutional life of both traditions is shaped by this pairing.
28. This pairing of face-to-face assembly and regional community developed over an extended period
without a conscious intent to create this pattern. How is this development to be understood theologically?
Is it completely fortuitous or does it express an institutional truth about how the koinonia of salvation is
rightly realized, namely, the need both for the immediate experience of koinonia in the physical presence of
one to another and for the embodiment of the catholicity and diversity of koinonia in a community of such
face-to-face communities? It may be a theological mistake to insist that one or the other is "local church"
in an exclusive sense without also saying that there is something about this pairing of face-to-face assembly
and primary regional community that is ecclesiologically normative. If this pairing is normative, we must
inquire what significance this structure has for our understanding of the ministries of those who preside
over these communities, the pastor and the bishop.
29. Already in the New Testament, the worshiping community did not live in isolation but joined in
koinonia with other communities. Paul took up a collection (koinonia) among his predominantly Gentile
churches of Greece and Asia Minor for the church in Jerusalem (Acts 11:29; Rom. 15:25-27; 1 Cor. 16:3-5). This action extended that initial sharing of common life in Jerusalem by which "distribution was made
to each as any had need" (Acts 4:35).(41) Typically, in the closing of the various letters of the New
Testament, churches sent greetings to other churches (1 Cor. 16:19; Phil. 4:22; 2 Tim. 4:21; Titus 3:15;
Heb. 13:24; 1 Pet. 5:13; 2 Jn. 13; 3 Jn. 15).
30. In the post-biblical period various ecclesial practices emphasized the communion among local
churches. The practice of regional synods, the development of creedal expressions of the faith and of the
common canon of Scripture are exercises of koinonia. Individuals presented letters of communion to be
admitted to the eucharist of another bishop, indicating that the two sees were in communion with each
other. The participation of three bishops in the ordination of a brother bishop signified that he was being
admitted into the episcopal college, and bishops frequently visited and corresponded to maintain
communion (§§159-162).(42)
31. Christian communities experience koinonia across both space and time. Across space they
experience the catholicity of the church in its extension throughout the world as one church consisting of
many particular churches in communion with one another. Across time they experience continuity with the
apostolic faith of the originating Christian community, the eschatological community founded on the
apostles (Rev. 21:14), and with all communities before and after it that have pursued and will pursue the
apostolic mission. The local church is church only within this comprehensive koinonia.
32. As the concept of local church indicates, the koinonia of salvation is realized in concrete
communities with specific structures. The structures and ministries of the church embody and serve the
koinonia of salvation. It has been a fruitful ecumenical strategy to work from a renewed theology of
communion toward a renewed consideration of longstanding difficult issues in relation to structure and
ministries. In this document we attempt on the basis of a reflection on concrete structures of koinonia in
our churches to look anew at controversies in relation to structure and ministry that have divided our
churches in the past.
33. Lutherans and Catholics affirm together a variety of interdependent realizations of ecclesial
koinonia: the congregation or parish (i.e., a face-to-face worshiping assembly gathered by word and
sacrament), a regional community or grouping of congregations or parishes (the synod in the ELCA; the
diocese in the Catholic Church), a multiplicity of national structures, and a worldwide organization.
34. These realizations and our theological understanding of them, however, are not symmetrical in our
two churches. As already noted, Lutheran and Catholic ecclesiologies differ on which realizations may
actually be called a "church." In addition, Lutherans, unlike Catholics, have no worldwide body that is
itself a church. Roman Catholics do not have national churches in the same sense as Anglicans, Lutherans,
or Orthodox. These differences in ecclesiology involve parallel differences in evaluations of ministry. For
example, Catholics consider the bishop to possess the "fullness of the sacrament of order,"(43) while
Lutherans follow the teaching of Jerome that there is no difference other than jurisdiction between a
presbyter and a bishop.(44) In Catholicism the ministry of worldwide communion is exercised by the college
of bishops, inclusive of the bishop of Rome as member and head, who also can act on the college's behalf.
While various ministries occur among Lutherans on a global level, there is no formally recognized minister
of worldwide communion.
35. In each of our traditions the ecclesiological understanding of these various realizations of koinonia
requires deeper reflection. Larger Lutheran churches around the world are typified by a structure including
face-to-face assemblies or congregations, regional groupings of such congregations (in the ELCA called
"synods"), and a national or supraregional body with extensive authority to make doctrinal and ecumenical
decisions.(45) This structural pattern has rarely, however, been theologically explicated(46) and does not
include the universal church. In Catholicism, more recent general councils have primarily focused upon
theologies of ministry, which have then shaped the understanding of the structures of ecclesial koinonia.
For example, Vatican I addressed the theology of the papacy, and Vatican II developed a theology of the
episcopacy from which emerged a theology of the local church. A theology of the presbyterate remained
comparatively undeveloped in LG since only one section discussed the priesthood within the chapter on the
hierarchy.(47) It is not surprising, then, that the parish has not been the subject of much theological reflection
within Catholicism.(48) An ecumenical reflection on the structures and ministries of koinonia thus promises
not only new possibilities for the relation between our churches, but also an occasion for consideration of
our own ecclesiological blind spots.
A. The Congregation or Parish
36. Lutherans and Roman Catholics affirm together that Christians share in the koinonia of salvation
most immediately in the worshiping assembly gathered around the baptismal font, the pulpit, and the
eucharistic table. Within these communities the gospel is preached and the faith professed, the
catechumens are evangelized and formed, the community receives the baptized, and all are nurtured. There
the faithful partake of one bread and become one body (1 Cor. 10:16). Mission is carried out there to and
for the world.(49) For both Catholics and Lutherans, this face-to-face community is of ecclesiological
significance; it is a koinonia of salvation, whether or not it is labeled "local church" in the sense discussed
above.
1. Lutherans on the Congregation
37. The interdependence of congregation and the wider community finds expression in the definition of
a congregation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America: "a community of baptized persons whose
existence depends on the proclamation of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments and whose
purpose is to worship God, to nurture its members, and to reach out in witness and service to the world.
To this end it assembles regularly for worship and nurture, organizes and carries out ministry to its people
and neighborhood, and cooperates and supports the wider church to strive for the fulfillment of God's
mission in the world."(50)
38. Each congregation participates with the wider church in God's mission to the world. The sense of
relationship, partnership, and commitment to the wider community of faith is reflected in the basic criteria
for recognition of ELCA congregations for they must agree to support the life and work of this church
(meaning the whole Evangelical Lutheran Church in America).(51) Furthermore, they must pledge to foster
and participate in interdependent relationship with other congregations, the synod, and the churchwide
organization.(52)
2. Catholics on the Parish
39. For Catholics also, the parish, especially as a place of Sunday Eucharistic worship and as the place
of Christian initiation, is where the people of God experience the church most immediately. The universal
church is actualized in specific places and circumstances, in specific cultures and within particular
communities, or not at all. The parish is both gathered together by the preaching of the gospel of Christ(53)
and joined together through the flesh and blood of the Lord's body in its celebration of the Lord's Supper.(54)
40. The theology of the parish has been strengthened by the implementation of the Rite of Christian
Initiation of Adults, which presumes a local community that helps the candidates and catechumens
throughout the whole process of initiation and their further formation in faith and witness. Within a
theology of baptism, the parish is the context and specific place of formation in Christian living. The tie to
the diocesan church also finds expression within the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, in the "rite of
election," when candidates are presented to the bishop by name in the cathedral church.(55)
B. The Synod or Diocese
41. Catholics and Lutherans affirm together that congregations and parishes cannot exist in isolation,
but must be in communion with one another within larger regional communities in order to realize koinonia
and to carry out mission. In both our churches, essential ecclesial functions are carried out within the
regional community of the diocese or synod, such as ordaining pastors and priests, pastoral care of clergy
and congregations, and important aspects of ecclesial discipline. In both churches, the diocese/synod is
understood to be church in the full sense. Most importantly, this community is the primary location of the
congregation's or parish's connection with the wider church.
1. Lutherans on Synodical Realizations
42. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) seeks "to function as people of God through
congregations, synods, and the churchwide organization, all of which shall be interdependent. Each part,
while fully church, recognizes that it is not the whole church and therefore lives in a partnership
relationship with the others."(56) Furthermore, "congregations find their fulfillment in the universal
community of the Church, and the universal Church exists in and through congregations."(57)
43. The interdependence of congregations, synods, and churchwide organization reflects the earliest
Lutheran self-understanding. As early as 1523, "Luther does not speak of the local congregation as being . . .
self-sufficient. The practical expression of his conviction is seen in the fact that visitations were carried
out. In particular, the observance of the 'evangelical doctrine' (doctrina evangelica) is not the concern of
the individual congregation [alone]; it is the concern of all those who profess this doctrine."(58)
44. In the ELCA synods are comprised of congregations. Congregations in a synod function together
both through the synodical assembly and through the ongoing cooperation that is led by the synodical
bishop and guided by the elected Synod Council. The ELCA's churchwide constitution mandates: "Each
synod, in partnership with the churchwide organization, shall bear primary responsibility for the oversight
of the life and mission of this church in its territory."(59) In the ELCA, synods are the primary locus for the
oversight of ordained ministry. All ordinations are regularly performed by synodical bishops. Synods
carry out the full range of ecclesial activities and are themselves realizations of the koinonia of salvation.(60)
2. Catholics on Diocesan Realizations
45. For Catholics, the particular church, most often a diocese, already embraces a number of parishes,
the face-to-face congregations, in which the word is preached, the eucharist celebrated, and new members
initiated. Every particular church must be in communion with other particular churches and in continuity
with its apostolic foundations. Each particular church shows solicitude for the entire church, which
includes proclaiming the gospel to the entire world, collaborating with one another, keeping unity with the
church in Rome, helping the missions, and extending assistance to other churches.(61)
46. A particular church is not a subdivision of the universal church, although there is an
interdependence between the particular and universal church. "In and from these particular churches there
exists the one unique catholic church. For this reason individual bishops represent their own church, while
all of them together with the pope represent the whole church in the bond of peace, love and unity."(62)
Within the episcopal college, bishops represent their particular church in the communion of churches, the
collegiality of bishops paralleling the communion of churches.
C. National Realizations of Koinonia
47. Lutherans and Catholics affirm together the significance of national elements in the life of the
church. Conferences of bishops for the Latin Catholic Church most often serve national groupings. From
the time of the Reformation, Lutheran churches have been organized along the lines of national or other
political units.(63)
1. Lutherans on National Realizations
48. For historical reasons, such as language and the close relationship between church and state,
Lutherans have tended to be organized into national churches for mission, among other purposes.(64) For
example, the ELCA is "church" in the theological sense and is not a federation or association of
congregations or synods. As church, the ELCA has a pastor, its presiding bishop, who carries out a range
of pastoral activities in service of this church.(65) The churchwide organization has extensive authority.
Only this churchwide expression can enter into relations of full communion with other churches.(66)
Lutherans have rarely sought to provide a theological rationale for the importance that such national
churches have played in their life.(67)
2. Catholics on National Realizations
49. In the history of the church, various structures have existed at a level more geographically
extensive than the diocese, but less extensive than the church as a whole: e.g., provinces or patriarchates.
These structures have varied widely in their powers and responsibilities. The Eastern Catholic Churches
have retained synodal structures. Since the Second Vatican Council, national conferences of bishops have
come to play an important role in the life of the Latin Catholic Church. They gather bishops of a given
nation or territory which foster a closer koinonia among the churches and collegiality among the bishops for
the people of that area.(68) The exact theological status of these conferences is not entirely determined.(69)
John Paul II's Motu Proprio, Apostolos Suos, describes the extent of the conferences' authority:
The Conference of Bishops can issue general decrees only in those
cases in which the common law prescribes it, or a special mandate of the
Apostolic See, given either motu proprio or at the request of the Conference,
determines it. In other cases the competence of individual diocesan Bishops
remains intact; and neither the Conference nor its president may act in the name of
all the Bishops unless each and every Bishop has given his consent.(70)
50. The authority of the episcopal conference is limited by the individual responsibility of each bishop
as pastor of his particular diocese and by the supreme authority of the church.(71) Episcopal conferences do
not have the ecclesial status of the diocese, the patriarchate, or the worldwide church. They are headed by
a president who does not have pastoral authority over the churches represented in the conference. The
national bishops' conferences do not play the role in the Catholic Church that the autonomous national
churches play within Lutheranism.
D. Worldwide Realization
51. Lutherans and Catholics affirm together that the worldwide expression of ecclesial life is a
communion of churches, embodying the apostolicity and catholicity of the church. Each understands the
universal church to be realized in local or particular churches, and these are not parts of the church but
realizations of the one church. They are in communion with one another and with their apostolic origins.
The universal church as the comprehensive koinonia of salvation forms the context within which all
churches are church. Both Lutherans and Catholics have structures of worldwide decision making and
action, no matter how these structures and their authority may differ.
1. Lutherans on Worldwide Realization
52. For most of its history, Lutheranism had no worldwide structural realization. A growing sense of a
need for international Lutheran solidarity led first to the gathering of individual Lutherans in the Lutheran
World Convention (1923) and later to the organization of Lutheran churches in the Lutheran World
Federation (1947). As noted earlier, the LWF does not define itself as a church, but as "a communion of
churches which confess the triune God, agree in the proclamation of the Word of God and are united in
pulpit and altar fellowship."(72) As a communion of churches, the LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical relations, theology, humanitarian assistance,
human rights, communication, and various aspects of mission and development,(73) but does not perform the
full range of ecclesial actions, does not have the authority of a church, and is not structured as a church.
The LWF is headed by a President and a General Secretary who are not understood as pastors of world
Lutheranism. The LWF has, however, exercised what amounts to discipline in relation to its German-language churches in Southern Africa during the apartheid era, and was the organ by which a consensus of
its member churches was formed around the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The LWF
is a realization of the koinonia of salvation, even if not in itself church.
2. Catholics on Worldwide Realization
53. The Roman Catholic Church understands itself as one church, which finds concrete, historical
objectification in a plurality of particular churches: "The Catholic Church herself subsists in each
particular church, which can be complete only through effective communion in faith, sacraments and unity
with the whole body of Christ."(74) Thus the universal church does not result from an addition or a
federation of particular churches. The particular church embodies the universal church in the sense that it
is the specific place where the universal church is found, yet it manifests this universality in communion
with other particular churches. The bishops in communion with one another and with the bishop of Rome
assure the continuity of the particular churches with the apostolic church and represent their churches in
communion with other particular churches. LG refers to the mystical body of Christ also as a "body of
churches."(75)
54. Lutheran-Catholic differences in the understanding of the structure of the church at the local,
regional or national, and worldwide realizations are paralleled by differences in the understanding of
ministry. Distinct ministries serve the koinonia of salvation in every ecclesial realization. Lutheran pastors
and Catholic priests serve face-to-face assemblies. Bishops serve regional communities of such assemblies.
In the Roman Catholic Church, the bishop of Rome has a special role in serving the communion of the
universal church. Asymmetry between the two traditions occurs because Catholics locate the basic unit of
the church in the particular church or diocese, while for Lutherans the basic unit of the church is the
congregation. This asymmetry is paralleled by where they locate the fullness of ministerial office.
Catholics locate the fullness of ministry in the bishop, while Lutherans find the office of Word and
sacrament fully realized in the pastor.
A. A History of the Present Differences Between Lutherans and Roman Catholics
55. As shown in the accompanying Explanation (New Testament and history sections), the theological
understanding of ordained ministry has varied significantly over the history of the church. The New
Testament churches knew offices that were present only at the church's origin (e.g., apostle), but also used
terms such as presbyteros and episkopos which became standard titles of offices in later church history.
The exact nature and function of these ministries varied in the New Testament. The threefold ordering of
bishop, presbyter, and deacon became widespread in the patristic church, but the function of these
ministries changed over time, especially with the rise of the parish presided over by the priest as the most
widespread form of face-to-face Christian community. As discussed in section 168-170, the nature of the
distinction between priest or presbyter and bishop was an unsettled matter even in medieval theology. The
Lutheran and Catholic understandings of ordained ministry in the sixteenth century were worked out
against the background of this medieval uncertainty.
56. Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and many medieval theologians taught that bishop and priest
belonged to the same order (sacerdotium). The Lutheran Reformers went further, and held that the
distinction in dignity and power between bishop and presbyter was not established by divine law (jure
divino) but by human authority (jure humano) (see below §§176-182). Whatever "power" (potestas) is
needed to "preside over the churches" belongs "by divine right to all who preside over the churches,
whether they are called pastor, presbyters, or bishops."(76) Since the congregation is the community gathered
by word and sacrament which mediate salvation, the congregation must be church. In a situation of
emergency, a church can provide for the needed ministry of word and sacrament by its own pastors
ordaining clergy, since in principle a presbyter can do what a bishop can do, however matters may be
ordered in non-emergency situations.(77) On this basis, when the Catholic bishops would not ordain
evangelical clergy, Lutheran churches within the Holy Roman Empire proceeded in the 1530s to ordain
clergy with pastors as the presiding ministers.(78) The Lutheran argument was complex, appealing both to
ecclesiological claims about the powers of the church and to claims about the essential equality of presbyter
and bishop. This argument reflects the idea that the presbyter could in a situation of necessity exercise all
essential functions of the office of ordained ministry.
57. Consistent with this confessional Lutheran understanding, the ELCA is characterized throughout
its structures by the interdependence between the assembly and the ordained ministry. The congregation is
served by a pastor; the synod is served by a bishop; the ELCA as a whole is served by a presiding bishop.
This structure is typical of Lutheran churches and some Lutheran theologians have seen in this structure a
normative expression of the Lutheran understanding of the church.(79)
58. At the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church spoke of "a hierarchy in the church, instituted by
divine appointment, consisting of bishops, priests, and ministers," but stopped short of stating that the
office of bishop exists in the church jure divino or that the episcopate is an order distinct from the
presbyterate.(80) It did affirm, however, that bishops in particular belong to this hierarchical order (gradus),
have been made by the Holy Spirit rulers of the church of God, are higher than priests, and are able to
confer the sacrament of confirmation and to ordain the ministers of the church.(81) Those who "have neither
been duly ordained nor [been] commissioned by ecclesiastical and canonical authority" are not "legitimate"
(legitimos) ministers of word and sacraments.(82)
59. Vatican II, in continuity with the implications of the Apostolic Constitution of Pius XII
Sacramentum ordinis,(83) affirmed that episcopal ordination alone confers the fullness of the sacrament of
Order.(84) The priest or presbyter participates in the sacrament of Order in a less complete manner.(85) That
the bishops as a body are successors to the apostles is by divine institution.(86) However, Vatican II left open
whether the distinction between bishop and presbyter is of divine institution.(87) Only a bishop confers the
sacrament of Order. If the local or particular church possesses all that is needed to be truly church, then it
must include within itself all ministries essential to the church. If the bishop alone exercises the fullness of
the ministerial priesthood, then only that church which includes a bishop can be such a local or particular
church.(88)
B. Ordained Ministry Serving the Congregation or Parish
60. Catholics and Lutherans affirm together that the ministry of an ordained pastor or priest is a
constitutive element of the koinonia of salvation gathered around font, pulpit, and altar. Central to this
ministry is preaching the gospel, presiding in the sacramental life of the community, and leading as pastor
the community in its life and mission. The activities of this minister are instruments of the life of the
congregation as a koinonia of salvation.
1. Catholics
61. The pastor, a member of the presbyterate,(89) is the proper shepherd of the parish. He exercises the
duties of teaching, sanctifying, and pastoral care in the community entrusted to him under the authority of
the diocesan bishop in whose ministry of Christ he has been called to share.(90) In a certain sense, presbyters
make the bishop present in the individual local congregation.(91) Together with the bishop presbyters
constitute one presbyterium,(92) evidence of the collegial character of the order. A presbyter carries out the
duties of teaching, sanctifying, and governing with the cooperation of other presbyters or deacons and the
assistance of other members of the Christian faithful. In their own locality priests also make visible the
universal church.(93) The pastor of a parish works with the bishop and with the presbyterate of the diocese to
ensure that "the faithful be concerned for parochial communion and that they realize that they are members
both of the diocese and of the universal church and participate in and support efforts to promote such
communion."(94)
2. Lutherans
62. Lutherans have historically emphasized the single office of word and sacrament exercised by all
ordained ministers. The vast majority of such ministers are congregational pastors. In preaching the word
and celebrating the sacraments, their ministry is essential to the congregation as church and intimately
related to the character of the congregation as a koinonia of salvation. They "stand both within the
congregation and over against it. They stand with the whole people of God because all share in the one
ministry of the church. They stand over against the congregation because in God's name they proclaim the
saving gospel to God's people, and therefore bear the authority of God's word, but only insofar as their
proclamation is faithful to the gospel."(95)
C. Ordained Ministry Serving Regional Communities
63. Lutherans and Catholics affirm together that the realization of koinonia in the primary regional
community is presided over by an ordained minister, called a bishop. Lutherans and Catholics agree that
the bishop exercises a priesthood or ministry of word and sacrament also shared in by the priest or pastor.
Episcopal ministry finds its center in word, sacrament, and pastoral leadership. This ministry serves the
unity of the church, both within the regional community and in the relation of this regional community with
the church of all times and places.(96)
1. Catholics
64. In the Catholic Church a bishop is a priest who has the "fullness of the sacrament of order."(97)
Ordination to the episcopacy confers the offices of sanctifying, teaching, and governing.(98) By virtue of his
ordination, the bishop's authority in his diocese is "proper, ordinary, and immediate,"(99) which means that it
is not delegated by higher ecclesiastical authority. He is able to exercise this authority, however, only in
communion with the college of bishops and the bishop of Rome. Among his duties, "the preaching of the
gospel occupies the pre-eminent place."(100) He is the pastor of a particular church, which includes multiple
parishes.
65. In the Catholic Church, bishops function within the college of bishops to which they are admitted
by virtue of their episcopal ordination and hierarchical communion with the bishop of Rome.(101) A bishop
represents his own church within this college, and all the bishops together with the bishop of Rome
represent the whole church(102) and share responsibility for preaching the gospel to the whole world.(103) The
college of bishops does not constitute a legislative body apart from the bishop of Rome, but includes the
pope as member and head of the college.
66. The Second Vatican Council did not specify what constitutes the fullness of the sacrament of Order
given in ordination as a bishop. This "fullness of the sacrament of order" can refer (among other things) to
the regional bishop's representing his particular church in the communion of churches. The very nature of
the episcopacy requires that a bishop exercise his office, even within his own particular church, only in
communion with the college of bishops into which he is "incorporated" by his sacramental ordination. The
college of bishops symbolizes the unity among the particular churches that each bishop represents in his
office. The episcopacy is a relational office, connecting eucharistic communities with one another across
space and time as well as fostering the ministry of the local church in faith and love. The collegiality of the
episcopacy represents the catholicity of the churches. The episcopacy also connects eucharistic
communities with the college of the apostles, and thus represents the apostolicity of the churches.(104)
2. Lutherans
67. At the time of the Reformation, Lutherans in the Holy Roman Empire organized ministries of
oversight in their territorial churches to replace those of the bishops who they judged had abandoned the
gospel and who would not ordain evangelical clergy. While these ministers of oversight had various titles,
their ministry was understood to be episcopal.(105) Various Lutheran church orders spoke of this office of
oversight as necessary to the life of the church(106) because it was oriented to the church's faithfulness in
those ministries that served its life as a koinonia of salvation. Following 1918 and the end of the state-church system within which the princes played a quasi-episcopal role, the German Lutheran churches
reintroduced the title "bishop."(107) The Nordic Lutheran churches, in lands where the entire nation became
Lutheran, preserved the pre-Reformation episcopal order, with varying degrees of continuity with their
predecessors in office (see below §§189-195). The predecessor bodies of the ELCA introduced the title
"bishop" in the second half of the twentieth century (see below §232).
68. In the ELCA, a bishop is called to be a "synod's pastor" and as such "shall be an ordained minister
of Word and Sacrament."(108) Like all pastors, the bishop shall "preach, teach, and administer the
sacraments." In addition, the bishop has "primary responsibility for the ministry of Word and Sacrament
in the synod and its congregations, providing pastoral care and leadership."(109) The ministry and oversight
of the bishop thus relate directly to that which makes the synod a realization of the koinonia of salvation.
69. Lutherans also affirm the role of the episcopacy in linking regional churches to the universal
church. The ELCA constitution stipulates that the synodical bishop shall provide "leadership in
strengthening the unity of the Church."(110) This responsibility is affirmed by the ELCA-Episcopal Church
agreement "Called to Common Mission:" "By such a liturgical statement [entrance into the episcopate
through the laying on of hands by other bishops] the churches recognize that the bishop serves the diocese
or synod through ties of collegiality and consultation that strengthen its links with the universal church."(111)
Similarly, in the Northern European "Porvoo Common Statement," the participating Lutheran and
Anglican churches "acknowledge that the episcopal office is valued and maintained in all our churches as a
visible sign expressing and serving the Church's unity and continuity in apostolic life, mission and
ministry."(112)
D. Ordained Ministry Serving the Universal Church
70. Catholics and Lutherans affirm together that all ministry, to the degree that it serves the koinonia
of salvation, also serves the unity of the worldwide church. A specific ministry that serves universal unity
is affirmed by Catholics and not excluded by Lutherans. Lutherans and Catholics together need to discuss
how such a ministry can be formed and reformed so that it can be received by a greater range of the world's
churches and thus better fulfill its own service to unity.
1. Catholics
71. As bishop of the particular church of Rome, the bishop of Rome, successor of Peter, has a unique
responsibility as pastor and teacher to the universal church. He is, in his Petrine ministry, the visible
"principle of the unity both of faith and of communion."(113) The common statement, Papal Primacy and the
Universal Church, spoke of a "Petrine function" to describe "a particular form of Ministry exercised by a
person, officeholder, or local church with reference to the church as a whole," a function that "serves to
promote or preserve the oneness of the church by symbolizing unity, and by facilitating communication,
mutual assistance or correction, and collaboration in the church's mission."(114) Since he must ensure and
serve the communion of the particular churches, he is the first servant of unity.(115) While the pope does not
take the place of the diocesan bishop, his pastoral authority and responsibility extends throughout the
church around the world. He must assure that the local churches keep and transmit the apostolic faith with
integrity. He promotes and coordinates the activities of the churches in their missionary task. He speaks in
the name of all the bishops and all their local churches when necessary and has the authority to declare
officially and solemnly the revealed truth in the name of the whole church. The bishop of Rome always
fulfills his office in communion with the college of bishops as a member and its head.(116) His office is not
separate from the mission entrusted to the whole body of bishops.
72. In Ut unum sint, John Paul II's concern for the unity of the churches is not limited to the Catholic
communion, but extends to all Christian communities. He acknowledges that the exercise of the papacy
has at times been an obstacle to Christian unity. Therefore, he seeks "a way of exercising the primacy
which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new
situation."(117) To this end he has called upon church leaders and theologians to engage with him in a patient
and fraternal dialogue on this subject.(118)
2. Lutherans
73. Openness to a rightly exercised primacy is part of the Lutheran theological legacy. The Lutheran
Reformers' rejection of the papacy focused on "the concrete historical papacy as it confronted them in their
day" rather than on the very idea of a universal ministry of unity.(119) In Against the Papacy in Rome,
Instituted by the Devil (1545), perhaps his sharpest writing against the papacy, Luther nevertheless affirms
that the pope might have a primacy of "honor and superiority" and "of oversight over teaching and heresy
in the church."(120) This "conditional openness" to papal primacy is dependent upon a reformed papacy,
subject to the gospel, that would not arbitrarily restrict Christian freedom.(121)
74. The Lutheran argument did not merely contest abuses, however; it also challenged the alleged jure
divino character of the papacy. Philip Melanchthon added to his subscription to the Smalcald Articles that,
if the pope "would allow the gospel," the papacy's "superiority over the bishops" could be granted jure
humano.(122) Historical criticism has significantly altered understandings of divine and human law and
criteria for distinguishing them.(123) Especially in relation to the papacy, but also in relation to other
traditionally controversial questions relating to ministry, the categories of divine and human law need to be
re-examined and placed in the context of ministry as service to the koinonia of salvation.
A. Succession in Apostolic Mission, Ministry, and Message
75. Both Lutherans and Catholics have a strong commitment to maintaining apostolicity in the
Christian faith.(124) The koinonia of salvation requires continuity in the mission, ministry, and message of
the apostles. The discussion of ordained ministry between Lutherans and Catholics, however, has often
been dominated by the issue of apostolic succession understood as a succession of episcopal consecrations.
As a result, the question of apostolicity has been discussed in a narrowly canonical and mechanistic
manner. The renewed ecclesiology of koinonia has instead sought first to understand ministry as a bond of
koinonia within the church and then to recover the rich patristic sense of the bonds of the church to the
apostles' mission, ministry, and message across space and time.
76. Lutherans and Catholics agree that the continuity of the apostolic church and the continuity of its
mission, ministry, and message are promised to it by its Lord.(125) In the mission given by Jesus to the
apostles the Lord has promised to be present until the end of the age (Mt. 28:19-20). There is one
household of God, founded on the apostles and prophets, with Christ as the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). The
gates of Hell shall never prevail against this church (Mt. 16:18). Lutherans and Catholics agree that
"apostolic succession" in this comprehensive sense is essential to the church's being. Such succession is
continuity with both the past and the future, both with the apostles as witnesses of the resurrection two
thousand years ago and with the apostles whose names will be on the twelve foundations of the New
Jerusalem (Rev. 21:14). Such continuity is an element of "the Church's communion which spans time and
space, linking the present to past and future generations of Christians."(126)
77. Continuity in apostolic mission, ministry, and message is not a human achievement, but a gift of
the Spirit. God is faithful to his promise, despite our failings. Our confidence in this continuity is not
based upon our fidelity, but upon God's promise. God maintains the church in the apostolic mission,
ministry, and message through concrete means: the apostolic scriptures, faithful teachers, the creeds, and
the continuity of ordained ministry. Through these various means, the community as a whole remains
apostolic.(127)
B. The Bishop as Sign and Instrument of Apostolic Succession
78. As a regional minister of oversight, the bishop is called to foster the koinonia that extends beyond
any one local community. The bishop maintains koinonia with the church's apostolic foundations through
proclamation of the gospel and apostolic faith. A truly evangelical oversight will focus on the church's
faithfulness to the gospel and thus seek to safeguard and further its true apostolicity. The episcopal task is
thus inherently bound up with a concern for apostolic continuity. As the ELCA-Episcopal Church
agreement stated, a ministry of episcopé, conferred through the laying on of hands by other bishops and
prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit, is one of the ways "in the context of ordained ministries and of the
whole people of God, in which the apostolic succession of the church is visibly expressed and personally
symbolized in fidelity to the Gospel through the ages."(128)
79. While a focus on a continuity in ordinations or consecrations can make the concept of succession
appear simply human, such a focus should bring to the fore the divine initiative in preserving the church.
The laying on of hands is a classical form of intensive prayer. In both of our churches, the laying on of
hands for the episcopal office is accompanied by a prayer for the pouring out of the Spirit upon the new
bishops to empower their ministry. The church thus celebrates the continuity of apostolic ministry, a
continuity that lies ultimately in the hands of God. The church must pray for that ministry to continue, and
it prays confidently in the knowledge that God will be faithful to the promise that goes with the command to
"go out into all the world" (Mt. 28:19-20; Mk. 16:14).
80. Prior to the late 1530s, the theme of succession played little role in Reformation debates on the role
and authority of the bishop. The authority and ministry of the bishop, not any particular concept of
succession, were the subject of debate. The Lutheran Confessions explicitly regret the loss of the "order of
the church"(129) that resulted from the presbyteral ordinations the Lutherans judged to be necessary for the
life of their churches, but neither Article 28 of the Augsburg Confession on the power of bishops nor the
response by the imperial Catholic theologians to it in the Confutation refers explicitly to succession.(130)
Thus, when the Lutheran churches felt compelled to ordain pastors apart from the Catholic hierarchy, they
were not consciously rejecting any concept of episcopal succession, for such a concept was not current in
theological discussions of the period . Only with the renewed attention to patristic sources in the
subsequent debates was such a concept reasserted.(131) Unfortunately, when the writings of such figures as
Irenaeus were taken up in the debate, they were used within a canonical argument over validity which the
Lutherans could only reject.(132) More recent ecumenical discussions of succession as a sign of the
continuity of the church (e.g., the Anglican-Lutheran Niagara Report, 1987) have found much greater
(though not universal) acceptance in Lutheran circles.(133) In 2001, the ELCA entered a new relation with
The Episcopal Church, committing both to "share an episcopal succession that is both evangelical and
historic."(134) Similar Lutheran-Anglican agreements in Canada and Northern Europe in which Lutherans
have affirmed episcopal succession put Lutheran-Catholic relations in a new context.
81. The Roman Catholic Church has preserved the succession of episcopal consecrations; this
succession was broken in continental Lutheranism, maintained in parts of Nordic Lutheranism, and has
been reclaimed by the ELCA. What is the significance of either preserving or breaking this succession?
That question must not be isolated and made to bear the entire weight of a judgment on a church's ministry.
Whether a particular minister or church serves the church's apostolic mission does not depend only upon
the presence of such a succession of episcopal consecrations, as if its absence would negate the apostolicity
of the church's teaching and mission.(135) Recent ecumenical discussions of episcopacy and succession do
not remove our former disagreements, but they do place them in a richer and more complex context in
which judgments made exclusively on the basis of the presence or absence of a succession of consecrations
are less possible.
A. The Relationship between Local and Regional Churches
82. The interdependent polarity between "face-to-face eucharistic assembly" and "primary regional
community of such assemblies" elaborated above (see §§27-29, 33) forms the background for a
reconsideration of the relation between bishop and presbyter. Bishop and pastor are the presiding
ministers, respectively, of the synod or diocese and of the congregation or parish gathered around word and
sacrament.(136) Church unity rests in koinonia or sharing in word and sacrament. Because ordained ministry
of word and sacrament is essential to the church's sharing in and sharing salvation, such ministry is
intrinsically related to the church's unity and koinonia.
83. The relation between bishop and pastor parallels in important ways the relation between synod or
diocese on the one hand and parish or congregation on the other. Within this parallelism, the differing
understandings of the structure of church held by Lutherans and Catholics have each grasped an essential
dimension of the church: the primacy of the face-to-face community gathered around font, pulpit, and altar,
on the one hand, and the essential character of koinonia with other such communities for the life of any
eucharistic assembly, on the other. In seeking to determine which is "local church" in the theological sense
noted above, however, false choices have been forced upon theological reflection. As a result, both
Lutherans and Catholics suffer from an imbalance in their theological account of the church.
84. With respect to Roman Catholics, the international Roman Catholic-Lutheran Joint Commission
has noted that, despite the definition of the local church as the diocese, "in actual fact it is the parish, even
more than the diocese, which is familiar to Christians as the place where the church is to be
experienced."(137) The Second Vatican Council recognized this role of the parish when it stated: "parishes
set up locally under a pastor who takes the place of the bishop...in a certain way represent the visible
Church as it is established throughout the world."(138) For Catholic doctrine, however, the church is
identified by the minister who presides over it. The presence of the bishop signals the continuity of the
local church in the apostolic faith as well as the communion of that church with other churches, essential
components in the definition of a local church in the Roman Catholic tradition. But Catholics do not often
perceive their eucharistic community as headed by the bishop. Although the bishop directs and is named in
every celebration of the eucharist in the diocese,(139) and there is an understanding that the priest in some
sense makes present the bishop,(140) in the experience of most Roman Catholics, the diocese is not the
primary eucharistic expression of the church.
85. With respect to Lutherans, the local/presbyteral realization of the church in the congregation has
priority. A theological understanding of the need to realize regional koinonia with ongoing structures
remains underdeveloped. The church is identified as "the assembly of saints in which the gospel is taught
purely and the sacraments are administered rightly."(141) But the church is not limited to the congregation, for
Luther says: "The church is the number or gathering of the baptized and the believers under one pastor,
whether this is in one city or in one province or in the whole world."(142) Herein lies the difficulty. While a
community gathered by word and sacrament suggests a local congregation, the Reformers and most of later
Lutheranism(143) have stressed the need for regional structures and discipline. In the same text to the
Bohemians in which he urges them to ordain their own ministers, Luther also suggests that if a number of
communities do this, then "these bishops may wish to come together and elect one or more from their
number to be their superiors, who would serve them and hold visitations among them, as Peter visited the
churches, according to the account in the Book of Acts. Then Bohemia would return again to its rightful
and evangelical archbishopric, which would be rich, not in large income and much authority, but in many
ministers and visitations of the churches."(144)
86. Here Luther clearly urges a regional structure. The term "particular church" was applied by later
Lutheran theology equally to the congregation and to the regional or national body.(145) What Lutheranism
lacks is a clear and convincing theological rationale for its actual practice of embedding the congregation in
a regional body, which is also called "church." The temptations of congregationalism and the
understanding of regional structures as merely sociological necessity have recurred within Lutheran
history.(146) The theological basis for the realization of the essential catholicity of the face-to-face assembly
in lived koinonia with other such assemblies is theologically underexpressed.
87. Lutherans and Catholics agree that neither the local congregation or parish nor the regional
community of these congregations or parishes is sufficient unto itself without the other. Due weight must
be given both to the assembly of word and sacrament and to the regional community of such assemblies.
Catholics are challenged to develop more fully a doctrine of the parish and to address the contemporary
implausibility of its depiction of the diocese as "local church" or eucharistic assembly. The Lutheran
viewpoint suffers from an incompleteness in its theological account of the significance of the regional
church. Each viewpoint tends to treat ministry in the same way that it treats ecclesiology. Lutheran
ecclesiology emphasizes the congregation and the pastor while Catholics ecclesiology emphasizes the
bishop and the regional structure.
88. A way forward beyond this contrast between the two traditions is to regard the regional/episcopal
and the local/presbyteral difference as a normative complementarity, both in relation to ecclesiology and in
relation to the doctrine of ministry. The exclusive prioritizing of either the regional or the geographically
local is a false alternative. An initial agreement on this point already has been reached in relation to
ministry by the international Roman Catholic-Lutheran Joint Commission: "If both churches acknowledge
that for faith this historical development of the one apostolic ministry into a more local and a more regional
ministry has taken place with the help of the Holy Spirit and to this degree constitutes something essential
for the church, then a high degree of agreement has been reached."(147) If the difference between a local and
a regional ministry, paralleling a difference between the face-to-face assembly and the regional community
of such assemblies, is a development helped by the Holy Spirit, then an ecclesiology that devalues this
difference by reducing one side of it to theological insignificance fails to follow where the Spirit has led.
89. If the church as the koinonia of salvation is born from and borne by the gospel proclaimed in word
and sacrament, and if the eucharist, including the proclamation of the word and the celebration of the
supper, is the event from which and toward which the church lives,(148) then the face-to-face eucharistic
assembly must be a basic unit of the church. It is a place where "church" is essentially realized.(149) Indeed,
there can be no church without such face-to-face eucharistic assemblies. In that sense, they are
fundamental.(150) That which is realized in this face-to-face eucharistic assembly is truly "church," the Body
of Christ, the assembly of all the saints across time and space. This relation is manifest in the Supper,
where the congregation praises God "with the church on earth and the hosts of heaven."
90. Each eucharistic assembly lives out its constitutive relation with the wider church by its concrete
relations with other assemblies in a network of koinonia. The WCC-Catholic Church Joint Working Group
affirmed the importance of this koinonia for the local church. "The local church is not a free-standing, self-sufficient reality. As part of a network of communion, the local church maintains its reality as church by
relating to other local churches."(151) This relationship with other local churches is essential to the catholicity
that every church must embody. "Communion with other local churches is essential to the integrity of the
self-understanding of each local church, precisely because of its catholicity. Life in self-sufficient
isolation...is the denial of its very being."(152) The same must be said about the relation of the eucharistic
assembly to the wider church. For Catholic theology, the communion of the local face-to-face eucharistic
assemblies with their bishop is essential for their ecclesiality, and they cannot be considered "churches"
apart from that communion. For these communities, catholicity requires not only communion with other
local churches, but communion with the ministry of the bishop. It was stated forcefully in the context of an
LWF study on church unity that "the already existing spiritual unity of the Church of Jesus Christ demands
the realization of concrete, historical, tangible church fellowship."(153) Thus, "all local ecclesiae in the
whole world should stand in a concrete, actually lived, legally effective koinonia."(154)
91. The most immediate and concrete way this network of relations among face-to-face eucharistic
assemblies is realized is in some primary regional community: a Catholic diocese, a Lutheran synod. These
primary regional communities embody in an explicit way the essential interconnection of every eucharistic
assembly within the one koinonia of salvation. Such a regional community is itself church, and not just a
collection of churches, for it is the assembly (even if only representatively) of assemblies, each of which
relates to the others internally, and not merely externally,(155) for koinonia with other communities is essential
to the catholicity and thus the ecclesiality of each. The assemblies come together as one church. If the
ecclesial reality of any larger grouping is inseparable from that of face-to-face eucharistic assemblies, the
converse is also true: the ecclesial reality and catholicity of face-to-face eucharistic assemblies requires
their existence within regional communities. The complementarity of face-to-face eucharistic assembly and
primary regional community is thus theologically normative.
B. The Relation between Priest/Presbyter/Pastor and Bishop
92. The preceding analysis leads to the conclusion that the complementarity of local and regional
ministry is normative within the ordained ministry of the church, paralleling the normative complementarity
of the face-to-face eucharistic assembly and the primary regional community. It would be a mistake to
insist that either the parish/congregation or the diocese/synod is exclusively the local church. Likewise, the
doctrine of ministry would be distorted by insisting that either the presbyter or the bishop is the only
theologically necessary ordained minister, thereby dismissing the other, bishop or presbyter, as practically
necessary but theologically insignificant. Lutherans often have insisted that the bishop is a pastor with a
larger sphere of ministry, without seeing the distinctiveness of the role of a pastor to a communion of
communities, each led by its own ordained minister. Recent Catholic theology often fails adequately to
explain why priests are theologically necessary, in addition to bishops, and not merely practically necessary
to the church.
93. If we think of the ordained ministry as structured by this complementarity, the specific emphases of
each tradition might come to be seen in a new light. Because the regional grouping served by the bishop
manifests in a fuller way the unity of the church by manifesting the unity of the communities within it more
fully than any one of these communities can do alone, one can say that the ministry of the bishop is in this
sense fuller than that of any single presbyter. As the minister of the actual face-to-face eucharistic
assembly, however, the presbyter might be said in this sense to have a richer, more fundamental ministry.
Each ministry depends upon the other.
94. At the same time we strive to show what is distinctive and complementary between the office of
bishop and that of pastor/priest/presbyter with respect to their service to different levels of ecclesiality, it is
also important to keep in mind the profound similarities in these two offices. In many ways they are
distinct but inseparable offices. Both bishops and presbyters are ordained to serve word, sacrament, and
the pastoral life of the church. For Lutherans, both bishops and pastors exercise the one office of word and
sacrament. In Roman Catholic theology the sacrament of Order is one; both bishops and presbyters are
priests; priests are associated with their bishop in one presbyterium. What these ministries share is much
greater than that which distinguishes them.
A. Toward a Recognition of the Reality and Woundedness of our Ministries and Churches
95. What follows for the relations between our churches from the analysis above, supported by the
biblical and historical explanations that follow below? Building upon the earlier Lutheran-Roman Catholic
dialogues, Eucharist and Ministry and Facing Unity,(156) we propose steps toward a full, mutual recognition
and reconciliation of our ministries and the ultimate goal of full communion. We are aware of common
challenges to overcome. Nevertheless, the mutual recognition of ministries need not be an all-or-nothing
matter and should not be reduced to a simple judgment about validity or invalidity. In order to assess the
degree of our koinonia in ordained ministry, a more nuanced discernment is needed reflecting the way that
an ordained ministry serves the proclamation of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments, stands
in continuity with the apostolic tradition, and serves communion among churches.
96. We recommend that our churches recognize our common understanding of the
interdependent structures of church life and ministry, namely, the diocese/synod with its bishop and
parish/congregation with its pastor or priest. This common understanding is reflected in a shared
sense of the single sacrament of Order (sacramentum Ordinis) or the one office of ministry (Amt).
The differences between us in emphasis and terminology need not be church dividing even though
they challenge each church to overcome imbalances in its own tradition.
97. Our affirmations about ordained ministry go together with our affirmations about our communities
(see §§85-89), for ministry parallels the ordering of the church. If real but imperfect recognition exists
between our ministers and our communities, neither community can lack churchly reality. Movement
toward deeper mutual recognition of our ministries is both rooted in and contributes to our growing sense
of the ecclesial reality of each of our communities. In particular, the Catholic non-recognition of Lutheran
ministries has hindered Catholic affirmation of the Lutheran churches as churches. If our proposal for
deeper mutual recognition of ministries is accepted, then new possibilities should open for reconsideration
of mutual recognition as churches. Mutual recognition of our churches and ministries need not be an all-or-nothing matter.(157)
98. We recommend that each church recognize that the other realizes, even if perhaps
imperfectly, the one church of Jesus Christ and shares in the apostolic tradition.
99. We recommend that each church recognize that the ordained ministry of the other effectively
carries on, even if perhaps imperfectly, the apostolic ministry instituted by God in the church.
100. To say that each church understands itself and the other to exercise the apostolic ministry
is not to say that either church escapes the damage done to our ministries by the ongoing scandal of our
division. To the extent that the ordained ministry of one church is not in communion with the ordained
ministry of other churches, it is unable to carry out its witness to the unity of the church as it should. Such
a ministry inevitably bears a wound or defect. Ministry carries this wound whenever the koinonia among
eucharistic communities and different realizations of the church are broken. Because our relationships are
broken, our ministry is wounded and in need of healing by God's grace.
101. This need affects both of our churches. The Roman Catholic Church acknowledges that it
is wounded by a lack of communion. As the Decree on Ecumenism stated, "The divisions among
Christians prevent the church from realizing in practice the fullness of catholicity proper to her...."(158) The
1992 letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Some Aspects of the Church as
Communion," after noting the wound that lack of communion inflicts on the Orthodox and Reformation
churches, concluded that this division:
...in turn also wounds (vulnus iniungitur) the Catholic Church, called
by the Lord to become for all "one flock" with "one shepherd," in that it hinders
the complete fulfillment of her universality in history.(159)
The entire Catholic priesthood, including the bishop of Rome, is wounded in an important
dimension of its ministry insofar as unity and communion are lacking with other churches and their
ministries.
102. The same must be said of the Lutheran churches and their ministries. Lutherans
understand their ministries to be realizations of the one ministry of the one church, and yet they cannot
manifest communion in this one ministry with many other churches. This woundedness provides a helpful
basis for a new understanding of the Catholic assertion of defectus in the sacrament of Order in Lutheran
churches (§§108-109).
103. We recommend a mutual recognition that:
- our ordained ministries are wounded because the absence of full communion
between our ecclesial traditions makes it impossible for them adequately to represent and foster the
unity and catholicity of the church; and
our communities are wounded by their lack of the full catholicity to which they are
called and by their inability to provide a common witness to the gospel.
104. Addressing these wounds in our churches will require repentance and conversion. Each
church must examine its theology and practice of ministry and ask whether they truly serve the mission and
unity of the church. Division offers occasions for sin, to which our churches have sometimes
succumbed.(160) The Second Vatican Council teaches, "There can be no ecumenism worthy of the name
without a change of heart."(161) Pope John Paul II concluded on this basis, "The Council calls for personal
conversion as well as for communal conversion."(162)
105. We recommend that our churches pray together for the grace of repentance and
conversion needed for healing the wounds of our division.
1. Catholic Discernment
106. Repentance and conversion call for steps toward healing the wounds of our division. For
Catholics, a necessary step will be a reassessment of Lutheran presbyteral ordinations at the time of the
Reformation. This reassessment on the part of proper church authorities can now take into account the
nature of the presbyteral ministry and its relation to episcopal ministry, the nature of apostolic succession,
the sort of community that decided to carry out such ordinations, the intent behind these ordinations, and
the historical situation that led to such a decision. The argument presented above about the normative
complementarity between presbyter and bishop holds significance for the evaluation of the ministries in
continuity with these Reformation actions. The historical findings (see below §§171-182) show that the
theology that supported the Lutheran action was not a conscious rejection of all earlier tradition, but bore
significant continuities with New Testament, patristic, and medieval understandings. The recent
commitment of the ELCA to enter into episcopal succession for the sake of ecclesial koinonia(163) is a new
and significant factor in this regard.
107. Catholic judgment on the authenticity of Lutheran ministry need not be of an all-or-nothing
nature. The Decree on Ecumenism of Vatican II distinguished between relationships of full ecclesiastical
communion and those of imperfect communion to reflect the varying degrees of differences with the
Catholic Church.(164) The communion of these separated communities with the Catholic Church is real, even
though it is imperfect. Furthermore, the decree positively affirmed:
Our separated brothers and sisters also celebrate many sacred actions
of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in
ways that vary according to the condition of each church or community, and must
be held capable of giving access to that communion in which is salvation.(165)
Commenting on this point, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation on the Doctrine
of the Faith, wrote in 1993 to Bavarian Lutheran bishop Johannes Hanselmann:
I count among the most important results of the ecumenical dialogues
the insight that the issue of the eucharist cannot be narrowed to the problem of
'validity.' Even a theology oriented to the concept of succession, such as that
which holds in the Catholic and in the Orthodox church, need not in any way deny
the salvation-granting presence of the Lord [Heilschaffende Gegenwart des
Herrn] in a Lutheran [evangelische] Lord's Supper.(166)
If the actions of Lutheran pastors can be described by Catholics as "sacred actions" that "can truly
engender a life of grace," if communities served by such ministers give "access to that communion in which
is salvation," and if at a eucharist at which a Lutheran pastor presides is to be found "the salvation-granting presence of the Lord," then Lutheran churches cannot be said simply to lack the ministry given to
the church by Christ and the Spirit. In acknowledging the imperfect koinonia between our communities and
the access to grace through the ministries of these communities, we also acknowledge a real although
imperfect koinonia between our ministries.
108. Ecumenical understanding would be furthered if in official Roman Catholic documents
Vatican II's reference to defectus in the sacrament of Order among "ecclesial communities" were translated
by such words as "defect" or "deficiency."(167) As Walter Cardinal Kasper has stated: "On material grounds
[aus der Sachlogik], and not merely on the basis of the word usage of the Council, it becomes clear that
defectus ordinis does not signify a complete absence, but rather a deficiency [Mangel] in the full form of
the office."(168) Translations of defectus as "lack" misleadingly imply the simple absence of the reality of
ordination. Translation as "defect" or "deficiency" would be consistent with the sort of real but imperfect
recognition of ministries proposed above. While short of full recognition, such partial recognition would
provide the basis for first steps toward a reconciliation of ministries as envisioned, e.g., in the international
Roman Catholic-Lutheran statement Facing Unity.(169)
109. We recommend that Roman Catholic criteria for assessing authentic ministry include
attention to a ministry's faithfulness to the gospel and its service to the communion of the church, and
that defectus ordinis as applied to Lutheran ministries be translated as "deficiency" rather than
"lack."
2. Lutheran Discernment
110. In ecumenical discussions, Lutherans have shown little hesitancy in recognizing the
ordained ministries of the Catholic Church. During the Reformation era, the Lutheran churches did not re-ordain Catholic priests who joined the evangelical movement.(170) At times in the past, Lutherans doubted
that the Catholic priesthood was in fact the one evangelical ministry of word and sacrament of the one
church, because Lutherans thought the Catholic priesthood was oriented toward an unevangelical
understanding of the Mass.(171) These doubts have been removed by convergence and agreement on the
gospel(172) and by such affirmations as that of the Second Vatican Council that "among the principal tasks of
bishops the preaching of the gospel is pre-eminent."(173)
111. Lutherans also need repentance and conversion to take steps toward healing the wounds of
our division. They must constantly reassess some of their own traditions of ordained ministry. Regarding
"the order of the church and the various ranks in the church" including bishops, the Apology of the
Augsburg Confession testifies that the "greatest desire" of the Reformers was to retain this ministerial
structure.(174) This desire stated in the Lutheran Confessions still is normative for present-day Lutheranism.
The office of bishop as regional pastor is the normal polity of the church, "a gift of the Holy Spirit,"(175) and
implies bishops in communion with other ministers exercising episcopé. A church may be compelled to
abandon such a shared episcopal office for a time, but should return to it whenever possible. Recent
actions by the ELCA and some other Lutheran churches to reclaim shared episcopal ordering, both among
themselves and as an aspect of communion with Anglican churches, are signs of a willingness to engage in
such a reassessment.(176)
3. Common Challenges
112. Asymmetry exists between our churches in relation to our mutual recognition of ordained
ministry. Lutheran churches are able fully to recognize Catholic ordained ministries on the basis of
ecumenical developments, but the Catholic Church has not fully recognized the ordained ministries of a
church such as the ELCA.(177) This asymmetry makes life together more difficult. Any reconciliation of
ministries needs to find ways of addressing this asymmetry that accord with the self-understanding of each
church.
113. The ordination or non-ordination of women is a significant difference between our two
traditions. The decision to ordain both women and men to the ministry of word and sacrament involves
questions about the church's authority. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, continuing the
practice of its predecessor bodies, holds itself free under the gospel to ordain women.(178) The Catholic
Church does not hold itself authorized to make such a decision.(179) The reconciliation or full mutual
recognition of ministries will need to address this sensitive difference.
B. Universal Church and Universal Ministry
114. In relation to a universal ministry at the service of the unity of the universal church, this
dialogue is far less ready to propose any official actions. The bishop of Rome, the only historically
plausible candidate for such a universal ministry, remains a sign of unity and a sign of division among us.
Pope John Paul II has called for an ecumenical dialogue on the papacy and its exercise as a pastoral office
in service of the unity of Christians.(180) We are hopeful that this invitation for "a patient and fraternal
dialogue"(181)