Historical Development of the Sacrament of Holy Orders

1. Parallels and precedents

The idea of a priest and his intercessory work underlies all religion. It may be safely asserted that in the early Ages every man was his own priest.

Priests supervise or performs rituals through which people enter the world of the sacred. Sometimes their very presence is a sign to others of a dimension of reality which lies beyond the visible world. Priests and their equivalents (shamans, diviners, healers, sorcerers, witches, gurus, prophets, rabbis, imams, etc.) act as mediators of the sacred.

2. Priesthood in the Old Testament

In ancient Israel the priesthood was more a function than a status of life. As in much of pagan society, the office or function of offering sacrifice and of acting as mediator between God and people was resident in the oldest member or patriarch of the family. When Israel became a theocracy the king was anointed and consecrated in a special way. At times he performed personally the sacrificial functions proper to priests. As the monarchy came to an end, the sacrificial role of the priest became the exclusive privilege of the descendants of Aaron. The basic ministry of the Levitical priesthood as continued in the sons of Aaron is described in the blessing of the tribes of Israel (Deut 33:9-11). The function of the priest as revealed in Deuteronomy is more than sacrificial. The priest is, in a sense, prophet or teacher, lawgiver or ruler as well as a sacrificing priest and the president of public worship.

3. Ministries and charisms in the New Testament

Orders, sacred orders, priestly ordination, sacrament or orders, major and minor orders, priestly ministry, and so on, are words and concepts relatively foreign to the New Testament. But words which are equivalent to the general concept of ministry are found, such as: diakonia (service), charis or charisma (unmerited gift), pempo and apostello (send), apostolos (one sent), and presbeuo (to function as ambassador).

The model and source of every mission-ministry is Jesus Christ (Heb 3:1ff.; 13:20; I Pet 2:25). It is he who chooses and calls his disciples and ministers (Acts 20:24; Rom 1:5; Eph 4:11-14) and gives the helps (charisms) they need in order to carry out worthily the ministry entrusted to them.

The metaphor of the human body (1 Cor 12:12-30) introduces and embryonic hierarchy among the charisms and ministries. “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues” (1 Cor 12:28; Eph 4:11-13).

4. Ministries and Worship in the Apostolic Church

The Twelve. These are the apostles par excellence, those who knew the Master in person. These men baptized; they imposed hands that the Spirit might be given to neophytes or to bestow a mission or ministry (see Acts 6:6). They certainly presided at the Eucharist (although not explicitly stated), preached, made laws, excommunicated and reconciled.

Apostles. They are missionaries sent out from communities, with authority suited to the nature of their mission. They imposed hands in order to confer the rank of bishop-presbyter (2 Tim 1:6), to bestow the gift of the Spirit (Acts 19:6), to heal the sick (Acts 28:8). One of their functions seems to have been to preside at the Eucharist (see Acts 20:7-12).
Prophets. Among their functions was authority to impose hands in order to confer a mission (Acts 13:3). “Through prophecy” and with the laying on of hands episcopacy was conferred (1 Tim 4:14; see 1:8).

Teachers. (didaskaloi): With the evangelists they shared in the ministry of preaching and had the duty of preaching, proclaiming the gospel, and explaining the Scriptures.
Elders (presbuteroi or episkopoi): In the NT the two terms are applied to the same persons (Acts 20:17, 28). The first term identified the ministry; the second pointed rather to an aspect of the ministry (vigilance).

Deacons: Their stated task was the service of widows and poor, especially service at table. 1 Tim 3:8-13 gives a description of the true deacon.

5. Ritual of Ordination in the Third Century

It is with Hippolytus that the manuals and the researches of the liturgists into the sacrament of orders usually begin. These texts, these gestures, show a Church now structured according to a strictly hierarchical ladder.

a) The ordination of a bishop

A bishop must be chosen and accepted by the entire people, the clergy, and the authorities. Sunday is the day of ordination. The ministers of the ordination are all the bishops present, the pastors of the neighboring churches.

The laying on of hands is the climactic moment in the ordination. The role of the assembly: “All remain silent, praying in their hearts for the descent of the Holy Spirit.” When the prayer of ordination is complete, “all offer the kiss of peace,” accompanying it perhaps with an acclamation. Finally, the new bishop celebrates his first Eucharist.

b) Presbyteral ordination

Nothing is said about the election or choice of the candidate. The only thing prescribed for the rite of ordination is the laying on of hands by the bishop and the entire presbytery.

c) The ordination of a deacon

A deacon, too, must be chosen and accepted by the people. The bishop alone imposes hands on him, since he “is not ordained to the priesthood but to the service of the bishop, so that he will do what the bishops orders.”

6. Ordinations in the fourth century

The ritual was unchanged in the West, and the most interesting novelties come from the East: in Egypt, the three prayers of ordination in the Euchologion of Serapion; in Syria, the ritual in the Apostolic Constitutions, which contains some noteworthy innovations: the laying of the Gospels on the head of the bishop being ordained and the laying of hands on subdeacon and lector as well; in addition, there are only three ordaining bishops who lay hands on the bishop elect, while the people voice their choice or confirm their acceptance three times.

7. Medieval development of the ordination rites

For the first eight centuries the ordination rite was quite simple, an imposition of the hands and an invocation of the Holy Spirit. By the middle of the tenth century the rite of priesthood was expanded to include an anointing of the hands, the bestowal of a chalice and a paten to symbolize more clearly the sacrificial function of the priest, and sometime later a final imposition of hands with the accompanying prayer: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.” One result of these additional ceremonies was to confuse in the minds of some the essential matter and form of the sacrament of order. St. Thomas believed that the bestowal of the chalice and paten formed part of the essential matter of the sacrament.

8. The teaching of Trent

In its decree and canons on the sacrament of order, the Council of Trent was principally concerned with the Christian priesthood which was under attack by Luther and other reformers. Underlying Luther’s conception of the ministerial priesthood was his interpretation of the “priesthood of all believers” based on texts like 1 Pet 2:5. The New Testament spoke most clearly the priesthood of Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and so if Christians were called to be a holy and priestly people it meant that they shared in Christ’s priesthood, and separate cultic priesthood was not necessary.

In the context of the Lutheran denials, the Council of Trent defined order or the rite of ordination as “a true and proper sacrament instituted by Christ,” and not merely as “a rite of sorts for choosing ministers of the word of God and of the sacraments” (ND 1716).

9. Reforms of Vatican II

Vatican II built its ritual reforms upon the principle that the episcopate is the highest degree and the origin of the sacrament of orders.

All three rituals were introduced by the schema of a homily that offers a theological synthesis of the mystery that is being celebrated. The candidates for the diverse orders are interrogated in a fashion that imitates the outline for the ancient examinatio of the candidate for the episcopate. The purpose of this interrogation is to ascertain the canonical and moral fitness of candidates and to receive the promise of obedience to ecclesiastical discipline and (for candidates for the presbyterate and diaconate) to the proper pastor, the bishop.

The diaconate is no longer a stage for getting closer to the presbyterate but has become, once again, a ministry in itself, in which the candidate may also pass his entire life. The formula of ordination eliminates any allusion to the idea of promotion in the future to a higher degree of ministry.

The most important innovation concerns the prayer of Episcopal consecration. The new ritual returns to the formula of Hippolytus, which is more a part of the catholic, that is, ecumenical tradition, of East and West.

Finally, there has been the introduction of a new rite, in which the one aspiring to the diaconate or presbyterate affirms publicly that he is willing to take on the burdens and responsibilities of the ministry, to prepare himself adequately to carry it out, for the benefit of the Christian people, the glory of God, and the welfare of the Church.

10. The ministries instituted by Vatican II

With the motu proprio Ministeria quaedam in 1972, Pope Paul VI put into effect the reforms of the non-ordained ministries according to the directives of Vatican II (cf. SC, 28). He did this by a fourfold movement:

a) Reserving the term “order” for the sacramental ministries (episcopate, prebyterate, diaconate) and adopting the term “instituted ministries” for the others;

b) Suppressing the concept of the minor order. In this way roles of porter and exorcist, the tonsure (which had become a sort of minor order), and the subdiaconate disappeared;

c) Retaining as instituted ministries only the roles of lector and acolyte (in the last of which the principal prerogatives and functions of the subdiaconate would survive);

d) Ordering that these two ministries “be maintained in the entire Latin Church” (MQ 4), but conceding to national episcopal conferences the possibility of devising others and requesting their institution by the Apostolic See “because they have been judged, for particular reasons, necessary and useful in a particular region” (MQ 4).

These are, therefore, ministries and not orders. But they are called “instituted” ministries in order to distinguish them from the innumerable spontaneous forms of service, worship, catechesis, and charity in which the whole Church is so rich by virtue of the Spirit.
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Sources:

Martos, Joseph. Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Christian Church. London: SCM Press, Ltd., 1981.

Palmer, Paul F., S.J. Holy Orders. New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1963.

Santantoni, Antonio. “Orders and Ministries in the First Four Centuries.” In Handbook for Liturgical Studies Vol. 4 Ed. Anscar J. Chupungco, OSB. Quezon City: Claretian, 2000.

__________. “Ordination and Ministries in the West.” In Handbook for Liturgical Studies Vol. 4. Ed. Anscar J. Chupungco, OSB. Quezon City: Claretian, 2000.