C. B. Moss on "Validity"

The word "valid" is used in different senses, but in my opinion it has properly only one meaning: it means recognized by the competent authority. It is a legal term, and conveys an idea which no society can do without.

An ordination is valid when it is recognized by the Church (whatever is meant by the Church). It is not necessarily valid because the ordained man is effective or successful (any more than a marriage is valid because the couple lives happily together). "Spiritually valid" can only mean "recognized by the spiritual or ecclesiastical authority"; not "recognized by God," because we have no certain means of ascertaining what ministry or sacrament God recognizes, unless we believe that what the Church, as God’s representative, recognizes is necessarily recognized by Him.

The ministry of every communion is valid for that communion. Disputes about validity only arise when the mutual recognition of different communions is proposed, or when a minister of one communion wishes to serve in another. Every communion has the right to decide for itself what conditions it requires for its ministry; so that, for instance, an Anglican priest has no right to complain that he cannot become a priest of the Roman Communion without a fresh ordination.

The Orthodox Eastern Communion retains the old discipline of the Church up to the fourth century, according to which no one ordained outside the Church can be received into the ministry without a fresh ordination; but this is qualified by the doctrine of "economy," according to which the Church can in certain circumstances receive as valid, if she thinks it desirable, ordinations or other sacraments which are in themselves not valid. The Orthodox churches, therefore, are free to accept the clergy of these sects without ordination, or to require a fresh ordination, as they shall think fit. They have not, as far as I know, accepted any.

The Roman Communion, on the other hand, follows the rule introduced by Saint Augustine with the object of reconciling the Donatists. Every ordination with the proper subject, matter, form, minister, and intention is valid; and the Roman Church is therefore forced to recognize the validity of the ordinations of all these sects if they can prove their succession . . . As far as I know, this has been the invariable practice of Rome . . .

The Anglican Communion certainly followed the same rule as the Roman until 1920. But the Lambeth Conference of that year decided that no person ordained or consecrated by . . . irregular bishops should be admitted to the Anglican ministry without conditional ordination. This rule has been strictly observed . . .

It has been argued that the Lambeth Conference, in making the recommendation (for resolutions of the Lambeth Conference have of themselves no binding force), departed from the traditional Western theory and reverted to the Eastern theory, which was universal before Saint Augustine. But it can also be argued (as it was by Puller) that the Lambeth Conference only decided that, because of the difficulty of proving the facts . . . and because of the untrustworthy character of some of the persons concerned, it was safer to make a general rule that no irregular consecrations or ordinations of this kind should be accepted as certain.

The question, however, remains, whether the practice of recognizing schismatic ordinations, introduced by Saint Augustine in order to reconcile the Donatist Church, will bear application to the "wandering bishops" with irregular succession . . . Dr. O. C. Quick criticizes the Augustinian theory, because "it makes the essence of a valid sacrament consist in a divine action performed in response to the utterance of a particular form by a person who has a ministerial power inherent in himself, rather than by a person who has a ministerial authority in virtue of an office held" (The Christian Sacraments, p. 154). A bishop is an officer of the Church, and has the right to consecrate bishops and ordain priests for the Church only because he holds that position. But according to the traditional Western theory, an excommunicated bishop, even if completely isolated, can go about the world consecrating bishops and ordaining priests at his own discretion, and the Church is bound to recognize that they are bishops and priests, who cannot be consecrated or ordained again . . . it is at any rate a possible view that the Church ought to have some means of preventing an unsatisfactory and irresponsible bishop, after he has been excommunicated and has ceased to have the authority of any church, even a heretical one, behind him, from filling the world with irregular bishops and priests, whose performances deceive the ignorant and unwary, and bring the sacraments and ministry of the Church into disrepute and ridicule.