Slideshow image

As a church in the Anglican Network in Canada, part of the worldwide Anglican communion, we believe in the importance of the "offices" of the church (i.e. Bishops, Priests/Pastors, and Deacons).  People in these offices are to be carefully scrutinized and evaluated before being "ordained" into these roles.  They carry the responsibility of caring for, teaching and guiding the people of God. 

These offices in the church go right back to the beginning as far as we can tell.  Ignatius, writing some time before 115 AD, comments on this structure in a way that suggests it was already the well-established norm.  Remember that the Apostle John only died about 20 years earlier, and some of his disciples, like Polycarp and Ignatius himself, were still alive.  (Rev. Mike Chase has written an interesting article on “What is a Deacon?”  if you want to know more about that.)  Here is an excerpt from Ignatius' Letter to the Trallians: . . .

“Ignatius, also called Theophorus, to the holy church at Tralles in the Province of Asia,  …  

Reports of your splendid character have reached me: how you are beyond reproach and ever unshaken in your patient endurance—qualities that you have not acquired, but are yours by nature. My informant was your own bishop Polybius, who by the will of God and Jesus Christ visited me here in Smyrna. He so fully entered into my joy at being in chains for Christ that I came to see your whole community embodied in him. Moreover, when I learned from him of your God-given kindliness towards me, I broke out in words of praise for God. It is on him, I discovered, that you model your lives. Your submission to your bishop, who is in the place of Jesus Christ, shows me that you are not living as men usually do but in the manner of Jesus himself, who died for us that you might escape death … 

Thus one thing is necessary, and you already observe it, that you do nothing without your bishop; indeed, be subject to the clergy as well, seeing in them the apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, for if we live in him we shall be found in him.  Deacons, too, who are ministers of the mysteries of Jesus, should in all things be pleasing to all men. For they are not mere servants with food and drink, but emissaries of God’s Church; hence they should guard themselves against anything deserving reproach as they would against fire. …

All should respect the deacons as Jesus Christ, just as all should regard the bishop as the image of the Father, and the clergy as God’s senate and the college of the apostles. Without these three orders you cannot begin to speak of a Church. …”

If you're wondering how it happened that I (Geoff) managed to slip through such rigorous screening and be ordained Priest . . . well even Bishops and Archdeacons and Deans are fallible human beings!!  (But, on the whole, a lot less fallible than me!  Love you, Bishop . . . and Father Archie!).