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of its Lord” (PCS 37), “the Apostolicity, catholicity and unity of the Church’s teaching” (PCS 43), “apostolic calling of the whole Church” (PCS 52), “apostolic continuity” (PCS 57). This wide-ranging usage of the term is formative for PCS’s argumentative strategy. If one concentrates on the issue of a ministry which is designated apostolic, one certainly misses the point by a fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The term rather indicates a quality of a wider range of subjects. It is part of the fourfold quality of the Church as being one, holy, catholic and apostolic; but it also refers to its preaching, to the Scriptures, to the Church’s calling and to continuity in general. PCS’s strategy, then, is to secure that wider range of meaning and, in a second step, to concentrate on what the Apostolicity of the Church’s ministry might mean.

      At one point a definition for that wider understanding of Apostolicity is given: “Apostolicity means that the Church is sent by Jesus to be for the world, to participate in his mission and therefore in the mission of the One who sent Jesus, to participate in the mission of the Father and the Son through the dynamic of the Holy Spirit” (PCS 37, italics omitted). This is a sound definition and it extends the meaning of Apostolicity to the clear-cut connection between God’s self-revelation and today’s practice of His Church. The animus of that usage of the term is quite clear. If it holds true that key insights concerning the life of the Church as a whole can, and rather should, be named apostolic, then affirming the notion of an apostolic ministry is only a matter of consistency. It does not add anything new to what has been stated in ecclesiology in general. PCS 39 makes this quite clear: “Thus the primary manifestation of apostolic succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole.”

      In MD, the notion of there being a personal office of oversight which would serve as a sign of the Church’s unity was characterized as an unsolved problem. PCS focuses on the same subject but does so on the grounds just pointed out, namely, that the Apostolicity of the office of oversight is not a problem but an outcome of the Apostolicity of the Church as a whole. The key insight concerning the office of oversight are to be found in paragraphs 34, 35, 46 and 51 and can be presented like this:

      1. Basic assumption, equally shared: The Apostolicity of the Church as a whole

      2. First premise: The bishop’s office “is a visible and personal way of focusing the Apostolicity of the whole Church” (PCS 46)

      3. Second premise, part 1: The notion of succession: “the Apostolicity of the whole Church and, within that the apostolic ministry, succession in the episcopal office and the historic succession as a sign” (PCS 35)

      4. Second premise, part 2: Churches leaving the apostolic succession have taken close care of their remaining in the apostolic tradition (PCS 34)

      5. Conclusion: succession, now named “historic” instead of “apostolic” is a sign of the whole Church’s Apostolicity and not a guarantee for apostolic loyalty (PCS 51).

      What benefit, then, comes from that argument? It is mainly that sentences (3) and (4) elucidate the meaning of “succession.” It is clear from sentence (1) that any notion of succession does not add something new to the idea of the Apostolicity of the Church as a whole. Sentences (3) and (4) instead unfold implications from sentence (2) as one might see, for example, in a classical syllogism. That is, if the notion of succession does nothing new, then it should be read as a sign for what is held true in sentence (2)—this is the main purpose of sentence (3). But what were Churches to do whose former leaders wilfully left the succession? One can certainly appreciate how they took every effort not to annul what, according to sentence (4), succession as a sign stands for. The solution is then that historic succession stands for the Apostolicity of the whole Church but is not to be identified with it (5).

      Two more observations concerning PCS should be made before we turn to the situation in the U.S.A. as depicted in the agreement known as “Called to Common Mission.” First, I will offer a brief comment concerning the style of argumentation in PCS and then a preliminary observation concerning the interrelation between MD and PCS. Firstly, putting PCS’s main achievement into the form of a syllogism is a questionable endeavour. This is done here for the sake of clarity, but it should be observed that the statement itself does not argue in this way. Its argumentation rather shows two characteristics. First, once the “ecclesiology first” strategy noted above is agreed upon, a reciprocal relationship is formed between this strategy and the corollary “ecclesiology first” conviction. Now it is fitting to quote PCS 35 once more, but this time including the following sentence: “an understanding of the Apostolicity of the whole Church and within that the apostolic ministry, succession in the episcopal office and the historic succession as a sign. All of these are interrelated.” The style of reasoning here has greater resemblance to a net than to a single syllogism. To put this in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s words once again, “If we start to hold something as true, then we do not hold it true as a single sentence, but as a whole system of sentences. (Light is being shed on the whole little by little.)”³⁵

      Secondly, what are the results of discussing MD and PCS in relation to one another? I will give just a hint here and postpone the fuller discussion until after the presentation of the CCM document. PCS’s achievement is its conception of historic succession as a sign. There is a similar idea in MD (see sentences [2] and [3]). But what MD lacks is a thorough exploration what the Apostolicity of the whole Church might mean, including the idea that the Apostolicity of the ordained ministry does not add anything new to it. This is why the notion of succession is the very point of divergence between the discussion partners in MD. By contrast, with good reason this is not the case in PCS. If the latter holds true—a view which I prefer—then this is a matter of the presuppositions of the argument. That is, the consensus mainly rests on the notion of the Apostolicity of the Church as a whole. MD fails to account for that insight.

      This, of course, is a rough sketch. With regard to MD it should also be noted that some of the protestant signatory Churches do not have a personal office of oversight and claim good reason for that. Therefore we need discretion when applying PCS’s achievements to the situation which the Meissen dialogue addresses. Even if the participants could accept the idea of the Apostolicity of the Church as a whole—which I hope they will—subsequent deliberations will be needed. Then what will be at stake is the question of whether several types of the office of oversight can be regarded as structurally equal. As it stands, a consensus concerning this matter is not in sight. I will discuss it more fully in what follows, but now we turn to Called to Common Mission.

       Called to Common Mission: Toward Full Church Union

      Having discussed these two European papers at some length, I will now briefly address this American paper, particularly with a view to the central point under discussion. There is good reason for doing this from the very structure of the paper itself, namely, because Called to Common Mission (CCM thereafter) is a document for Church governance rather than a document of extensive theological deliberation. It was drafted during the last years of the second millennium and accepted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 1999 and by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America in 2000. However, some concerns about its outcome arose in the Lutheran communion to which the congregation of bishops answered. The Lutheran communion, in turn, responded by delivering a small note called “The Tucson Resolution.” Most editions of CCM contain that resolution as an amendment.

      CCM, as mentioned before, is mainly a document for Church government. The topics which are the subject of lively debate in MD and PCS are here treated as resolved. A short introduction (CCM 1–3) states that a new relation between the signatory Churches has been established. More specifically, the new status is described as “interrelatedness” (CCM 2), although both Churches remain autonomous. The term “interrelatedness” indicates an even closer relation than “communion of Churches” offers according to PCS. Before explaining that CCM states theological agreement in a wide range of topics (CCM 4–5), both participants recognize essentials of the one and apostolic faith in each other, refer to the basic creeds and dogmas, recognize similarities in their liturgical practice, and recognize agreement concerning the understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Furthermore, their agreement covers the doctrine of justification

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