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world as a whole was not primarily concerned with ecclesiology and the theology of the ordained ministry. They were more focused on their struggles against Gnosticism, the Manicheans, and some platonic movements. In the first instance, all those struggles leading to and beyond the Trinitarian and Christological creeds dominated the scene for centuries. Even if there was a formal theology of ministry in the Church’s practice it was not before Augustine’s De Civitate Dei (The City of God) and his Confessions (if we think of the portrait of Bishop Ambrose of Milan which he drew in that book) that ecclesiology became a major topic at all.

      This historical outline raises the following theological insight: the Church’s first concern is not her own identity but what she has to proclaim and whom her people are called to pray to. The desire to initially come to a consensus concerning God’s identity and Christ’s work for us is no mere contingency. Instead, it reflects the fact that the Church has a more basic calling than mere self-understanding. Secondly, this theological insight exposes questions concerning her identity and her function with the result that ecclesiology is necessarily part of theology, but not initially. Therefore, the considerably small audience at the Kirchentag’s discussion concerning ministry was not a mere happenstance, but it led to a valuable insight in ecclesiology which in fact reflected the Church’s own early development. This insight must be kept in mind as we now turn to a number of topics in the theology of ministry.

       Insights from German Speaking Theology

      In this next section I would like to proceed by giving an outline of the Church’s ministry in German speaking theology. This serves as a good example for several reasons. Firstly, classical intra-Lutheran debates take place in the Reformation’s motherland. Secondly, Lutheran and Anglican Churches seem to have similar problems with decreasing numbers in membership which in turn has adversely affected their theology of ministry. Thirdly, ecumenical dialogues—at least those noted publicly—mostly focus on specific problems between Protestants and Catholics thereby ignoring other denominations. This, of course, is both wrong and a pity, but I will argue that it is precisely this pattern which makes the Lutheran-Anglican dialogue so interesting. It can even be viewed as an ecumenical gift.

      The classic Lutheran problem of ministry is best understood by looking at two articles of the Augsburg Confession (CA). CA VII reads: “Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered. And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree on issues concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all.” And CA XIV reads, “Of Ecclesiastical Order, they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called.”²⁶

      Of course, Melanchthon and his friends did not intend to express different views in these two articles. What happened later on, and especially in the 20^th century, was that two different theologies of ministry emerged. The first one emphasizes Luther’s concept of the ministry of all believers/baptized.²⁷ There is no need for a consecrated priest in order for a service to truly be a service as long as the gospel is rightly taught and the sacraments are administered according to their institution. This is basically a functional view. As long as these two conditions are fulfilled, a service takes place and the ever-existing Church exists at that very place. If one thinks that this is the very core of the Lutheran letter of refusal to Rome, it will mean that the person of a minister will disappear behind his or her function. More to the point, as long as there is ministry, there is the Church. The question of who fulfils the ministerial acts is secondary.

      The other side looks more closely at CA XXIV and understands itself as a relativization of the high spirit of the first position. There is ministry in the Church and this fact is no mere human design. As can be read in CA V, “the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted.” This position can only be filled by a person rite vocatus (rightly called). The main motive for this position is that of the outwardness of God’s word. God’s grace is not instantaneously in humans but is something strange to them. It has to be applied by preaching and sacraments. Therefore there must be a suitably qualified and officially called person to carry out these acts. The Church’s ministry is not a matter of human choice but iure divino (by God’s right). Philipp Melanchthon even considered the ordination to be a sacrament (Apologia Confessionis 13).

      Both of these two positions represent core convictions of the reformers and none of them claims to be correct in itself. They rather indicate a somewhat open space for ongoing debate in Lutheran theology. On the one hand, there are some Lutheran Churches denying ordination to women and base that (though not alone) on CA XIV.²⁸ On the other hand, in other cases a curates’ presiding the Eucharist is seen as justified by reference to CA VII. In the academic conversations, the second position seems to prevail,²⁹ but it often struggles to make itself comprehensible to the average congregant.

      This situation leads to my second point, namely, that both Anglicans and Lutherans face decreasing numbers of Church members—not to mention the actual number of a normal parish service for a typical Sunday gathering. One of the effects of this painful situation is a decrease in income which in turn leads to the decrease in the number of ordained parish ministers. In fact both Churches installed an office for lay persons following the vir probatus (well-proven and reliable person) tradition according to which lay persons may preach and, under special conditions, administer the sacraments. A reader in the Anglican communion resembles the predicant’s ministry in the Lutheran world. The exact status of predicants is theologically unclear. Are they part of the Church’s ministry as defined in CA V and XIV? And what then is the exact difference between their ministry and that of the ordained ministry? This problem remains to this day, especially in the context of the ecumenical dialogues with the Roman and Orthodox traditions. On the other hand, if the predicant’s ministry derives from CA VII alone, this might imply that the ordained ministry is somehow incomplete. I do not wish to interfere with inner-Anglican discussions, but the fact that both denominations have some sort of a lay clergy’s ministry establishes a parallel theological problem. Nonetheless, this issue does not play a significant role in official Anglican-Lutheran dialogue papers—a fact which should be altered in the near future.

      A third point from the German situation is that speaking of ecumenism mostly means speaking of catholic-protestant relations. For the average worshipper, journalists, and even a significant number of ministers, ecumenism simply means dialogues and debates between the roman and “the” Protestant Churches—with little appreciation for the variety within Protestantism. As deplorable as this is even in itself, it bears some additional consequences for the theology of the ordained ministry. Speaking of ecumenism in this way means reducing it to a few notoriously difficult problems. The first of such problems is one of the Catholic conditions for proper ordination, namely, celibacy. In this case, the focus is primarily directed to the Catholic defectus ordinis (improper ordination) argument. That is, Protestant ministers are considered irregular ministers since they have been ordained by a person who is not technically entitled to perform this act. Therefore their defectus ordinis hinders their being proper ministers.

      The discussion in German-speaking theology and Churches is somewhat exclusively concentrated on this argument. Catholics typically hold to it, although sometimes with notable regret, while Protestants give a more mixed response. For them, on the one hand, the Catholic position comprises a certain tone of defiance concerning their own tradition of ordination. On the other hand, there is a notable effort to claim that a minister’s ordination is proper by pointing out that he or she stands in the apostolic succession, having received it from a person who himself or herself stands in it. What is missing in these responses is a proper appreciation of the theological meaning and value of apostolic and/ or historic succession. As has been publically acknowledged, this is an either-or-debate: either one finds that succession is of considerable importance concerning ordination or one thinks that the validity of Protestant ordination has nothing to do with it. Of course, these two tendencies depict the two corresponding tendencies in interpreting the Confessio

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