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doctrine of the ordained ministry as quoted above.

      This situation is notable because the argument for succession is retained or rejected without properly discussing its meaning. The discussion is marred by the idea that the apostolic and/ or historic succession does not constitute a single argument in itself but instead represents a whole series of arguments. That is, in this view, apostolic/historic succession entails a host of corollary questions like the bible hermeneutics, faithfulness to witnessing the truth, diversity and harmony within the Church, and some others. In short, the typical Protestant argument, ‘shall succession play a role or shall it not?’ suffers from a contraction which hinders the discussion of the theological arguments that it stands in for. In my opinion, this deplorable situation could be remedied through a series of rigorous Anglican-Lutheran dialogues that have already taken place. Thus, an analysis of the somewhat gridlocked dialogue situation between Catholics and Protestants as well as the situation within Lutheranism leads to the insight that a widening of ecumenical horizons including the Anglican-Lutheran situation may bear much fruit. Prior to analysing official documents for that purpose I will give some hints concerning status and atmosphere of the Anglican-Lutheran relations.

       Anglican-Lutheran Relations

      The Meissen Declaration (see details below) proudly states that Anglicans and Lutherans have never condemned each each other (MD 10). That is true, but only partly so. As the document rightly states in the very same sentence, Lutherans and Anglicans have been estranged for centuries. Hence nowadays, dialogues do not face the difficulties arising in the case that a condemnation is put aside.³⁰ They instead have to undo the damage piled throughout centuries.

      The main damage caused by ignorance is prejudice. With regard to the Lutheran side, the main prejudice about Anglicans is the tendency to reduce their self-understanding to the act of supremacy enacted by King Henry VIII in November 1534. The Anglican Communion itself states that it mainly exists due to a mixture of private and dynastical deliberations pursued by the ruler of Britain at that time. What is not even at stake in some major contributions to Konfessionskunde is what we might call the Anglican plea for Catholicity. That is, although the denomination is doubtlessly a product of the 16^th century, its understanding itself as having historical continuity which reaches from the past and on into the future. The somewhat diminished outside perspective often forgets about John Wycliffe centuries before the age of the Reformation. It is also unaware of the special tradition of Christianity in Britain inaugurated by Augustine after his arrival at Canterbury in 597. But generally, the ill-informed outside perspective is unaware of the strong Anglican emphasis that the act of disobedience towards the Bishop of Rome is to be understood as an act of faithfulness to the ongoing tradition of the one and holy Church. There is a strong sense of tradition and continuity within the Anglican self-understanding that for far too long a time has not been mentioned in Lutheran und Reformed denominations. For they, broadly speaking, consider the act of reformed discontinuity to be more central than the aspect that precisely this had to be done as an act of faithfulness to the one Church.

      Things may be different in other parts of the world. We will soon see that in the United States, for example, there is a different setting which obviously allows solutions that seem to be delicate to dialogue partners in Europe. In America there is a much stronger sense of communion from the very beginning of Christian life on that continent than could ever influence self-understanding in the regions where the Reformation took place.

      These are considerations concerning the atmosphere of self-understanding and perception of the dialogue partner. However, evidently they are somewhat primitive and fail to withstand thorough debate. But it is important to mention them here because even a learned debate takes place within general assumptions and within a long-term tradition of perceiving the partner. We must mention them before analysing documents delivered by official Church commissions in order to shed light on the tacit presuppositions which, verbalized out or not, somehow govern the steps towards community between partners who have been estranged for such a long time.

      Contacts and dialogues worth noting did not take place prior to the founding years of the World Council of Churches. At least two of them are of interest here. The first one is mainly a personal relationship that proved its ecumenical validity only later on: the contact between the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Bishop George Bell. Bonhoeffer, being an early Lutheran ecumenist, had presided over the youth conference at the assembly of Life and Work in Fanø (Denmark) in 1934. When he came to London in October 1933, he was appointed to work in parish in a Lutheran community; nonetheless, he established a dialogue with Bishop George Bell of Chichester. The details do not matter here,³¹ but a certain nonchalance in the contact once established is of interest. Both dialogue partners seemed to not be bothered with any preliminary questions concerning mutual acknowledgement of their denominations. An obviously close connection between the two denominations was simply there. Bishop Bell and Bonhoeffer did see no need whatsoever to argue for it. On the Lutheran side however, this conviction was withheld from publicity for quite a while. The reason for this is that once Bonhoeffer decided to join the resistance against Hitler, he was subject to heavy criticism within his own denomination and the Lutheran-Reformed Bekennende Kirche (Confessing Church). The Bekennende Kirche even refused to add him to their list of names for intercessory prayer, which contained the names of those of their members who were captured by the regime. Additionally, after his martyrdom merely a few days before the end of World War II, Bonhoeffer’s theology was mainly received based on what he wrote when in prison. Widerstand und Ergebung was the first of his works to be published after the war,³² and even his manuscripts concerning ethics were only received quite reluctantly. Thus for a long time Bonhoeffer’s legacy as part of an Anglican-Lutheran dialogue did not receive the attention it certainly deserves to the day.

      The second early action concerning Anglican-Lutheran relations was not confined to a mutual dialogue. In 1938 Archbishop William Temple was appointed President of the WCC. The war, however, stopped the plans of its founding fathers and it wasn’t until 1948 that the first general assembly took place. William Temple did not live to see this. However, the symbolic message was clear. The Archbishop of Canterbury was to play a crucial role in one of the most remarkable steps towards Christian union since the reformation period.

      This being the case, the early history of Anglican-Lutheran relations may be seen as a hopeful start. Therefore it still remains an open question why it took several decades to establish official mutual dialogues between the two denominations. These are the Reuilly Common Statement (signed 2001), the Meissen Declaration (drafted 1988, accepted 1991), the Porvoo Common Statement (1993), and Called to Common Mission (1999/2000). All of them deserve closer inspection, especially with regard to what they say about ordained ministry and the office of ecclesial oversight.

       Meissen and Porvoo: The Office of Oversight and the Apostolicity of the Whole Church

      Three of these bilateral dialogue documents have been drafted and accepted in Europe. They vary in dialogue partners, style, and outcome. In this section I want to have a closer look at two of them, namely, The Meissen Declaration (hereafter MD) and the Porvoo Common Statement (hereafter PCS). I will argue that their notably different conclusions may be due to the composure of participants but mainly rest on a theological presupposition concerning terminology.

      Meissen brought together a group of participants that partly no longer exists. The series of dialogues were attended by the Church of England, the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD, German Protestant Church) and the Bund Evangelischer Kirchen in der DDR (BEK, Communion of Protestant Churches in the GDR). The German side presented itself as multifaceted in that both Church communions comprised of Lutheran, Reformed, and Unionist Churches while the Lutheran Churches and their leading theologians often set the tone—and still do so to this day. Secondly, they represented Church life and experience from both eastern and western Germany. It is partly due to the events of the German reunion that the final signation of the declaration took place three years after the draft had been accepted by both sides. During that process the BEK ceased and the EKD took over its place by now representing next to all mainline Protestant churches in Germany.

      Broadly speaking, MD states a large—if not

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