Ten years of Ordinariates for Anglicans – a few reflections on the new ecclesiological model

Abstract

The article describes the Ordinariates for Anglicans from the ecclesiological point of view. The publication of Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus created a new situation in the interconfessional relations and in the search for the unity of the Church. Firstly the Author explains what are the Ordinariates for Anglicans and what solutions contains the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. In the second point of the article we find an analysis of an ecclesiological model created by the constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. While not being the return to the past method of gaining the unity of the Church by partial unions (i.e. so called “uniatism” or “unionism”) the Ordinariates offer to the conversing Anglicans the possibility of upkeeping their liturgical tradition. The Ordinariates also enjoy a large scale of independence in the frame of the Catholic Church. Alongside the bright spells there are also some shadows. The Author points at the major ecclesiological weakness of the construction called “Ordinariate”. The liturgical tradition of Anglicanism transferred to the Ordinariates is, in fact, deprived of its natural theological background, which is Anglican. That is why the solution offered by the Ordinariates one of the Anglican theologians called “the shortened version of Anglicanism”. The last point of the article is consecrated to the depiction of first Anglican reactions to the situation introduced by the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus. The most promising initiative is the establishment of so called “Anglican Communion Covenant”, which is designated to consolidate the Communion from inside, also by preventing the provinces from taking unilateral decisions leading to the breaks in the whole of the Anglican World.