In summer of 1997, the legislative bodies of both the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will vote aye or nay on the Concordat of Agreement. Much has been written and said, debated and philosophized, on this proposal, mainly by theologians. It seems, however, that much of the laity, "the people in the pews," have heard little about it, at least on a practical level.

What will it signify to the parishioner if this agreement is ratified? Will our services look different, sound different? Will we become a different church, some sort of Anglo-Lutheran - or, as Minnesota wags have it, LutEpisc? Will either of us lose our unique identity? Why is such a step necessary, or desirable?

First, the Concordat is not a merger. The two churches will continue to be separate, unique in character and practice as they are now. However, because they will be in full communion with each other, members of each may receive Holy Communion at the other's altars, from the other's clergy, as freely as at their own - but will not be required to do so. The document itself, along with supporting and explanatory statements, stresses that invitation will always be necessary, as in common politeness, before a priest or pastor takes another's altar or pulpit. Visiting clergy are always subject to the regulations and traditions of the home church. The Forward Movement pamphlet "About the Concordat" explains, "both of our churches already live with internal diversity, and full communion will not mean elimination of all differences."

The clergy of the two churches, however, will be considered to be part of one ordained ministry. They will jointly participate in ordinations and consecrations. Seminarians in each church will study the doctrines and documents of the other. But the services in each church will look and sound as they do now, unless the participants choose to vary them. Perhaps the primary visible difference will be having Lutheran bishops co-consecrating Episcopal bishops, and vice versa. "It is understood that we cannot substitute the ordained ministry of either church for that of the other; rather they will evolve into something which in the end is recognizably common" ("About the Concordat").

Benefits are potentially many. Clergy will be able to serve each other's churches, helping to alleviate a growing clerical shortage. Congregations may choose to join together not only in worship but in outreach to communities and assistance to their own members, perhaps deepening worship and broadening resources.

The Study Resources from the Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations office details areas of "cooperation in mission": maintaining chaplaincies in, for example, hospitals and prisons; identifying and acting together upon local issues of human need and social justice; cooperating in establishing new parishes; sharing facilities where both churches cannot maintain separate buildings. Examples of "sharing leadership" are joint meetings of various committees and commissions, or inviting representatives from the other church to be part of such bodies; sharing diocesan and synod staff; arranging exchanges of seminary students and faculty.

Historically, neither church saw itself as new, as breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther wanted to lead the existing church back to its biblical roots and away from the excesses of the time. The English church wanted to be independent of papal domination.

Neither church has denied the authenticity of the other's doctrines. Differences lie more in areas of emphasis. The ELCA styles itself a confessional church; its primary statement of faith, the Augsburg Confession, was written in 1530 at the request of Emperor Charles V.

Editor and translator Theodore G. Tappert wrote in his introduction to the 1959 edition, "He desired a united front in his military operations against the Turks, and this seemed to demand that an end be made of the religious disunity which had been introduced at home as a result of the Reformation." Groups of theologians prepared documents, consulting Martin Luther by correspondence; in a familiar-sounding process, these documents were revised and amended "until the very eve of the formal presentation to the Emperor" at Augsburg on June 25.

The first section of the Confession sets forth the essentials of Faith and Doctrine: God, the Church, the Sacraments, and a final paragraph on The Cult of Saints. This section concludes: "This is just about a summary of the doctrines that are preached and taught in our churches for proper Christian instruction, the consolation of consciences, and the amendment of believers ... this teaching is grounded clearly on the Holy Scriptures ..."

The second division presents "Articles about Matters in Dispute ...," dealing more with practice, such as marriage of priests, methods of confession, specific foods, monastic vows. Some of this reads a bit archaic; yet Article XXVIII on The Power of Bishops goes a ways toward explaining why Lutherans may be a bit chary on the subject.

An Anglican/Episcopal statement on the specifics of clergy orders and apostolic succession is harder to find. The Preface to the Ordination Rites (BCP, p. 510) states: "since the time of the New Testament, three distinct orders of ordained ministers have been characteristic of Christ's holy catholic Church. ... bishops ... presbyters, or ordained elders, in subsequent times known as priests ... Thirdly, there are deacons ... The persons who are chosen and recognized ... are admitted to these sacred orders by solemn prayers and the laying on of episcopal hands ... No persons are allowed to exercise the offices ... unless they ... have already received such ordination with the laying on of hands by bishops who are themselves duly qualified to confer Holy Orders."

Apostolic succession is referred to almost as a given, a commonly perceived principle.

Bishop William Wantland of Eau Claire, in his book Foundations of the Faith, cites "the first official statement of the Church of England ... on the Ministry: the Preface to the Ordinal of 1550 [which] stated clearly the belief of the Church in the Catholic threefold ministry, the intention of continuing that ministry, and the belief in Episcopal Succession as the only means of continuity allowed: '... no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon ... except he hath had Episcopal consecration or Ordination.'"

Perhaps the clearest evocation occurs in the prayer at the laying on of hands in the 1662 Prayer Book: "Receive the holy Ghost, for the Office and Work of a Bishop in the church of God, now committed unto thee by the Imposition of our hands ... And remember that thou stir up the grace of God which is given thee by this Imposition of our hands ..."

Richard Hooker, the great Anglican theologian whose feast we celebrate Nov. 3, was ordained in 1581. His massive work, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, describes the office of bishop as essential to the continuation of the church, chiefly in the power of ordination: "... there are but two main things observed in every Ecclesiastical function, Power to exercise the duty itself, and some charge of people whereon to exercise the same ... Such were the Apostles, such was Timothy, such was Titus, such are Bishops ... hereupon some do infer, that no Ordination can stand, but onely such as is made by Bishops, which have had their Ordinations likewise by other Bishops before them, till we come to the very Apostles of Christ themselves."

Slightly later in Chapter 14 of the Seventh Book, Hooker seems almost to possess foreknowledge of the compromise reached by the Concordat committee, by which the requirement of episcopal ordination is temporarily set aside: "Where the Church must needs have some ordained, and neither hath nor can have possibly a Bishop to ordain; in case of such necessity, the ordinary Institution of God hath given oftentimes, and may give place." But he strongly reiterates the standard: "These cases of inevitable necessity excepted, none may ordain but onely Bishops: By the Imposition of their hands it is, that the Church giveth power of Order, both unto Presbyters and Deacons."

Each church will be asked to bend a bit in order to achieve full communion. The Episcopal Church, as noted, temporarily and "in this case only" suspends the requirement of ordination by apostolic succession. Lutheran clergy will be accepted "without any further ordination or re-ordination or supplemental ordination whatsoever." The church agrees to establish a mechanism for "periodic review of its episcopal ministry, either by itself or jointly" with the ELCA, to further its endorsement of the prime Lutheran doctrine that the episcopate "under the Word of God must always serve the gospel."

The Lutheran Church accepts Episcopal clergy "without any supplemental vow or declaration." This requires "a dispensation ... from its ordination requirement of acceptance of the unaltered Augsburg Confession" and other confessional writings. More visibly, the church will "revise its rite for the Installation of a Bishop to incorporate the participation of Lutheran and Episcopal bishops in prayer and the laying-on-of-hands." In the future, only bishops will ordain "pastors/priests," and ELCA bishops, like their Episcopal colleagues, will be consecrated for life.

The role and status of deacons in the two churches is a matter to be worked out. "Both churches acknowledge that the diaconate, including its place within the threefold ministerial office and its relationship with other ministries, is in need of continued study and reform, which they pledge themselves to undertake in consultation with one another." The diaconal movement has a complicated history in both churches. Episcopal deacons, male and female, are ordained as the third clergy order. ELCA deacons and deaconesses were considered "consecrated" into "the ministry of mercy," and traditionally have worked in hospitals and similar institutions. At present, according to a Lutheran who is both deacon and "pastor/priest," to use the terminology of the latest official text, the diaconal motherhouses may train and consecrate new deaconesses, but no new deacons. Those previously ordained are "grandfathered in."

R. William Franklin, in an address printed in the July 1996 issue of The Anglican, refers to a discussion of the meaning of apostolic succession by the Orthodox Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizioulas, who "has isolated two ways in which apostolic continuity has been understood in the past." The first is the linear, historic description usually referred to. It is the second which seems to resonate in the present context. Mr. Franklin says Metropolitan Zizioulas envisions a model in which "the Holy Spirit 'convokes' the apostolic church around the eucharistic table ... He wishes the church of the future to create a synthesis of succession of bishops and a succession of eucharistic communities - which is precisely what the Concordat proposes to do." q