Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-149).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-149).

Thesis (M.A.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Mass., 1998. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-110).

Thesis (Th. M.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 1977. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 358-369).

Si l’on porte un regard d’ensemble sur les pratiques par lesquelles, dès leur naissance en 1738, les méthodistes se démarquaient de l’orthodoxie de leur « Eglise-mère », l’Eglise d’Angleterre, il est possible d’identifier une base commune, qui serait une conception différente des ministères. C’est en effet, sur cette question que se cristallisèrent les divergences entre les disciples de John Wesley d’une part, et l’Eglise d’Angleterre d’autre part. Le père du méthodisme considérait en effet que prêtres et évêques étaient du même ordre presbytéral et que, en conséquence, ils avaient les mêmes pouvoirs, et notamment celui d’ordonner. Les méthodistes se distinguaient également des anglicans par leur conception du ministère de la Parole, puisqu’ils estimaient que Dieu pouvait désigner des laïcs pour prêcher l’Evangile. C’est donc à la question des ministères que l’on peut,en fin de compte, rattacher toutes les divergences qui se firent jour entre méthodisme et anglicanisme. Ces divergences se prolongèrent après la mort de John Wesley en 1791. Tout au long du XIXe siècle, les deux Eglises s’éloignèrent de plus en plus l’une de l’autre en raison du désaccord qui existait quant à la validité du ministère méthodiste qui ne s’inscrivait pas dans la succession apostolique. Il fallut attendre les années 1950-1960 pour que l’idée d’une fusion du méthodisme britannique et de l’Eglise d’Angleterre au sein d’une même Eglise épiscopalienne germe au plus haut niveau, avant d’échouer définitivement en 1972 devant le refus de l’Assemblée de l’Eglise puis du Synode général de l’avaliser / If we cast a global look on the practices through which, from the beginning of the movement in 1738, the Methodists deviated from Church of England’s (their « mother-Church »’s) orthodoxy, we can identify a common factor: a different conception of the ministries. It is on this single question that John Wesley and his disciples fundamentally diverged from the Church of England’s principles, since the father of Methodism considered that priests and bishops formed essentially a single “presbyter” order and consequentially had the same powers, including that of ordination. The Methodists also had a different conception of the Ministry of the Word, since they considered that God could call lay people to preach the Gospel. All the differences that arose between Methodism and the Church of England can then be traced to the question of the ministries. These differences continued after the death of John Wesley in 1791. Throughout the XIXt! h century, the two denominations grew further apart because of their disagreement concerning apostolic succession. In the 1950s and 1960s, however, the reunion of British Methodism and the Church of England in a single Episcopalian confession was contemplated but finally abandoned in 1972 because of the refusal of the Church of England’s Church Assembly and then of its General Synod to approve this union

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Church of England’s understanding of ‘episcopal’ episcopacy and ordained ministry, including their ecclesiological implications and ecumenical consequences. Special attention is given to the refusal of interchangeability of ordained ministers with ‘non-episcopal’ churches (whilst allowing inter-communion), on the grounds that they lacked a ‘historic succession’ of bishops (cf. The Meissen Declaration and Agreement). This claim gives the adjective ‘episcopal’ a denominational, (quasi-)sacramental connotation (hence the inverted commas). Official Anglican statements today claim that the concept of episcopacy in a ‘historic succession’ is and always has been an integral part of ‘Anglican’ teaching as part of its ‘Catholic’, pre-Reformation heritage, whereas it appears that before the nineteenth century the Church of England had been defined largely in territorial and institutional terms. This faced challenges both from without and within, with an increasingly secular and multi-denominational context in Britain (with Non-conformists slowly gaining equal social and political rights) and in the face of the emergence of the Anglican Communion (and ecumenism in the twentieth century). This required the Church of England to forge a distinctive, trans-national, denominational identity for itself and for ‘Anglicanism’ (which can be described as the ‘Anglicanization of the Church of England’). In the first half of the nineteenth century, the English episcopate exercised a more active leadership role (the ‘episcopalization of the Church of England’), creating bishoprics in overseas dependencies and strengthening the influence of the Church of England there and also that of the episcopate (a colonial aspect of the ‘Anglicanization’). In the second half of the nineteenth century the bishops established interchangeability of ministers with formerly English, ‘Episcopal’ churches. This development occurred at the high point of Anglo-Catholic and ritualistic influence (which resulted in a ‘Catholicization of the Church of England’, opposed by Evangelicals and High-churchmen of the pre-Tractarian type). The nature of ‘Anglicanism’ was increasingly interpreted as ‘catholic’/‘Catholic’. In the twentieth century the notion of a ‘historic succession’ of bishops eventually appeared in official documents, whereas earlier statements had been insisting on the ‘historic episcopate’, but open to an understanding in the sense of ‘apostolic succession’ or a divinely instituted or sanctioned, or simply ancient form of government (episcopacy as esse, plene esse or bene esse of church). The eventual adoption of the notion of succession, however, the crucial characteristic of the esse model, meant a ‘theologization’ of Anglican ecclesiology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a distinct ‘catholic’ character, which explains the refusal to agree on interchangeability of ministers with ‘Protestant’ churches, now on theological grounds.