Priests who are NOT Deacons

*wearing a bishop’s mitre, priest’s chasuble, deacon’s dalmatic, baptised person’s alb, &…*

I was recently – for the first time – in Scandinavia where the state churches are Lutheran with bishops. They went through the Reformation in quite a different way to other parts of Europe, including how the Reformation developed in England. These churches are in full communion with Anglican Churches (with the Church of England, with the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, etc). Full communion means I can function as a priest there; their ordained persons can function as clergy here.

What I had not realised until visiting these churches: in these Scandinavian churches, you cannot be both a deacon and a priest! In these churches, nurses and other caring professions may be ordained as deacons; priesthood is a separate vocation from the diaconate. Both have their own pathways, separate training, and academic degrees.

Priests lead the gathered Christian community. Deacons lead the dispersed Christian community in service.

I have a number of articles on this site arguing for this per saltum form of ordination – being ordained directly to the office to which God is calling you. I was called to be a priest – I affirmed that God was calling me to the diaconate because my church would not ordain me to the priesthood without spending about a year as a deacon. I am not convinced by those who insist that, when I was ordained priest I continue to be a deacon, as if one is collecting a set, and the most valuable (bishop) being a person who has collected the full set!

There are priests (and bishops) who loudly repeat, “I am still a deacon!” Usually with unironic pride rather than diaconally-appropriate humility!

Now here are Porvoo churches, these Nordic and Baltic Lutheran Episcopal Churches, who are in full communion with us, who agree with my challenge to the nesting-clergy-doll theory that inside every bishop there is a priest; inside every priest there is a deacon… Along with the nesting-clergy-doll approach comes a devaluation of the diaconate, subdividing the diaconate into two new orders: “transitional deacons” and “vocational deacons” also called “permanent deacons” (as if bishops were once “transitional priests”!)

But wait, there’s more! Whilst in Scandinavia, I heard of people being ordained priest in a Scandinavian Church and then going to serve as a priest in the Church of England. So there are priests in the Church of England who have never been, let alone currently still are, deacons!

These Scandinavian Churches, in full communion with Anglicanism, are yet another challenge to the nesting-clergy-doll theory. Not only is it right and just to ordain (per saltum) to the order to which God is calling, but it is already happening, and not only in churches in full communion with Anglicanism, but it has been the process involved with priests serving within Anglicanism now.

Some previous posts on this:
Transitional Priest – Vocational Bishop
A Bishop is not a Priest
The end of the dalmatic?
Per saltum ordination
To Confirm or not to Confirm?

Some useful websites of Scandinavian churches:
Swedish resources in English
The Porvoo Communion
Liturgies of the Norwegian Church

Thank you to liturgical scholars from these Scandinavian churches whom I befriended at the Congress of Societas Liturgica in Paris earlier this year, for the discussions we have had around these topics.