Anglican Orders
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. "Ministry" commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. More accurately, Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves to the ministry of the church. Ultimately, all baptized members of the church are considered to partake in the ministry of the Body of Christ. "...t might be useful if Anglicans dropped the word minister when referring to the clergy...In our tradition, ordained persons are either bishops, priests, or deacons, and should be referred to as such."
Each of the provinces of the Anglican Communion has a high degree of independence from the other provinces, and each has slightly different structures for ministry, mission and governance. However, personal leadership is always vested in a member of the clergy (a bishop at provincial and diocesan levels, and a priest at parish level) and consensus derived by synodical government. At different levels of the church's structure, laity, clergy and bishops meet together with prayer to deliberate over church governance. These gatherings are variously called conferences, synods, convocations, councils, chapters and vestries.
Read more about Anglican Orders: History and Background, Ministry and The Sacraments
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