ABSTRACT
The earliest uses of the concept of economy in the early Church were concerned with the reunion of the Church after a schism or the easing of the passage back into the Church for those who had lapsed through heresy. Divisions in the modern Church are numerous and, particularly during the twentieth century, methods have been sought to make possible the reunion of Christian Churches and denominations. Where Anglican Churches are concerned, the question of the recognition of holy orders has been seen to dominate dialogue with other Churches. This domination is expressed in two ways. First, in dialogue with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, Anglicans have sought to show that the orders conferred in the Church of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and down to the present day throughout the Anglican Communion are capable of being considered ‘valid’ in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Second, in dialogue with protestant Churches, Anglican Churches have themselves insisted, without using the language of sacramental validity in the case of orders, on the preservation of the threefold order of ministry of bishops, priests and deacons as a non-negotiable requirement of any agreement of reunion or communion between Churches, as one of the points of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.1 Within the Church of England the principle being insisted upon is enshrined in legal provision in, for example, s. 10 of the Act of Uniformity 1662.
