We have Richard, and he's the Chaplain, right? And we have Linda, and she's the Assistant Chaplain. And we have David Low, and he's the Lay Reader, whatever that is. And now we're getting Sam, and he's the Curate, whatever that is. And this year Sam is only (sorry!) a Deacon, so there are things he can't do, but in a year's time he can. What on earth is all this?
It's confusing. And this is partly because we are mixing up jobs, on the one hand, with qualifications on the other. Being Chaplain of St Ursula's is a job - Richard will tell you how easy or difficult it is. The equivalent job in England might be called Vicar or Rector, depending on the history of the particular parish. In other denominations, it might be called Minister or Parish Priest. As a job, it has a list of duties - leading our worship, visiting those in need, attending meetings, and so on.
If you want to work as a Chaplain, you need to be a priest. The word priest literally means elder, but it doesn't help to know this, because other churches have rediscovered the word elder and use it to refer to a job in the congregation. Being a priest means having a place in the church's structure, in its hierarchy.
This structure is very simple. There are bishops, there are priests and there are deacons. These three make up the clergy. We talk about three orders of clergy, and entering one of these orders is called ordination (though nowadays we use the word `consecration' for becoming a bishop). These three forms of status are called Holy Orders. Only deacons can become priests, and only priests can become bishops.
The clergy are separate from the laity, the rest of us. Jobs as chaplain, curate, archbishop, archdeacon, abbot, dean and so on are reserved for the clergy. But the laity also have jobs in the church. The church needs lay workers - of course, for we all need each other!
So who can do what? To start with, we can all pray, sing and worship as much as we want. And this means that leading worship is not necessarily reserved for "the clergy". It's a question of organization and common sense. (And, incidentally, the same applies to funerals.)
Preaching is another matter. In the Acts of the Apostles, we find people preaching without authority being taken on one side and given proper instruction. At their ordination, Richard, Linda and Sam were given authority by the bishop who ordained them, and "proper instruction" was part of their training at Theological College (or Seminary, as others call it).
Bishops can also give authority to lay people to preach. After a time of training, these people are admitted as Readers, like our David Low. Other people may only preach as part of their training, under Richard's direction, or as part of special ecumenical services.
Only a priest or a bishop may preside at the Eucharist. (And one of the original tasks of a deacon was to assist in the smooth running of the service, taking and distributing the gifts, leading the readings and the prayers.) And only a priest or a bishop can pronounce God's absolution. This goes back to Jesus' commissioning of his apostles, and to the basic structure of the Church - food for another article! (The same restriction also applies to pronouncing God's blessing during services, even if at home we can, and do, bless anyone and anything!)
Any baptized person can confer the sacrament of baptism, and there are detailed provisions to make this possible in an emergency. But normally, since baptism is a step on the path the whole Church family is following, it takes place in the context of a church service, and is administered by one of the clergy, bishop, priest or deacon.
In the Anglican church, it is the bishop who administers confirmation, a further step on the same path. Confirmed Christians join fully in the life of the church, sharing in Holy Communion, and it is good if the Bishop is able to have personal contact with all the family of Christ in this way. (In the Eastern churches, the bishop's role has shrunk to blessing the oil with which candidates are anointed, but that's yet another story!)
Marriage is a case where theology, law and church practice make it almost impossible to say who does what. Theologically, the "ministers of the sacrament" (and marriage is the only event where the Latin Bible uses the term sacramentum!) are the wife and husband. In Swiss law, marriage can only be contracted at the Zivilstandsamt. In England, this "solemnization of marriage" can be done in church, but here, the legal and religious sides of marriage are separate, and what takes place in church is a service of dedication, which is conducted by a priest, or exceptionally a deacon, and possibly in an ecumenical context!
And ordination itself? Jesus himself commissioned his apostles, and the apostles collectively commissioned others to their number. So today, priests and deacons are ordained by the bishop, and bishops are consecrated by three or more of their fellow bishops. In this way, Christ works on among us today. May we hear his call and share in his work together!
HD