ARNOLD H. LEGG

THE DIACONATE IN THE CHURCH

OF SOUTH INDIA

I . THE BACKGROUND

(a) To approach intelligently the question of the diaconate in the Church of South India a brief reference is necessary to the very varied types of ministry inherited by the united Church when it was inaugurated in 1947. Into the union came streams from the Anglican, Congregational, Presbyterian and British Methodist traditions, together with a smaller group associated with the Basel Evangelical mission, itself a union of Lutheran and Reformed elements. It was only in the Anglican tradition, forming rather less than half of the united Church, that there were ordained deacons, though in the small Basel Mission section there were a few “consecrated evangelists.” As these had been consecrated with the laying on of hands, though not by a bishop, with prayer to the Holy Spirit, for work comparable to that of deacons, the Synod Executive Committee a few months after the union authorized their recognition and commissioning as deacons. But at its inauguration, the united Church had within it also large numbers of Congregational lay deacons, Methodist class leaders and local preachers, and some Presbyterian “elders.” There were also Methodist “probationers” who, like the Anglican but unlike the Congregational deacons, were theologically trained, paid workers on the way to the full ordained ministry. In addition, there were a few Anglican and Methodist deaconesses, and in some of the other sections a few “Church sisters.”

It is perhaps worth emphasizing that not only the Presbyterian elders, but also the Congregational deacons were charged by church rules with the spiritual overseeing of the congregation as well as with its financial and other business. The deacons were laymen elected by a congregation for a term of years; together with the pastor, they formed the church committee. Collectively they were responsible for putting forward candidates for baptism and communicant membership, making recommendations for church discipline and resolving disputes in the congregation. In public worship they commonly received the people’s offerings and helped in the administration of the elements in the communion service. Individually the deacons were often active in Sunday school work, in evangelistic bands, and as lay preachers. In a properly organized congregation each deacon had a responsibility to keep in touch with the members resident in a particular area and lead cottage prayer meetings.

(b) Another important factor in the background was that all the Churches that came into the union employed large staffs of unordained church workers. Some, commonly called catechists or evangelists, were full-time workers, and many of these had received some theological training, varying in length from a few months to three years. Others, called teacher-catechists, were teachers in church or mission day-schools who, out of school hours, cared for the local congregation and led its services.

These unordained church workers far exceeded the ordained ministers in number and most village congregations depended more upon such local workers than upon the ordained ministry for pastoral oversight. An ordained minister might have oversight of anything from half-a-dozen to forty or fifty village groups extending over a wide area, and could only rarely visit them. This, of course, was a relatively cheap method of pastoral oversight. The teacher-catechist, if employed in a government-aided school, received the greater part of his salary from the government grant. The full-time catechists and evangelists were of lower educational standard than that the required for the ordained ministry, and were paid considerably less. But this pattern of unordained ministry had developed not only, perhaps not chiefly, because of its relative cheapness. It was due also to the high regard in which the ordained ministry was held and the relatively high standards of general and theological education regarded as necessary for ordination. The supply of men who measure up to the standard was never adequate to the pastoral needs of the Church. On the whole, the Anglicans tended to accept lower academic standards for ordination, and to supplement the ordained ministry by teacher-catechists. Those of the Free Church traditions, on the whole, tended to insist that the standard of the ordained ministry must not be lowered, and to supplement their fewer ordained ministers by larger numbers of full-time catechists and evangelists with some theological training. But all these types of ministry were used by all the traditions.

( c) Except for an understanding that the existing Methodist probationers would have the same standing as Anglican deacons as regards eligibility for ordination as presbyters, no serious attempt was made before the union to reconcile these various forms of lay ministry, or in particular to reconcile the Anglican and Congregational forms of the diaconate.

There were several reasons for this. One was the deliberate policy of the negotiators to agree on matters considered essential for union, and to leave other differences to be settled by the united Church in the process of living together after union.

Another reason was that the Anglicans themselves did not seem to be very sure of the value of their ordained diaconate in its existing form. It had come to be little more than a formal stepping-stone to the priesthood, which usually followed about a year later. On the other hand, those of the Free Church traditions, who were accepting bishops for the first time, were reluctant to accept yet another unaccustomed order of the ordained ministry, especially as the Anglicans did not seem able to make out a very convincing case for it. Especially in the Congregational tradition (and this formed the larger part of one of the three negotiating churches), the office of deacon as understood therein was held in great regard, and election to it carried great prestige. Any suggestion that these deacons should be known only as “Church committee members,” and their honored designation confined to young men entering the ordained ministry, was quite unacceptable.

II. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH OF SOUTH INDIA

In the constitution, drawn up before the union and so far not amended in the relevant sections, the ordained diaconate is accorded three rules only in the chapters dealing with the ordained ministry of the Church. All forms of the lay ministry, paid and voluntary, are dealt with in a chapter headed “The Ministry of the Laity.” There the legitimate and necessary functions of dedicated lay people in various types of service are fully recognized, though they are not clearly defined or distinguished. They are dealt with more exactly in the separate constitutions of the various dioceses in which they continue to serve in large numbers. They need not concern us further in this article, which is limited to the diaconate as on order of the ordained ministry.

In passing, it may be remarked that the deaconesses were absorbed in a women’s order of sisters of the Church of South India, formed in 1952. The sisters are “commissioned” by the bishop without the laying of hands, and they are not regarded as an order of the ordained ministry.

The three rules in the constitution dealing with the ordained diaconate are as follows:

The functions of deacons shall in the Church of South India include the following – assisting the presbyter in the administration of the Lord’s Supper and in other services of the Church; administering of baptism; ministering in the temporalities of the Church; giving succour to the poor, the needy and the sick; instructing of children and catechumens in the faith; preaching the Word; and generally giving assistance in pastoral and evangelistic work.

The ministry of the diaconate may be undertaken for life by persons who have been accepted for this ministry by the diocesan authorities and have received due training. Persons who have been selected as candidates for the presbyterate shall ordinarily, after undergoing the necessary theological course, receive ordination to the diaconate, and undertake the duties outlined above as part of their training for the presbyterate.

Deacons shall be set apart for their ministry by the laying on of hands by the bishop of the diocese. No person shall be ordained deacon until he has attained the age of twenty-three years.

These rules obviously provided for the continuance after union of the existing Anglican form of the diaconate, but the opening sentence of the second rule reveals the desire of those who negotiated the union to make the diaconate a more distinctive and significant order of the ministry. The word “ordinarily” in the next sentence has been held to justify fairly numerous exceptions to the practice of making the diaconate a necessary stepping-stone to the presbyterate. In fact, there are two dioceses out of the fifteen (both almost entirely from the Congregational tradition) which, until now, have regularly ordained men directly to the presbyterate. This is perhaps pressing the word “ordinarily” too far, but until the Church as a whole has made up its mind what it wants to make of the ordained diaconate, it is difficult to insist upon universal conformity to the present unsatisfactory form.

III. DISCUSSIONS SINCE THE UNION

The desire to make the diaconate a more distinctive and significant order of the ministry very quickly found expression. The first synod of the united Church in 1948 asked its ministerial committee to examine the question of the diaconate, and also appointed a special committee to consider “Lay Deacons, Deaconesses, Readers, and other Church Workers.” It was soon found that behind both matters lay the larger question of the nature of the diaconate in the Church of South India, and after a while an enlarged committee was formed to consider “Deacons, Ordained and Lay.” Its report, presented to the Synod of 1952 and passed on to the dioceses for study and report, included inter alia the following recommendations:

1) While men to be ordained as presbyters should normally serve for a period as deacons, the diaconate should increasingly consist of men who have accepted this as a permanent calling; 2) the diaconate should include not only men for whom this ministry is a full-time service, but also those called to undertake it while continuing to earn their living by other occupations; 3) there should be at least one ordained deacon in each congregation; 4) men to be ordained as deacons should have been given some training and be not less then thirty-five years of age; and 5) the committee of the pastorate to which the man belongs must recommend his ordination, and in the case of those who will exercise a permanent unpaid ministry in a particular congregation, that congregation also must recommend the ordination.

In 1953 the executive committee of the Synod receives a long statement from the committee which reported that the question “What is a deacon?” had become subordinated in the discussions to another question which seemed more urgent, namely “How shall we provide the ministry of the Word and Sacraments to all our village congregations?” It is wrong for pastoral care to depend so largely on such external sources as mission subsidies and government grants, and in any case both are precarious. It is impossible to prosecute evangelistic work as we should if every new congregation has to have a paid worker. The system by which most village congregations receive their regular pastoral care from an unordained worker, with only rare visits for the sacraments from a minister who is almost a stranger, is destructive of the spiritual and ecclesiastical entity of the congregation as “the fellowship in one place centered on Word and Sacraments.” The early Church spread by the work of volunteers, not by that of agents paid from Jerusalem or Antioch or by government grants. When the apostles had brought new congregations into being they left them in charge of a local ministry upon whom they “laid their hands.” The statement recommended the development of a local presbyterate, of men given some training but continuing to get their living by other occupations. As regards the diaconate, the 1952 recommendations referred to above were reaffirmed.

But it is one thing for synod committees to make reports and recommendations; it is another matter to get them implemented in the dioceses. Such thinking seeps down only slowly and partially to diocesan and still more so to congregational level. The average Indian Christian is at least as conservative in his ways as most. Besides, there are real difficulties in finding suitable men, acceptable both to diocesan authorities and to particular village congregations, and also in securing a minimum degree of training. Teachers and farmers may be brought to a center for repeated short courses during school holidays, or periods when agricultural work is slack. But for men in other occupations it is not so easy. By the 1956 Synod, the ministerial committee was able to report that one diocese had ordained two men as honorary deacons. In another diocese two men had been recommended to the diocesan committee for this. Of these four, however, one was a retired medical officer, one a college professor, one a middle-school headmaster, and one a high school teacher – all townsmen, not villagers, serving presumably in urban rather than in village churches. The Synod ministerial committee put forward tentative rules regarding qualifications, training, etc., respectively, for honorary urban ministers, who, while living in their own homes, night help from time to time in various churches within the town or city area, and of whom a fairly good general education should be expected; and for honorary rural ministers, who would be members of the village community and tied to service in their home village where their daily occupation was, and for whom a lower standard of education might be deemed adequate. It was suggested that the authorization given by the bishop to an honorary minister should strictly limit the sphere in which he might serve.

As long ago as 1954 the Synod had asked its theological commission to study the nature of the diaconate and its functions in consultation with the parent Churches of the Church of South India, and the Faith and Order Department of the World Council of Churches. The Faith and Order Department was not at that time able to include this subject in its program of study, and although several Western scholars sent us brief essays on the diaconate in the early Church, these did not throw much light on our problems. The theological commission was also at that time preoccupied with other matters, especially the series of theological discussions between representatives of the Church of South India and the various Lutheran Churches in India, and the matter was not pursued. In 1961, however, the theological commission took up the matter again, and prepared a statement setting out the points requiring further study. This was sent by the Synod of 1962 to the dioceses for study. After considering the replies, and also a paper on “The Problem of the Diaconate,” by Dr. Lukas Vischer of the World Council of Churches, the theological commission drew up a statement in 1963, for presentation to the Synod. This may be quoted almost in full.

Some dioceses appreciated the need for reconsideration of the diaconate; others were for maintaining the status quo. We for our part are more than ever convinced that it is not enough to maintain the status quo. The diaconate as we now have it is virtually a stepping stone to the presbyterate, and so a ministry in which a man stays for as short a time as possible. It is an inferior office with no distinctive or satisfying functions. We in the C. S. I. have a part in the effort which is going on in so many parts of the world-wide Church to re-interpret the diaconate so that it will become both more scriptural and more relevant to present needs. The C. S. I. has the advantage of being comparatively free from age-long traditions….It was on the initiative of the C. S. I. that the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches has planned a study of the diaconate. Many scholars whose guidance we have sought on the question have expressed their hope that the C. S. I. would give a creative lead….

The ministry, we read in Ephesians 4, was the gift to the Church of the risen and ascended Lord “for the equipment of the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” Through the Church, his body, Christ wills to continue and fulfill what he did when he was in earth. When we examine the activity of the incarnate Lord we find it to be a unity made up of three distinct though not mutually exclusive strands. First, he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom and sent out his disciples to make the same proclamation. Second, as the good Shepherd, he gathered together his flock and appointed his disciples to be his under-shepherds. Third, he healed the sick, cast out demons, fed the hungry, raised the dead, and these works of his compassion were signs of the present power of the kingdom which he proclaimed. If the Church is the body of Christ it should have the limbs through which the living Christ can continue the fullness of his redeeming work. It is our firm conviction that the threefold ministry as we have inherited it is inadequate for the fullness of the work of Christ. We have means to proclaim the gospel and gather and shepherd the flock. But the present form of the diaconate does little to express and propagate the work of Christ’s compassion through his Church. Though the Church has a variety of programmes of compassionate service, they are not related to the liturgical or ordained ministry of the Church.

We need to be clear that ministry in all its forms is the ministry of the whole Church. Every member of the Church is a part of God’s chosen race, God’s royal priesthood, God’s holy nation, God’s own people. It is through the whole body that the Lord continues to proclaim the word, gather the flock, do his work of compassion. Every Christian has a part in all these activities. In a real sense the Christian’s initiation into the Church, his baptism and confirmation, is his ordination as God’s minister, to work for Christ in the world. But it is God’s way to set aside certain called and chosen ones as special ministers for the sake of the ministry of all – as bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Every Christian is, in one sense, all three partaking in the obligation to witness, love, and serve. But some from the whole number are set aside by ordination to be explicit and representative organs of the Church’s whole activity in the name of Christ. The distinctive character and function of the ordained ministry is also to be understood in terms of the liturgy (leitourgia), where the Church offers her own life and the world to God, remembering the sacrifice of Christ and participating in the sacrifice.

…The ordained ministers, therefore, have a special function in the liturgy and help to interpret the ministry of the people of God in the world as the ministry of Christ. Within the three-fold ministry some who have a calling for compassionate service are to be set aside by deacons’ ordination to be the representative organ of the Church’s diakonia in the name of Christ. We believe this to be a life-time calling to serve, and that only when the diaconate is so conceived will it be a worthy instrument of Christ’s diakonia and a part of his total ministry. The deacon’s particular responsibility in worship would be for the offerings of the people and the intercession for the world. His responsibility in the world would be the organisation, co-ordination and promotion of Christian service and social action, a ministry which express Christ’s compassion for his people.

The Church is called, we believed, to a new effort to thought, prayer, and action in this matter. The first step should be to encourage the abolition of the present stepping-stone diaconate and ordain men directly to the presbyterate after a period of probation. Then dioceses who wish to do so should be permitted to take action along these lines in the selection of suitable men for the diaconate, the provision of special training and the arrangement of suitable employment for them.

In accepting this report of the theological commission, the Synod of 1964 asked dioceses to make a further study of ways in which the diaconate can be made a more meaningful ministry in the light of the fullness of the ministry of Christ along the lines indicated in the above statement, and also resolved that dioceses be encouraged to develop a pattern of diaconate which will help those called to it to accept it as a satisfying life-time ministry. But a specific recommendation that “the practice of ordaining direct to the presbyterate be recognized as normal, while permitting the dioceses wanting to do so to use the deacon’s ordination as a preliminary to presbyteral ordination,” was rejected. This would have reversed the emphasis in the present rule that candidates for the presbyterate shall ordinarily receive ordination to the diaconate and undertake its duties as part of their training for the presbyterate. In 1966, however, the Synod referred to the consideration of dioceses the slightly less dramatic proposal that, in order to make the transition from the present diaconate to a more meaningful diaconate possible, steps be taken to amend the Constitution by substituting may for shall ordinarily.

IV. SOME REFLECTIONS

“Desire doth outrun performance.” By 1963 the Church of South India, in its fifteen dioceses, could boast of one hundred and twenty-nine full-time paid deacons (of whom forty-nine were in one diocese) and twenty-five honorary deacons (of whom ten were in one diocese). Most of the paid deacons were men serving a short probation for the presbyterate. It is clear that neither the idea of the diaconate as a life-long vocation nor the idea of honorary deacons has yet, to any great extent, caught the imagination of suitable individuals or won the enthusiasm of diocesan committees.

It is clear, too, that only small progress has been made towards increasing the degree of ministerial pastoral care for village congregations now so largely dependent upon unordained church workers and lay volunteers. In the fifteen dioceses there are over 8,000 congregations but only about 850 paid presbyters in pastoral work and 46 honorary presbyters. Even these figures do not show the real extent to which the villages still lack adequate ministerial care, as the ordained ministry is naturally concentrated, to a considerable extent, in the large town and city congregations, where there are more educated people, and which can provide the whole or the greater part of a minister’s salary. Even of the honorary presbyters, more than two-thirds, and of the honorary deacons, three-quarters, are said to be serving in towns.

It is not surprising that there should be a wide gap and time-lag between the thinking of leaders of the Church and local committees in a country like South India where in many parts there is still much illiteracy, and where many local leaders, and even members of diocesan councils, have little knowledge of either the practices or the problems of the Church beyond their own localities.

But it may be thought also that the leaders of the Church in its central committees are perhaps too much inclined to theoretical considerations and pay too little attention to practical needs. After all, diakonia loses its meaning if it is not closely related to the practical needs of the people who are to be served; and these needs vary greatly, both in different areas and amongst different classes of Christians, and even among the same people at different periods of their development in the Christian life, in educational and economic level, and in their social environment. In all these matters, as well as in such matters as the relative size of congregations and the distances between them, there are the widest differences in the various rural areas of the vast territory covered by the Church of South India, while conditions in the large cities and fast developing new industrial areas again are totally different from those in rural areas. It would seem unlikely, prima facie, that any particular detailed scheme could usefully be imposed upon the Church as a whole. There should be local experiment and much freedom given to dioceses and within dioceses, in developing the particular forms of diakonia locally appropriate. The realization of this lies behind the recurrent action of the synod in referring recommendations of its committees to the dioceses for study, comment, and experiment, instead of proceeding to their adoption as rules of the whole Church.

The greatest need is for adequate provision of the full ministry of both word and sacrament, and this will be possible financially in many rural areas, at least in the foreseeable future, only by the development of a local honorary presbyterate. An increase in the diaconate, either paid or honorary, does not meet the need for the sacraments.

In cities and towns, where presbyters are relatively more numerous than in rural areas and where congregations are larger, there is a much stronger case both for a permanent diaconate and for a larger number of honorary deacons to assist the presbyters and to relieve them of some of the duties that now fall upon them. But unless the functions of the diaconate can be more clearly distinguished from those of presbyters on the one hand, and of lay deacons, lay readers, lay preachers, and paid catechists on the other hand, the office of deacon is unlikely to have a wide appeal as a worthwhile, life-long vocation. Some men ordained with a view to life-time service as deacons before long press for ordination to the presbyterate, and village congregations served by a deacon are only too ready to support the plea. It may be pointed out also that the liturgical functions associated with the diaconate, and which may enrich the idea of the diaconate as fulfilling the ministry of Christ in his Church to temporal and bodily needs, can hardly possess this significance in the minds of the people unless there are deacons in numbers adequate to ensure their presence at most services of Holy Communion. If the “deacon’s part” in the Holy Communion service is usually taken by either a presbyter or a layman, the liturgical argument for the ordained diaconate ceases to have much meaning.

Considering all these factors, and considering the immense value and influence of honorary lay service, and that the witness and influence of such service tend to be diminished when laymen by ordination become “professional,” even if in an honorary capacity, it may in the end be questioned whether it is not the ordained diaconate, rather than the Congregational type of lay diaconate or the Presbyterian eldership, that needs to be justified.

V. ADDITIONAL NOTE ON ORDINATION OF MISSIONARIES

A particular problem which has exercised the Church of South India from time to time may be of interest, since it arises from the circumstance of the C. S. I. being a united Church receiving missionaries from both Anglican and non-Anglican Churches overseas, and may recur in such union Churches elsewhere.

It was agreed before union that during the first thirty years ministers of the parent Churches of the originally separate parts would be received as ministers on accepting the governing principles and constitution and being commissioned by prayer without the laying on of hands. After this period the Church is to decide for itself on what terms it will receive into its ministry ministers of other Churches. But since the union a practice has developed, especially by some of the non-episcopal societies, of sending out young missionaries unordained, though fully qualified for ordination in their home Churches. This practice has been encouraged by the Church of South India as being in line with its desire fully to unify its ministry. Men coming out already ordained are subject to the pledge given before union, not to impose on any congregation an unaccustomed form of ministry to which it conscientiously objects. This pledge, vital at the time of union, has hardly ever had to be invoked, partly owing to care in stationing men in suitable pastorates, and partly owing to the growing together of the different parts of the Church. But no conscientious objection can be raised to ministers ordained within the united Church. It is not surprising that the deferment of their ordination so that it may take place in South India has been desired also by many young missionaries themselves. It means that their orders are acceptable both throughout the Church of South India and also in all the parent Churches.

The problem has arisen whether these men should first be ordained to the diaconate. The considerations to be reconciled are the desire to encourage the practice of such men being ordained in South India, the desire that as far as possible the same rules for ordination should apply to missionaries as to Indians and also to missionaries from different denominations, and the desire to recognize special circumstances, deal fairly with the men concerned, and satisfy the rules and desires of their home Churches. The Synod, in 1960, resolved that missionaries should not be ordained by the Church of South India without agreement with the home Church or missionary society concerned, and assurance that the ordination would not raise difficulties when the missionary returned permanently to his own country.

The difficulty has been felt chiefly in connection with Methodist missionaries. British Methodism, though it has no probationary, ordained diaconate, normally ordains men only six years after they have been accepted as candidates. Three or four years of theological training are followed by two or three years as probationers or “ministers on trial.” They are then given full ministerial status by being “received into full connexion” at the annual conference, and are ordained at a service on the evening of the same day. Formerly, missionaries were allowed to complete their probation abroad, but in 1961 the British Conference decided that, in view of the life-long responsibility undertaken for the employment and support of all ministers received into full connection, and in view of the return of not a few missionaries to work in Britain after a few years’ service abroad, all men should complete their probation and be received into full connection before going abroad to serve in another Church. The Conference, while willing to postpone the ordination service of men going to serve in the Church of South India, desires that ordination to the full ministry should follow as closely as possible upon their being received into full connection; that is, soon after arrival in India.

In March, 1962, the Working Committee of the C. S. I. Synod advised bishops to ordain newly-appointed Methodist missionaries as deacons on arrival, and as presbyters when they had passed their first language examination. It added: “It is understood, of course, that each bishop and diocese will have to be satisfied that the missionary is fitted and suited to be ordained as a presbyter of the Church of South India as well as a Methodist minister of the British Conference.” The Synod Executive Committee, meeting six months later, passed a resolution desiring that Methodist missionaries should spend at least twelve months before being ordained as presbyters, during which they could learn an Indian language and study conditions in India and the Indian Church. It added, “To satisfy this desire, that Methodist Missionary Society may consider the possibility of counting the first year spent in India as the last year of probation and send their missionaries to South India about twelve months before they are due to be received into full connexion by the British Methodist Conference.” But this suggestion was considered incompatible with the policy of the Conference.

It was pointed out that the postponement of ordination to the presbyterate for a year or more after arrival, while superficially putting missionaries in the same position as Indians, actually imposes an additional probationary period on men who have already completed a probation more lengthy than the period usually spent by Indians in the diaconate. It would also put Methodist missionaries at a disadvantage in seniority as compared both with their Methodist contemporaries serving in Britain and also with missionaries form some other traditions coming to serve in South India. The resolutions were criticized also as confusing fitness for ministerial status with probation to test suitability for missionary work in South India, which could be continued after ordination. After correspondence and personal consultation with the Asia Secretary of the Methodist Missionary Society, a mutually agreeable solution was reached when the synod in January 1964, resolved that:

where Methodist ministers appointed for missionary service in South India have satisfactorily completed their ministerial probation, extending over a period of six years, in their home Church, and have been received into Full Connexion by the Methodist Conference thus authorizing their immediate ordination to the full ministry of the Church, this period of probation shall be considered as equivalent to the Church of South India Diaconate, and on the authority of an official letter from the President of the Conference indicating that the Conference which would have ordained these men has deferred their ordination in deference to the Church of South India, so that they may be ordained in accordance with the Order of the Church of South India, they shall be ordained as presbyters as soon as possible after their arrival in S. India, allowing suitable time for preparation.

The resolution, of course, failed to grapple with the underlying theological issue that concerns the significance of the act of ordination in these circumstances. The correspondence made it clear that the Methodist Conference regards these men as ordained to the Methodist ministry by the Church of South India, acting as the agent of the Methodist Conference, and on its responsibility. The Church of South India supposes itself to be ordaining them as ministers of the Church of South India. It does not regard them merely as ministers of another Church lent for service, but as an integral part of its own ministry. Nor do many in the Church of South India feel quite happy at ordaining men whose fitness it has had no adequate time to judge, merely, as it were, rubber-stamping the decision of another Church. Can a man simultaneously be a minister of two autonomous churched? Does it really matter very much? After all, the British Methodist Church and the Church of South India are in relations of full communion. And in the Ordinal of the latter it is said that, “We speak and act as part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” and after the prayer and act of ordination the ordinand is declared to be now a presbyter “in the Church of God.” The only specific reference to the Church of South India is in the question, “Seeing you believe you are called to exercise this ministry within the Church of South India, will you accept its discipline…?”

It may be added that this Synod passed also a resolution permitting missionaries of the Church of Scotland, who have been licensed by a presbytery at home, to be ordained directly to the presbyterate soon after their arrival in India.