Terminology Tuesday: Reordination

The repetition of an ordination to the priesthood which had been conferred either extra ecclesiam, i.e. by an heretical or schismatic bishop, or intra ecclesiam but not canonically, e.g. by a deposed or simoniacal bishop. Reordination was frequently practised in the Church down to the 12th cent., when the doctrine of the sacraments began to receive more precise formulation.

The question of reordination first became a practical issue through the rise of schisms and heresies. Implicitly different answers were already given in the 3rd cent. by St *Cyprian of Carthage and St *Stephen of Rome, in that the one rejected and the other accepted the *validity of heretical Baptism.In the following cents. the practice of the Church varied. Acc. to the Council of *Nicaea (325; can. 19) ordinations in the different sects were treated differently, whereas the *Apostolic Constitutions and the *Apostolic Canons are hostile to the sacraments of all non-Catholic bodies. In view of the new schisms of the 4th and 5th cents. the practice of reordination was attenuated and often replaced by a ceremony called χειροθεσία, which was mentioned in the Canons of Nicaea, and is apparently a supplementary rite distinct from ordination (χειροτονία).

The Greek Church, though it repudiated reordination at the *Trullan Council (692; can. 95), has continued to waver in its practice. In the W. St *Augustine’s doctrine of the validity of the sacraments administered by sinful, excommunicated, schismatic, or heretical priests, formed in the course of the *Donatist controversy, slowly gained ground against opposition. Though St *Gregory the Great expressed himself clearly against reordination, heretical sacraments were viewed with hostility by many subsequent theologians, and reordination was practised, e.g., by the Greek Abp. *Theodore of Canterbury, who, in 669, reordained Ceadda, who had been ordained by supposed *Quartodecimans. It was also practised in the case of priests ordained by the irregularly elected Pope Constantine II (767–9), by Pope *Formosus (891–6), and by the 9th-cent. *chorepiscopi, as well as on the simoniacal clergy of the 11th cent., many of whom were reordained by the Pope himself, St *Leo IX. From the period of *Gregory VII, however, when *Anselm of Lucca defended the validity of heretical sacraments, the Augustinian view became more and more general and was finally formulated by St *Thomas Aquinas, who rejected the practice of reordination because of the indelible *character bestowed by the sacrament of Holy Orders on its recipient. This doctrine was formally sanctioned by the Council of *Trent, provided that the sacrament was conferred in the prescribed form and with the right intention.

Cross, F. L., & Livingstone, E. A. (Eds.). (2005). In The Oxford dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed. rev., p. 1393). Oxford;  New York: Oxford University Press.