Talk:Ordination

Ordination of women and on the ordination of homosexuals
I have just removed the sections on the ordination of women and on the ordination of homosexuals because they are entirely and unsalvageably POV. While such sections do have a place in an expanded article on ordination, the text I have removed was little more than a polemic against religions that do not ordain women and/or homosexuals.

The "online ordination" section began with the sentence "The non-authoritarian religious denominations such as Spiritual Humanism, and the Universal Life Church prefer to empower their clergy by minimizing the impediments to those that feel the calling to make a spiritual connection to the cosmos." This implies that religions that do not practice online ordination are "authoritarian," which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as "of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority." Clearly, this is POV. The rest of the section sounds like a sales pitch: "Reducing the barriers to performing religious ceremonies these denominations encourage those who within the general population to realize spiritual experience. By enabling friends or relatives to perform ceremonies like marriages, organizations that offer online ordination demystify and integrate religious understanding into lives of the otherwise nonreligious public." However reasonable or unreasonable it may be to characterize online ordination as "demystify[ing] and integrat[ing] religious understanding," this obviously does not represent a neutral point of view.

Here is the "ordination of women" section reproduced in full:

''Most religions value and uphold the spiritual rights, abilities, and worth of women. Some reactionary and ultra-right wing denominations use gender to limit the number of members qualified for positions of religious leadership.''

''Among discriminatory churches the equal rights of all people to be ordained are denied. Religious groups like the Catholic Church, Mormons, Eastern Orthodoxy, Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, and the Jehovah's Witnesses often site cryptic supernatural rules for their misogynist policies.''

The first paragraph equates "the spiritual rights, abilities, and worth of women" with the practice of ordaining women, which is also clearly POV. Loaded words like "reactionary" and "ultra-right wing" are, of course, inherently POV. "[T]he equal rights of all people to be ordained" is an assertion that belongs in a manifesto, not an encyclopedia. "Cryptic supernatural rules" is clearly used pejoratively, which represents another clear instance of POV, not to mention the explicit attack on "the Catholic Church, Mormons, Eastern Orthodoxy, Southern Baptist Convention, Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, and the Jehovah's Witnesses" as "misogynist."

And here is the "ordination of homosexuals" reproduced in full:

''Most mainstream denominations recognize and affirm the right of clergy who are consenting adults to enter into relationships with other consenting adults regardless of their sexual orientation or gender. These organizations usually take the position that homosexuality is an inherent trait in an individual's makeup and not a choice that can consciously be decided one way or the other.''

Groups that practice discrimination against women are most likely to also to attempt to enforce draconian codes against homosexuals in leadership positions.

It not only POV but probably inaccurate to claim that "[m]ost mainstream denominations recognize and affirm the right of clergy...to enter into relationships...regardless of their sexual orientation or gender," considering the controversy that periodically arises regarding homosexual clergy. In any case, the word "mainstream" is unambiguously used in concert with the terms "reactionary" and "ultra-right wing" to advance a POV. The statement that religious "organizations [that] usually take the position that homosexuality is...not a choice..." are the only "mainstream denominations" is further evidence of this POV.

Characterizing the practice of certain religions of ordaining only men as "discrimination women" is also POV, considering the highly negative connotations of the word "discrimination." "Draconian" is also a poor choice of words insofar as one wishes to maintain an NPOV.

While I personally sympathize (somewhat) with the positions advanced in the sections I removed, I find them completely at odds with Wikipedia's NPOV policy.

Iridius 09:13, 31 May 2005 (UTC) ____

Heck, I coulda' conveyed all the above in one small paragraphlet.

I have since created the Women as theological figures article - anything useful from the above can be transferred to it. Jackiespeel 22:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Anglican with apostolic continuity mention: must be a joke!
"In the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Oriental Orthodox churches, the ordination is the same thing as Holy Orders and can be adminstered only by a bishop in a line of succession of bishops dating back to the Apostles."

Which is of course false, since a bishop can only be created by the Pope (or three bishops explicitly tasked as such by the pope in rare cases related to travel difficulty). Since anglicans split from Rome, they have no bishops with apostolic continuity, as the pope refuses to bless them. Without bishops connected to Jesus via the apostolic succession, valid priests cannot be created. Therefore all henry8ist "priests" are false prophets and whatever they administer is invalid. Only catholic, orthodox, copts and possibly the Thomas-christians in India have apostolic continuity, any protestants definitely do not.

The very idea that woman can be a head of church show anglicanism is heresy and not connected to the apostles, because they were all male by Jesus' choice. The Old Testament clearly prescribes that priesthood must not be installed in any person whose male member is unnoticably short or hangs below the kneee and QEII certainly fails that test. When a new Pope is chosen in Rome, he is carefully inspected that he is indeed male and not a female impostor (there is a legend of an early medieval woman bribing her way to papacy and giving birth during the mass, although historians think it has no factual basis). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.70.32.136 (talk • contribs) 07:32, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmmm... you're not biased there or anything! No sir, there's no POV here! (Oh, and signing comments is usually a good idea)
 * Emerymat 23:09, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * As a Presbyterian, I'm curious: if Anglican bishops have no apostolic continuity because they split from Rome, how do Orthodox bishops? I'm not clear why the Act of Supremacy is considered to have been worse than the Great Schism.
 * Nyttend 15:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Not because they split from Rome, but because they have or have had irreconciliable doctrinal differences with the See of Peter, especially on the nature of the Episcopal order, but also on abortion, homosexuality and the ordaining of women. Even if the Patriarchs disagree on the primacy of the Petrine See, they all hold the same views on the nature of the Sacrament of Ordination.  Thus, their ordinations are valid. --Wtrmute (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It is a little-known precedent of canon law that, when an area has no clergy to administer sacraments, priests have license to ordain bishops. This brings Anglicans and Methodists into the Apostolic Succession.  The Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury was validly elected by English bishops and John Wesley's ordination of a Methodist Bishop for America (a land with no priests to administer sacraments after the recall of Anglican priests) was based on the Alexandrian precedent of a presbyter (priest) ordaining a bishop in cases of emergency.  See Methodist Apostolicity  --ajgwm10 (talk) 11:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Surely with your mention here of a "precedent of canon law" you will cite something more than the speculations about Alexandria, right? You'll present actual western canon law, complete with details of what synod decided in what year with what actual text, right?  failing that...  Tb (talk) 20:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The Anglican clergy in America were almost all Loyalists during the War for Independence, and when the Continental Congress deemed that prayers for British leaders were to be prosecuted as acts of treason, almost all of them left, either for Canada or for Britain. The Church in America wasn't placed under Interdict (if the Anglican Communion even does that sort of thing).  Their members were still meant to receive the sacraments, and although baptism technically requires no clergy, the Eucharist DOES, and when all of your priests leave, you cannot obey Christ's commandment to "do this in remembrance of me."  Wesley saw this as an ecclesiastical emergency and consecrated Thomas Coke to the episcopate in 1784 and sent him to America, at a time when it wasn't certain the Anglican Church would make any effort to maintain its presence in America.  They did, eventually, reform the American province of the Church as the Episcopal Church, but this postdated the Constitution by three years and the consecration of the first Methodist bishops by six.  If the American and British churches had been more intentional about their separation, rather than letting the sacramental welfare of their American adherents hang in the balance, this extraordinary episcopal consecration would not have been necessary.

(talk) 22:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * So, there is no precedent to be mentioned. I'm fully aware of the history of the separation, which you seem not to be.  In no way to "almost all" leave.  Nor is the question whether we approve of John Wesley's actions.  Some did, some did not.  Presumably most Methodist do.  But that's really irrelevant.  There is no "little known" provision of canon law which sanctioned John Wesley's actions, and the question has nothing to do with the validity of Anglican orders, which, as already pointed out above, is concerned with the succession.

Tb (talk) 04:09, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Christian POV needs to be fixed
This article only discusses Christian ordination. It should equally discuss ordination in other religions, e.g. Buddhism. I have added a POV-because template to this effect. McDutchie 20:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Has now been broadened - template removed Paul foord 00:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I would further suggest that the Zen Buddhism ordination portion is backhandedly snide and condescending...*Another initiation document states that “not making an outward show of cultivating the precepts while inwardly not clinging to false views truly is to become a monk.”[2] These texts pondering the meaning of silence assert that the dead actually make ideal Zen monks...* I seriously doubt this to be the case. Assert? Really? They assert something ridiculous? Even if the theme was used of a corpse, as in becoming like a corpse, this has to be diciphered within context of the literature, not blandly turned into a bad joke. How about something more like "all I can see in all this Soto Zen stuff is..."? At least that would be more accurate, that the writer of that line was not only not being sympathetic to, but hostile towards, the ideas of what makes a good monk. In actuality, if this person had much penetrated the text, whoever he/she may be, I think they would have found an incredible flexibility and open-mindedness is what makes for a good Zen monk. I'm rewording this phrase out... 98.197.91.158 (talk) 03:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, I doubt I can do justice to it. I suggest that those with in-depth familiarity with these texts re-read this article passage and see if the implied sarcasm rings in their ears, also. If not, then I humbly bow out of it. Even if so, I still bow humbly out of it.98.197.91.158 (talk) 03:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The standards of the ordination in every lineage need to be addressed and ...
....HARMONIZED.

The reason is that in some lineages, ordained monks and nuns are not supposed to live together under one roof even for a married couple while other lineages have practiced in such a way. That is how conflicts happen in that one lineage accuses another being an occult.

What I would like to get clearified is that whether the celibacy is a compulsary practice for ordained monks and nuns of every lineage. If so, how can we get convinced that a married couple who also happen to be a monk and a nun live under one roof is maintaining celibacy and not breach the code of conduct?

I found one cited ref at

http://www.mindground.net/celibacy.html

which indicates that one of the meaning in celibacy for ordained buddhists is to "give up family"

In regardless whether to humane or not, this is how the tradition is. If someone is questioning the humanity on that issue, please raise their opinions and arguments with reasoning.

Also, I believe that with different lineages, the definition of celibacy is different. As in the case of pharmaceutical standard compliance issue discussed at Talk:ISO 9362, if one of the standards is contradict to another and make the dual-comliance impossible then either of the standards must be updated with a sound scientific backup, or just meet a single standard with a clear-cut label BEFORE serious UPGRADE. This opinion is only for "production" scale not for non-sale home-made practice though :-). Of course, even home-made for non-sale purposes but for pioneer/pilot research purposes should be open to professional audit, rather than to political enforcement with a bias attached in most cases.  However, anyone who is from outside is to do auditing, please do not forget to pay accommodation if they stay overnight.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.52.66.10 (talk) 04:19, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

Community of Christ
This section is in need of clean up. It should focus only on ordination within the Community of Christ in so far as it is different from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I'm not even sure this section needs to remain the article at all. Dgf32 (talk) 21:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

NKT ordination
This section was heavily biased due to political reasons (the NKT opposes the Dalai Lama and so its ordination has been smeared), so it is good to add the other point of view for balance. (Truthbody (talk) 11:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC))

Update: I believe I have addressed the problem now. So is it alright to remove the 'biased' warning now? Puthujjana (talk) 19:12, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

The NKT is a cult that is not recognised by any of the main Tibetan Buddhist traditions. They were "expelled" from the Tibetan Buddhist community after members of the cult ritually murdered an outspoken opponent of theirs (Lobsang Gyatso) and two of his attendants in Dharamsala, India, February 4th 1997. . Their ordination technique (which differs greatly from orthodox Tibetan Buddhist methods) is not recognised by anybody except their own cult and neither are their "monastics". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:841C:E800:9C5C:3697:43FF:1F25 (talk) 08:13, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Merge proposal
Ordination is the means by which people enter holy orders. Even Protestant groups whose concept of Holy Orders differs from the Roman Catholic sacramental view are mentioned in the Holy Orders article. There is a fair bit of redundancy here, so let's just merge the two articles.--Bhuck (talk) 09:04, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Obviously there is overlap between the two, but this article is much broader than just ordination within Christianity. StAnselm (talk) 02:14, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * But this article has a subsection on Christianity. Is there any reason that something included in the "Holy Orders" article should not be included in the Ordination section?  Or, if the Christianity section of the Ordination article is too big, why not have an an article titled Christian Ordination which would be the main article, and be referenced in this article only by a few sentences and a link to the main article?--Bhuck (talk) 12:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that the articles should be merged. It seems that ordination is a far more common term and it means the same thing. Ejnogarb (talk) 02:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I Disagree! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.138.65.36 (talk) 20:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose - The Ordination article talks about the rite of ordination while the Holy Orders article talks about the offices of Holy Orders. There is bound to be overlap, but they should be separate. The articles probably need to be cleaned up to reflect the actual difference in subject matter. Jubilee♫ clipman 22:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose Merging would just cause more problems. PsychoInfiltrator (talk) 03:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I am closing this proposal as there is a well reasoned consensus in opposition to the merge, and also per WP:MERGE, specifically:

''Merging should not be considered if: Wine Guy  Talk  20:34, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) The resulting article is too long or "clunky"
 * 2) The separate topics could be expanded into longer standalone (but cross linked) articles
 * 3) The topics are discrete subjects and deserve their own articles even though they may be short''

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Clean up "Catholic" terminology
There is a need to clean up the use of terms Roman Catholic and Catholic. For example, at one point Roman Catholic seems to be referring to just Latin-Rite Catholics ("In the Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic..."), and at another it seems to be referring to all Catholics, both Latin and Eastern ("In Roman Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox thought..."). This is an issue being raised throughout Wikipedia recently, as part of a great deal of discussion regarding the renaming of the Catholic Church article (from Roman Catholic Church to Catholic Church). I think in this article it is not 100% clear which RC references are referring to the entire Church and which to just the Latin-Rite/Western churches, but hopefully a review of the sources will help. Just wanted to post this here to explain the changes that will eventually be made. --anietor (talk) 19:19, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Churches
I have had a good hack at this, removing duplication, POV material, irrelevant material etc, but am aware that it is still highly inadequate and completely unreferenced. Regards all, Springnuts (talk) 21:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Online Ordination
Given the amount of people who are ordained online and the amount of various places that ordain online, this should at least be mentioned in the article.Aaronwayneodonahue (talk) 17:07, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Is this article far too broad?
I wonder if we are lumping too many widely disparate things together here? Springnuts (talk) 09:02, 12 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Perhaps, but I don’t see any graceful way to reduce the article’s scope without introducing POV problems. There could be a separate  Ordination (Christianity) article, I suppose, but from my observations of how such things evolve on Wikipedia, much of the material there would be, after a short time, duplicated in this article.


 * On the other hand, I find this article organizationally challenged: Firstly, the main outline consists of five religions and “Ordination of women”, the latter having subsections for two of the five main sections not to mention that there is a separate article of Ordination of women).  Within the Christianity section, there are non sequitor insertions about, for example, the mutual recognition of orders (which belongs in its own subsection, if in this article at all) and on what days ordinations may be performed, which is a detail of ordination rituals, which is not discussed in this article but is detailed in the article “Holy Orders”.  Some moths ago I commenced reorganizing the Christianity section and hope to do more some day as time permits; I’d appreciate input as to what, if anything, should be removed from here and moved to the “Holy Orders” article.


 * Vincent J. Lipsio (talk) 12:06, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Is there consensus to insist that article content regarding "Ordination of women" be discussed only at Ordination of women? I'd support that idea. If the article is still too long, Ordination could redirect to Ordination (disambiguation) and this article's content could be split into Ordination (Christian) and Ordination (nonchristian). Is the term "nonchristian" nonneutral POV?--AuthorityTam (talk) 15:02, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Mahayana ordination section
It's a bit strange to contrast this with Therevadha, as if all Mahayana Buddhists follow a Mahayana ordination.

Instead, nearly all Mahayana Buddhists follow a similar ordination to the Therevadhans, based on the Vinaya. The Vinaya or discipline is also included in Mahayana Buddhism.

I think this needs to be rewritten though I don't have any specific recommendations on how to do it. Just writing this to hopefully draw attention of an expert who can do the rewrite. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 22:48, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Also surprised that it doesn't mention Thích Nhất Hạnh with his "order of interbeing" as a Mahayana ordination. Robert Walker (talk) 23:26, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The New Kadampa Tradition Ordination is regarded as controversial – this must be mentioned to meet WP:NPOV
This section has no citation and it is not neutral. The NKT ordination is seen as controversial and the explanation given by the NKT is not accepted by non-NKT. The stance of the critics is not mentioned, therefore, the section is not neutral. With respect to the controversies going along with the NKT ordiantion see for instance, the statements by the Australian Sangha Association or the German Buddhist Monastic Association:
 * http://info-buddhism.com/ASA-statement.html
 * http://buddhistische-ordensgemeinschaft.de/dbo_statement-shugden-protests-Dalai-Lama.htm

See also Geshe Tashi Tsering:
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhckkxSgQ8g&feature=youtu.be
 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKZK6DAzKto&feature=youtu.be

Kt66 (talk) 15:26, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

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laying-on of hands
Laying-on of hands is an essential feature of most Protestant ordinations (write froma Lutheran point of view). Why does the article make no mention of this ritual except with reference to Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Mormon ordinations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plblank (talk • contribs) 07:37, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Deaconesses
"Some (who?) claim that women were ordained deacons in the first millennium of Christianity, but their claims are disputed (by whom?)"

It would be nice to see this cleaned up and expanded to provide a fuller historical account. From the Catholic Encyclopedia (and I am not Catholic, so I don't have an axe to grind):

There can be no doubt that in their first institution the deaconesses were intended to discharge those same charitable offices, connected with the temporal well being of their poorer fellow Christians, which were performed for the men by the deacons. But in one particular, viz., the instruction and baptism of catechumens, their duties involved service of a more spiritual kind. The universal prevalence of baptism by immersion and the anointing of the whole body which preceded it, rendered it a matter of propriety that in this ceremony the functions of the deacons should be discharged by women. The Didascalia Apostolorum (III, 12; see Funk, Didascalia, etc., I, 208) explicitly direct that the deaconesses are to perform this function.

I don't have the time to research this (drop and run, I know) but thought I'd point it out in case someone wants to take this on. Possible references may be Eusebius' Church History, JND Kelly's Early Christian Doctrines, or Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition Series. Tpkatsa (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2020 (UTC), Th. M.