Apostolic Succession

In Christianity, the doctrine of Apostolic Succession (or the belief that the Church is 'apostolic') maintains that the Christian Church today is the spiritual successor to the original body of believers in Christ composed of the Apostles. Different Christian denominations interpret this doctrine in different ways.

In episcopal churches, the Apostolic Succession is understood to be the basis of the authority of bishops (the episcopate). In the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, Apostolic Succession is claimed as having been passed through unbroken lines of bishops beginning with the original Apostles. The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally been the most vocal in claiming unique legitimacy in terms of Apostolic Succession based on the assertion that Saint Peter, believed to be the rightful leader of the Church, was the first Bishop of Rome. Other communions such as Anglicanism and Oriental Orthodoxy claim legitimacy on a similar basis. Virtually all Christian denominations consider Apostolic Succession important in some fashion although their definitions of the concept may vary.

 Apostolicity as doctrinal continuity

While many churches within the historic episcopate argue that holy orders are valid only through apostolic succession, most Protestant Churches would deny that the apostolicity of the Church rests on an unbroken episcopacy. They generally hold that one important qualification of the apostles was that they were chosen directly by Jesus and that they witnessed the resurrected Christ. According to this understanding, the work of these twelve (and the Apostle Paul), together with the prophets of the twelve tribes of Israel, provide the doctrinal foundation for the whole church of subsequent history through the Scriptures of the Bible. To share with the apostles the same faith, to believe their word as found in the Scriptures, to receive the same Holy Spirit, is the only sense in which apostolic succession is meaningful, because it is in this sense only that men have fellowship with God in the truth (an extension of the Reformation doctrines of sola fide and sola scriptura). The most meaningful apostolic succession for most Protestants, then, is the faithful succession of apostolic teaching. There is, of course, much disagreement among various Protestant churches about the exact content of apostolic teaching. In addition, Protestants state that the teaching of Apostolic Succession did not arise until 170-200 A.D. ^[1]

It is worth noting, however, that some Protestant charismatic and restorationist churches include "apostles" among the offices that should be evident into modern times in a true church, though they never trace an historical line of succession. It is frequently the case that the founders or senior leaders of a restorationist church grouping will be referred to as the apostles. Church planting is seen as a key role of these present-day apostles.

Those who hold to the importance of episcopal apostolic succession would counter the above by appealing to the New Testament, which, they say, implies a personal apostolic succession (from Paul to Timothy and Titus, for example) and which states that Jesus gave the Apostles a "blank cheque" to lead the Church as they saw fit under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.^[2] They appeal as well to other documents of the very early Church, especially the Epistle of St. Clement to the Church at Corinth, written around 96 AD In it, Clement defends the authority and prerogatives of a group of "elders" or "bishops" in the Corinthian Church which had, apparently, been deposed and replaced by the congregation on its own initiative. In this context, Clement explicitly states that the apostles both appointed bishops as successors and had directed that these bishops should in turn appoint their own successors; given this, such leaders of the Church were not to be removed without cause and not in this way. Further, proponents of the necessity of the personal apostolic succession of bishops within the Church point to the universal practice of the undivided early Church (up to 431 AD), from which, as organizations, the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox (at that point in time one Church until 1054, see Great Schism), as well Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Churches have all directly descended.

At the same time, no defender of the personal apostolic succession of bishops would deny the importance of doctrinal continuity in the Church. As stated above, Irenaeus explicitly ties the two together.

Mainstream Christianity

Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Churches

The Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, Independent Catholic, Anglican Communion and some others hold that apostolic succession is maintained through the consecration of their bishops in unbroken personal succession back to the apostles.^[3] These churches hold that Jesus Christ founded a community of believers and selected the apostles to serve, as a group, as the leadership of that community. In Catholic and Orthodox theology, the "College of Apostles" received the sacrament of Holy Orders from Christ, making them the first bishops, and the bishops of the world today, as a group (the College of Bishops) have the same role within the church as the College of Apostles did immediately after Christ's ministry (the Catholic Church additionally holds that within the College of Apostles, Peter was picked out for the unique role of leadership and to serve as the source of unity among the apostles, a role among the bishops and within the church inherited by the pope as Peter's successor today).

These churches hold that Christ entrusted the leadership of the community of believers, and the obligation to transmit and preserve the "deposit of faith" (the experience of Christ and his teachings contained in the doctrinal "tradition" handed down from the time of the apostles, the written portion of which is Scripture) to the apostles, and the apostles passed on this role by ordaining bishops after them.

Roman Catholic, Orthodox theology additionally hold that the power and authority to confect the sacraments, or at least all of the sacraments aside from baptism and matrimony (the first of which may be administered by anyone, the second of which is administered by the couple to each other) is passed on only through the sacrament of Holy Orders, and an unbroken line of ordination of bishops to the apostles is necessary for the valid celebration of the sacraments today. Roman Catholics recognize the validity of the apostolic successions of the bishops, and therefore the rest of the clergy, of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, Old Catholic, and some Independent Catholic Churches. Rome does not yet fully recognize the Anglican orders as valid. The Eastern Orthodox do not universally recognize Roman Catholics, Anglicans, or any other group as having Apostolic Succession. Until the time comes when the practices of the Orthodox Church are unified, the validity of any priest's ordination will be decided by each Autocephalous Orthodox Church.^[4] Neither the Catholic nor the Orthodox Church recognize the validity of the apostolic succession of the clergy of the Protestant churches, in large measure because of their theology of the Eucharist.

The unbrokenness of apostolic succession is also significant because of Jesus Christ's promise that the "gates of hell" ^[5] would not prevail against the Church, and his promise that he himself would be with the apostles to "the end of the age".^[6] According to this interpretation, a complete disruption or end of such apostolic succession would mean that these promises were not kept as would an apostolic succession which, while formally intact, completely abandoned the teachings of the Apostles and their immediate successors; as, for example, if all the bishops of the world agreed to repudiate the Bible.

Pope Leo XIII stated, in his 1896 bull Apostolicae Curae that the Catholic Church believes specifically that the Anglican Church's consecrations are "absolutely invalid and utterly void" because of changes made to the rite of consecration under Edward VI, thus denying that Anglicans participate in the apostolic succession. A reply from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (1896) effectively countered each of Pope Leo's arguments. ^[7] It even suggested that if the Anglican orders were invalid, then the Roman orders were as well:

For if the Pope shall by a new decree declare our Fathers of two hundred and fifty years ago wrongly ordained, there is nothing to hinder the inevitable sentence that by the same law all who have been similarly ordained have received no orders. And if our Fathers, who used in 1550 and 1552 forms which as he (the Pope) says are null, were altogether unable to reform them in 1662, (Roman) Fathers come under the self-same law. And if Hippolytus and Victor and Leo and Gelasius and Gregory have some of them said too little in their rites about the priesthood and the high priesthood, and nothing about the power of offering the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, the church of Rome herself has an invalid priesthood...

Rome's position has since softened to now only conditionally ordain converting Anglican priests. These ordinations are conditional because it has been judged by the Roman Catholic Church that prior ordination as an Anglican may have been valid. ^[9] This was an acknowledgment that even if the Anglican orders were indeed invalid from the time of Matthew Parker, all current Anglican Bishops have been consecrated in succession through Old Catholic or Orthodox lines whose holy orders are recognised by the Holy See. The Old Catholic Union of Utrecht, is in full communion with Canterbury and Anglicanism since the Bonn Agreement of 1931. It should also be noted that since the issuance of Apostolicae Curae, many Anglican jurisdictions have revised their ordinals, bringing them more in line with ordinals of the early Church.

Inspite of these change, the language of Pope Leo's statement was reinforced in the accompanying commentary to Ad Tuendam Fidem:

With regard to those truths connected to revelation by historical necessity and which are to be held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed, the following examples can be given: the legitimacy of the election of the Supreme Pontiff or of the celebration of an ecumenical council, the canonizations of saints (dogmatic facts), the declaration of Pope Leo XIII in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations... ^[10]

In addition to a line of historic transmission, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches additionally require that a hierarch maintain Orthodox Church doctrine, which they hold to be that of the Apostles, as well as communion with other Orthodox bishops. The Eastern Orthodox have often permitted clergy ordained by Catholic and Anglican bishops to be rapidly ordained within Orthodoxy as a matter of economia. In some cases, priests entering Eastern Orthodoxy have been received by "vesting" and have been allowed to function immediately within Orthodoxy as priests. This is rare and often still a matter of economia and not always a recognition of Apostolic Succession.^[11]

The Armenian Apostolic Church, which is one of the Oriental Orthodox churches, recognizes Catholic episcopal consecrations without qualification (and that recognition is reciprocated).

Protestant Churches

Lutheran Church

Some Lutheran Churches, the Churches of the Porvoo Communion, and the Old Catholic Church (which is also in communion with the Anglican Communion) also believe that they ordain their bishops in the apostolic succession in line from the apostles.

Some Churches within the historic episcopate believe the Church of Sweden and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland^[12] have maintained apostolic succession, despite their Lutheranism. This is a view that is not held by the Roman Catholic Church^[13] nor by all of Orthodoxy.

Methodist Church

Bishops in the United Methodist Church do not claim to be within the historic episcopate in the same way as Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox bishops. They do, however, claim a corporate ("connectional") and theological form of Apostolic succession, and are not adverse to ecumenical acts which would further establish their ministry within the historic episcopate, though such would have to be accomplished without repudiating or otherwise questioning the validity of their current orders and ministries. Methodist episcopal succession derives from John Wesley, who was an ordained presbyter of the Church of England but not himself a bishop and thus not officially authorized to consecrate others. Wesley justified his practice of ordaining bishops (which he called "General Superintendents") and Elders (i.e., presbyters) for Methodists in the newly independent United States of America in 1784 by appealing to a perceived need and by citing a minority opinion among the early Church Fathers and an ancient precedent from the Church of Alexandria, which held that presbyters ("priests" or "elders") could, at least collectively, indeed ordain other such presbyters and even consecrate, or "set apart" bishops in certain emergency situations.^[14] Based upon this argument, the United Methodist Church understands all of its Elders, not just its Bishops, as being part of an Apostolic succession of the entire body (or "conference") of ministers:

“

In ordination, the church affirms and continues the apostolic ministry through persons empowered by the Holy Spirit. (Book of Discipline paragraph 303)

”

In other words, Methodists understand apostolic succession as being rooted within the Presbyterate. This does not mean, however, that all elders may ordain; quite the contrary: only those elders who have been elected and consecrated as bishops can further the apostolic succession through the ordination of bishops, elders, and deacons within the United Methodist Church. In this way, the United Methodist episcopacy functions as if it were within the historic episcopate.

Accepting, but moving beyond this position, a few Methodists do affirm that their bishops stand in a form of the historic, as well as theological, Apostolic Succession (i.e., in the Anglican fashion); their argument is that Wesley's ordinations, and therefore the subsequent line of Methodist bishops, are legitimate due to the critical nature of the circumstances extant at that time. Some Methodists even make an appeal to the "Erasmian consecration," which asserts that, while on a visit to London in 1763, the Greek Orthodox bishop of the Diocese of Arcadia, Crete, secretly consecrated Wesley to the episcopacy. That Wesley actually met with Bishop Erasmus during the bishop's visit to London is not questioned; what is questioned is that Erasmus did more than simply "confirm Wesley in his ministry among the Methodists in England and America." When Wesley was asked by a clergyman if Erasmus of Arcadia had consecrated him a bishop, he said: "I cannot answer you."^[15] Another source states that when Wesley was asked if Erasmus had made him a bishop, he offered no personal response but, rather, took the unusual course of authorizing a representative to reply that he had not requested episcopal consecration within the Greek Orthodox line. Many take this as a sufficient denial, but those who believe that Wesley was actually consecrated make the following arguments to the contrary:

1. Wesley personally remained silent on the subject,
2. Wesley took the unusual step of having someone to speak on his behalf, and
3. Wesley never actually denied being consecrated a bishop, what he denied was requesting consecration from Erasmus.

Contrary to the "Erasmian consecration" stands the undeniable fact that, beginning with the American Revolution in the 1770s, Wesley did request episcopal consecration for several of his preachers and, indeed, for himself, so as to provide sacramental ministry for the Methodists in the break-away colonies. Opponents of the possibility that John Wesley had been consecrated a bishop by Erasmus of Arcadia argue that if Wesley had already been consecrated a bishop by Erasmus, he would have not requested such consecrations for others or for himself. The Greek Orthodox Bishop, Erasmus of Arcadia, is said to have ordained several Methodist lay preachers during Reverend John Wesley's absence from London in 1764,^[16]notably, Reverend John Jones.^[17]

Nevertheless, the "Erasmian consecration" remained a very popular argument throughout much of the 1800s and, while still garnering a following among some proponents today, it is not accepted by a majority of Methodists nor even by most of those who affirm a form of Apostolicity for their bishops. Interestingly enough, Wesley's consecration as a bishop by Erasmus of Arcadia is affirmed by Unity Catholic Church, an Independent Catholic Church.^[18]

Latter-day Saints (Mormons)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also sometimes referred to as Mormons or LDS) has a similar, but unique position. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus Christ directs his church at all times through revelation to a prophet of God. However, individuals are entitled to revelation only for that calling over which they have authority. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that everyone is entitled to revelation concerning themselves; a head of household is entitled to revelation for his or her family; a bishop has the authority to receive revelation concerning the congregation over which he presides (a ward). Only ordained apostles have the authority from the Lord to receive revelation for doctrine for the entire church. An example of what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints calls church-wide apostolic revelation can be found in Acts 10:1-48 where Peter had prayed and received revelation from God that the gospel could now go forward to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. ^[19] Hence, the scripture where Christ says "upon this rock I will build my church" is interpreted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a reference to revelation:

"When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Matthew 16:13-18

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that when Christ asked his disciples who they think he is, Peter had the right answer because he prayed and received revelation: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." They believe that when Christ said "upon this rock I will build my church", the rock of which he was speaking was revelation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that certain aspects of the church will change over time. For example, at one time Christ said not to preach to the Gentiles, and later Peter was given a revelation when it was time to start.^[20] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that the need for constant ongoing revelation is critical to conduct the affairs of the church.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that Christ chose apostles and gave them the authority to receive revelation for the church by the laying on of hands. It further teaches that the apostles passed this authority onto others by choosing and ordaining new apostles by the laying on of hands (such as Paul and Matthias). Those individuals then had the appropriate authority to receive revelation for and officiate over the church in that office at that time:

"And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles."
Acts 1:24-26

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that an apostasy occurred, where the apostolic authority was taken from the earth at some time after the original apostles. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints refers to the resultant loss of revelation and falling away from the teachings of Jesus Christ as the Great Apostasy. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that this was predicted when Amos said that there would be a "famine of hearing the words of the Lord" in Amos 8:11, and by Paul when he was talking about the second coming "that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first" in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains that the authority from God needed to be restored to the earth, which took place when God the Father and His son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith, Jr. near Palmyra, New York in 1820 and called Joseph as a prophet to restore Christ's church to the earth with correct doctrines and practices. Other mainstream church denominations do not accept these "latter day revelations" as authoritative.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that near the time that Joseph formally organized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1830, the apostles Peter, James and John appeared to Joseph and Oliver Cowdery, laid their hands on Joseph and Oliver and restored to them the apostolic authority to govern the church.^[21], and that Joseph was visited by other heavenly messengers at different times, each one conferring upon him the particular authority or keys for which they had stewardship. For example, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains that John the Baptist restored the Aaronic Priesthood to Joseph and Oliver, Peter James and John restored the Melchizedek Priesthood to them, with other heavenly messengers such as Moses and Elijah restoring to them the keys to the gathering of Israel and the sealing power of Elijah. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that Joseph was given the authority like the apostles of old, to confer to others specific priesthood authority by the laying on of hands. It further believes that all of the various keys of this authority have been and are passed on to worthy, male members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints according to their particular offices. In this way, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims that apostolic authority was restored to the earth through the original twelve apostles and apostolic succession continues today through the ordination of new apostles as the older apostles pass away.

See also

• New Apostolic Church
• Apostle
• List of Bishops
• Episcopi vagantes
• Valid but illicit
• Independent Catholic Churches
• Old Catholic

References

Sources and external links

• Methodist Episcopacy: In Search of Holy Orders (1990) by Gregory S. Neal
• Methodist Apostolicity by Gregory S. Neal
• "Was Wesley Ordained By Bishop Erasmus?" The Methodist Quarterly Review (1878)
• Against Heresies, Online-text, Irenaeus, Against Heresies
• Scott Hahn on the Papacy by Scott Hahn. Discusses "the chamberlain of the royal household of ancient Israel" or "Prime minister" of the "house of David" ( Isaiah 22:22 ) vis-à-vis Dynastic Succession .
• Christian Cyclopedia article on Apostolic Succession

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