Apostolic succession

The Episcopal consecration of Deodatus (Claude Bassot, 1580–1630)
Saint Peter portrayed as a Pope in the Nuremberg Chronicle
Roman Catholic ordination ceremony
Stained glass window in a Catholic church depicting St. Peter's Basilica in Rome sitting "Upon this rock," a reference to Matthew 16:18. Most present-day Catholics interpret Jesus as saying he was building his church on the rock of the Apostle Peter and the succession of popes which claim Apostolic succession from him.
A 17th century illustration of Article VII: Of the Church from the Lutheran Augsburg Confession, which states "...one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered." Here the rock from Matthew 16:18 refers to the preaching and ministry of Jesus as the Christ, a view discussed at length in the 1537 Treatise.
Pope Leo XIII rejected Anglican arguments for apostolic succession in his bull Apostolicae curae.

Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is considered by some Christian denominations to be derived from the Twelve Apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Those of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Scandinavian Lutheran, Anglican, Moravian, Hussite, and Old Catholic traditions maintain that a bishop's orders are neither regular nor valid without consecration through apostolic succession. These traditions do not always consider the episcopal consecrations of all of the other traditions as valid.

Quotes

B

  • The great Apostolic Succession of the Knowers of God is poised today for renewed activity—a succession [38] of Those Who have lived on Earth, accepted the fact of God Transcendent, discovered the reality of God Immanent, portrayed in Their own lives the divine characteristics of the Christ life and (because They lived on Earth as He did and does) have "entered for us within the veil, leaving us an example that we too should follow His steps" and Theirs. We too belong eventually in that great succession.

L

  • I then proceeded to make further investigations... I may sum up briefly the results... which will no doubt at first sight seem surprising to many of my readers... Only those priests who have been lawfully ordained, and have the apostolic succession, can produce this effect at all. Other men, not being part of this definite organisation, cannot perform this feat, no matter how devoted or good or saintly they may be. Secondly, neither the character of the priest, nor his knowledge, nor ignorance as to what he is really doing, affects the result in any way whatever. Ch. 8
  • Having myself been a priest of the Church of England, and knowing... the disputes as to whether that Church really has the apostolic succession or not, I was naturally interested in discovering whether its priests possessed this power. I was much pleased to find that they did... I soon found by examination that ministers of what are commonly called dissenting sects did not possess this power, no matter how good and - earnest they might be. Their goodness and earnestness produced plenty of other effects which I shall presently describe, but their efforts did not draw upon the particular reservoir to which I have referred... When the priest is earnest and devoted, his whole feeling radiates out upon his people and calls forth similar feelings in such of them as are capable of expressing them. Also his devotion calls down its inevitable response, as shown in the illustration in ThoughtForms and the downpouring of force thus evoked benefits his congregation as well as himself; so that a priest who throws his heart and soul into the work which he does may be said to bring a double blessing upon his people, though the second class of influence can scarcely be considered as being of the same order of magnitude as the first. Ch. 8

O

  • This is not to suggest that there is really such a thing as Faragism. There is just Powellism warmed up. Farage's gift was to refashion Enoch Powell's rather extraterrestrial persona as down-to-earth bluff English blokeishness.
    Undoubtedly, however, this was a repackaging of old content: Powell’s twin hatreds of immigrants and the EU. Powell visited Dulwich College in 1982, when Farage was in his final year there. The young man was spellbound. As he later recalled, Powell "dazzled me for once into awestruck silence". A decade later, when the founder of UKIP, Alan Sked, was contesting a byelection in Berkshire, it was Farage, as a volunteer, who had the privilege of driving Powell to a rally. This was one of Powell’s last public speeches and one of Farage’s first party political acts. Though it would not have seemed so at the time, it feels in retrospect like a neat moment of apostolic succession. Farage, more than anyone else, reanimated Powell’s undead spirit.

R

  • An authoritative mission to teach is absolutely necessary, a man-given mission is not authoritative. Hence any concept of Apostolicity that excludes authoritative union with the Apostolic mission robs the ministry of its Divine character. Apostolicity, or Apostolic succession, then, means that the mission conferred by Jesus Christ upon the Apostles must pass from then to their legitimate successors, in an unbroken line, until the end of the world.
  • Thomas Charles O'Reilly, Apostolicity (1913) Catholic Encyclopedia

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See also


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