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Doctrine

Apostolic succession

Also Known As The historic episcopate · the succession of bishops
Church, Sacraments and Authority
Origin 180 to 1563 CE

For the Catholic, Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and for Anglicans and others who hold the historic episcopate, valid ordination and thus valid sacraments depend on this unbroken succession, understood as the guarantee that the church of today is the same church the apostles founded. Most Protestant churches reject the requirement, holding either a succession of apostolic teaching rather than of hands, or a ministry authorised by the congregation or by the word rightly preached. The disagreement is why the churches do not all recognise one another's ordinations, Rome, for one, declared Anglican orders invalid in 1896, a judgment Canterbury disputes.

Facts
Status
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 2Tradition: Roman Catholicism
Necessary to the church and to valid orders
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 3Tradition: Eastern Orthodoxy
Necessary to the church and to valid orders
Status Within the Tradition
Standard teaching, not formally defined 2Tradition: Anglicanism
Status Within the Tradition
Standard teaching, not formally defined 4Tradition: Calvinism (Reformed)
Ministry is grounded in the word and the call of the congregation rather than in a tactile succession
Status Within the Tradition
Rejected, or not held, within this tradition 4Tradition: Calvinism (Reformed)
Not held as necessary
Standing as a Comparative Category
A standard analytic category in the study of religion 5
Origins
Origin Period
180 to 1563 CE 1
Held By
Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglican theology hold apostolic succession through episcopal ordination to be important or necessary; most Protestant traditions arising from the Reformation locate apostolic continuity in faithfulness to apostolic teaching rather than an unbroken chain of ordination. 2
The Claim
The Claim
That bishops derive their authority through an unbroken chain of ordination traced back to the apostles, necessary in some traditions for valid ministry and for valid sacraments. 2
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglican theology hold apostolic succession through episcopal ordination to be important or necessary; most Protestant traditions arising from the Reformation locate apostolic continuity in faithfulness to apostolic teaching rather than in an unbroken chain of ordination. 2
Organisation
Ordination
Valid ordination within apostolic succession is generally held to require the laying on of hands by a bishop himself validly ordained within the chain, a requirement most strictly maintained in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canon law. 2
Doctrinal category (class)
Religious Law 6
Learn More
An Unbroken Line, and the Disputes About It

Apostolic succession is the claim that the authority Christ gave the apostles has been transmitted in an unbroken line to bishops through the laying on of hands. It is asserted by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian churches, by the Anglican Communion, by the Old Catholic churches and by some Lutheran bodies, and it governs their understanding of ordination, of the validity of sacraments, and of what makes a church a church.

The early evidence is real but thinner than the developed doctrine. Clement of Rome, writing about 96, describes the apostles appointing successors and providing for the succession to continue. Irenaeus, arguing in the 180s against Gnostic teachers who claimed a secret tradition, replies that the churches founded by apostles can produce public lists of their bishops, and that traceable succession is therefore the guarantee of authentic teaching, his argument is about doctrine, and succession is the evidence for it. Cyprian in the third century ties succession to the unity of the episcopate. Historians generally hold that the single bishop over a city emerged gradually, and that some first- and second-century communities were led by a college of presbyters, so that the later doctrine reads back a clarity the earliest period did not have.

Four disputes follow. The first is whether succession is of persons or of doctrine: most of the Reformers argued that the true apostolic succession is fidelity to apostolic teaching, and that a chain of hands guarantees nothing if what is taught has changed. The second is whose orders are valid. Leo XIII's bull Apostolicae Curae (1896) declared Anglican ordinations "absolutely null and utterly void" on grounds of defect of form and intention in the Edwardine ordinal; the Archbishops of Canterbury and York replied in Saepius Officio (1897) rejecting both the reasoning and the historical account, and the question remains open. Orthodox churches judge by their own criteria and have not spoken with a single voice. The third is whether succession belongs to the essence of the church or to its good order, the difference between saying a church without it is no church and saying it is a church lacking something valuable. The fourth is ecumenical: the Faith and Order text Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982) and later bilateral dialogues have sought language in which episcopal succession is a sign of the church's apostolicity without being its sole guarantee, an approach that has enabled several agreements of communion and that critics on both wings regard as evading the question.

Bishops with No Church to Answer To

Article one traces the mainstream disputes over apostolic succession between recognised church bodies. A separate and stranger phenomenon sits alongside them: individuals and tiny groups holding, or claiming, a technically valid line of episcopal consecration while belonging to no communion that the mainstream bodies article one names would recognise as a church at all.

Scholars and church historians use the term episcopi vagantes, wandering bishops, for this pattern, which grew substantially from the nineteenth century onward as various figures obtained consecration from bishops willing to ordain outside their own church's discipline, then passed it on to successors of their own, sometimes founding jurisdictions of a handful of members each. The result is a considerable number of individuals who can trace a documented, arguably valid chain of hands back to a recognised historic church, exactly the mechanism article one describes as constituting succession, while standing in no relationship of communion or shared teaching with any body whose authority that chain was meant to transmit. The phenomenon is usually cited as evidence that a valid chain of consecration and a functioning church are not the same thing.

A more orderly case of succession crossing communion lines is the Bonn Agreement of 1931, by which the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht, who separated from Rome after the First Vatican Council's definition of papal infallibility, and the Anglican Communion, whose orders Rome had declared invalid in 1896 as article one notes, formally recognised each other's orders and entered full communion, each accepting that the other possessed genuine apostolic succession despite lacking Rome's approval for either.

Connections

Associated With

Cyprian of Carthage, Historical Figures

His treatise on the unity of the church argues that the bishops hold it together and that there is no salvation outside it.

Source Cyprian the BishopJ. Patout Burns

Attributed To

Irenaeus, Figures
Source Apostolic succession (Wikipedia)

Belongs to Tradition

Anglican Communion, Denominations

The fourth article of the Quadrilateral keeps the historic episcopate, but the clause allowing it to be locally adapted in the methods of its administration was put there on purpose. The Communion commits to the succession of bishops without committing to any one account of what that succession conveys.

Source The Chicago-Lambeth QuadrilateralThe Lambeth Conferencethe holders' own account
Armenian Apostolic Church, Denominations

The Armenian Apostolic Church traces its founding to the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew and maintains its own independent catholicosate, distinct from Constantinople or Rome, since Armenia's conversion in 301 CE.

Source The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern TimesRichard G. Hovannisian (ed.)
Christianity, Religions
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Church of Cyprus, Denominations

The episcopate is held to run in unbroken succession from the apostles, and it is the bishop rather than the see that carries it. This is the ground on which this church recognises its own orders and those of the other Orthodox churches.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Church of Greece, Denominations

The episcopate is held to run in unbroken succession from the apostles, and it is the bishop rather than the see that carries it. This is the ground on which this church recognises its own orders and those of the other Orthodox churches.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Coptic Orthodoxy, Denominations

The Coptic Orthodox Church traces its apostolic founding to Saint Mark the Evangelist at Alexandria, the see from which its patriarchal succession and its pioneering monastic tradition both descend.

Source Two Thousand Years of Coptic ChristianityOtto F. A. Meinardus
Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

Apostolic succession, an unbroken line of ordination from the apostles, is claimed and taught as doctrine by this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Denominations

The episcopate is held to run in unbroken succession from the apostles. This church's own line runs through Alexandria, from which its hierarchy was received.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Georgian Orthodox Church, Denominations

The episcopate is held to run in unbroken succession from the apostles, and it is the bishop rather than the see that carries it. This is the ground on which this church recognises its own orders and those of the other Orthodox churches.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Greek Orthodox Church, Denominations

The episcopate is held to run in unbroken succession from the apostles, and it is the bishop rather than the see that carries it. This is the ground on which this church recognises its own orders and those of the other Orthodox churches.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Oriental Orthodoxy, Denominations

Each of these churches traces its episcopate to an apostolic founder, the Coptic see to Mark and the Armenian to Bartholomew and Thaddeus, and orders are conferred on that understanding.

Roman Catholicism, Denominations

Apostolic succession, an unbroken line of ordination from the apostles, is claimed and taught as doctrine by this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Romanian Orthodox Church, Denominations

The episcopate is held to run in unbroken succession from the apostles, and it is the bishop rather than the see that carries it. This is the ground on which this church recognises its own orders and those of the other Orthodox churches.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Saint Thomas Christians, Denominations

Every branch of the Saint Thomas Christian community keeps episcopal succession, received historically through the East Syriac Church of the East, and claims apostolic origin from Thomas; the claim of succession is not inherited from any parent body in the atlas.

Source The Indian Christians of St. Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of MalabarLeslie Brown
Serbian Orthodox Church, Denominations

The episcopate is held to run in unbroken succession from the apostles, and it is the bishop rather than the see that carries it. This is the ground on which this church recognises its own orders and those of the other Orthodox churches.

Source The Orthodox ChurchTimothy Ware (Kallistos Ware)
Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Denominations

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, formed at the Union of Brest in 1596, retains Byzantine Rite apostolic succession and its own Major Archbishop while in full communion with Rome.

Source The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief SurveyRonald G. Roberson

Held Differently

Anglicanism, Denominations

Apostolic succession, an unbroken line of ordination from the apostles, is claimed and taught as doctrine by this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Church of Ireland, Denominations

The Preamble and Declaration of 1870 declares that the Church of Ireland continues as the ancient catholic and apostolic church of Ireland and maintains the three orders of bishops, priests and deacons as it has received them. Disestablishment took the state out of its government and did not touch the episcopate.

Source The Preamble and Declaration of the Church of IrelandThe General Convention of the Church of Irelandthe holders' own account
Church of Sweden, Denominations

The Church of Sweden kept the historic episcopate through a gradual Reformation, unlike most Lutheran churches, which is the ground on which the Porvoo Communion brought it into full communion with the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Denominations

Why this is disputed. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America occupies a genuine middle position rather than either pole of the debate. Its 1999 Called to Common Mission agreement with the Episcopal Church committed the ELCA to adopt the historic episcopate for the ordination of future bishops, a step toward what the episcopal camp requires, while stopping short of teaching that apostolic succession in that sense is essential to a ministers validity, the position classical Lutheran confession has generally held. It is neither a straightforward member of the episcopal camp nor a straightforward rejection of the requirement.

Source Encyclopedia of American ReligionsJ. Gordon Melton

Critiqued By

Dutch Reformed Church, Denominations

The Reformed churches ground the ministry in a lawful call by the church rather than in an unbroken line of bishops. The Belgic Confession has ministers chosen by lawful election of the church with prayer and good order, and Calvin argues that the succession which matters is the succession of doctrine. This is the sharpest single break with both Anglican bodies.

Source The Belgic ConfessionGuido de Bres
Mennonites, Denominations
Source The Schleitheim ConfessionMichael Sattler (attributed)
National Baptist Convention of America, Denominations
Source Baptist Confessions of FaithWilliam L. Lumpkin
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Denominations
Source Baptist Confessions of FaithWilliam L. Lumpkin

Rejected Here

Jehovah's Witnesses, Denominations

An unbroken line of bishops is rejected. This body dates its own organisation to the 1870s and holds that true worship had lapsed in the centuries before.

Latter-day Saints (Mormonism), Denominations

Authority is held to have been lost after the apostolic age and restored directly rather than handed down, which is what the Restoration claim means.

Source The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsJoseph Smith and his successors
Quakerism (Religious Society of Friends), Denominations

An unbroken succession of bishops confers nothing here. Authority to minister rests on the immediate moving of the Spirit rather than on outward ordination.

Source An Apology for the True Christian DivinityRobert Barclay

Related To

Dharma Transmission, Doctrines

A comparable claim of unbroken succession in another tradition.

Same Subject in Another Register

The historic episcopate, Beliefs & Restrictions

The claim that a church's bishops stand in unbroken consecration back to the apostles is the same claim the fuller doctrine of apostolic succession makes, here stated in the Anglican ecumenical form.

Sources
1. The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine
Jaroslav Pelikan, University of Chicago Press, 1971Irenaeus and the succession of bishopsView the Source
2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005
  • s.v. Church of Sweden, on the retention of the historic episcopate at the Reformation
  • Apostolic succession; Apostolicae Curae 1896
View the Source
3. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes
John Meyendorff, Fordham University Press, 1979View the Source
4. Institutes of the Christian Religion
John Calvin, 1559IV.iiiView the Source
5. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
6. The Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Joseph Smith and his successors, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1835The Doctrine and Covenants, sections 13 and 27View the Source
Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity
Otto F. A. Meinardus, American University in Cairo Press, 1999Meinardus, Two Thousand Years of Coptic Christianity, on the See of Saint MarkView the Source
An Apology for the True Christian Divinity
Robert Barclay, Harvey and Darton, 1676An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, Proposition XView the Source
The Eastern Christian Churches: A Brief Survey
Ronald G. Roberson, Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1999Roberson, The Eastern Christian Churches, on the Union of Brest and Ukrainian Greek Catholic ordersView the Source
The Indian Christians of St. Thomas: An Account of the Ancient Syrian Church of Malabar
Leslie Brown, Cambridge University Press, 1956on the episcopal hierarchy of the Malabar church and its East Syriac provenance
The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times
Richard G. Hovannisian (ed.), St. Martin's Press, 1997Hovannisian (ed.), The Armenian People, on the Armenian Apostolic founding traditionView the Source
The Orthodox Church
Timothy Ware (Kallistos Ware), Penguin Books, 1993View the Source
The Schleitheim Confession
Michael Sattler (attributed), 1527
The Preamble and Declaration of the Church of Ireland
The General Convention of the Church of Ireland, 1870the holders' own account
Baptist Confessions of Faith
William L. Lumpkin, Judson Press, 1959View the Source
The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral
The Lambeth Conference, 1888the holders' own account
Encyclopedia of American Religions
J. Gordon Melton, Gale, 2009View the Source
The Belgic Confession
Guido de Bres, 1561View the Source
Apostolic succession (Wikipedia)
Attributed To: Irenaeus, History section
Quote, Attributed To: Irenaeus, History section
Hegesippus (180?) and Irenaeus (180) introduce explicitly the idea of the bishop's succession in office as a guarantee of the truth of what he preached
View the Source

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