The beauty of the unbroken link
Q: In an earlier column you said that the Anglican Church has not preserved apostolic succession. Can you explain exactly what this is and why the Anglicans have not preserved it?
In simple terms, apostolic succession is the continuation of the authority and mission of the apostles down the ages through their successors, the bishops.
When Jesus told the apostles, “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20), he was obviously promising to be with not only the apostles themselves but their successors down the ages.
That the successors of the apostles are the bishops has always been the teaching of the Church. The Second Vatican Council taught that “by divine institution the bishops have succeeded to the place of the apostles as shepherds of the Church” (Dogm. Const. Lumen gentium, 20).
As the apostles went about establishing the Church in different regions, they entrusted to other men the authority they had received from Christ, giving them the mission to teach, sanctify and rule, and they communicated this power sacramentally through the laying on of hands.
For example, St Paul exhorts Timothy to be faithful to the teaching he has received from Paul and to entrust it in turn to others: “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2).
Earlier in the same letter, Paul reminds Timothy that he has received his authority through the laying on of hands: “I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands” (2 Tim 1:6).
In 189 AD St Irenaeus invokes apostolic succession as the guarantee of truth in the Church:
“It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times…” (Adv. haer. 3, 3, 1).
Where do we find apostolic succession today? In the first place, we find it in the bishops of the Catholic Church, who can trace their episcopal ordination back in an unbroken line to the apostles.
We also find it in the bishops of the non-Catholic Eastern Churches, customarily known as the Orthodox. Even though they are not in communion with the Pope, they do have valid orders since they have a correct understanding of the sacrament of Orders and they too can trace their ordination back to the apostles.
Apostolic succession exists too in various groups that have separated from the Catholic Church in more recent times.
Among them are the Old Catholics, who separated from the Church in 1870 over the First Vatican Council’s declaration of papal infallibility.
Another more recent group is the Society of St Pius X, formed by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1969.
When the Archbishop ordained four bishops in 1988 without a mandate from the Holy See, all five were excommunicated and the Society is no longer in communion with the Church, although their bishops and priests are validly ordained (cf. J. Flader, Question Time, Connor Court 2008, p. 225).
As regards the Anglicans, Pope Leo XIII ruled in the Apostolic Letter Apostolicae Curae in 1896 that they do not have valid orders since the form of words used in their ordination is defective, as is the intention expressed in the words. He took into account that the Protestant errors had been incorporated into the rite of ordination at the time of King Edward VI.
Nonetheless, there are some Anglican bishops and priests today, especially among the Anglo-Catholics, who may have valid orders, since the bishops were ordained by Orthodox or Old Catholic bishops along with an Anglican bishop, all of whom had a proper understanding of Holy Orders and a correct intention.