Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is considered by some Christian denominations to be derived from the 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.
A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of dioceses. The role or office of the bishop is called episcopacy. Organizationally, several Christian denominations utilize ecclesiastical structures that call for the position of bishops, while other denominations have dispensed with this office, seeing it as a symbol of power. Bishops have also exercised political authority within their dioceses.
An episcopal polity is a hierarchical form of church governance in which the chief local authorities are called bishops. The word "bishop" here is derived via the British Latin and Vulgar Latin term *ebiscopus/*biscopus, from the Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος epískopos meaning "overseer". It is the structure used by many of the major Christian Churches and denominations, such as the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Anabaptist, Lutheran, and Anglican churches or denominations, and other churches founded independently from these lineages. Many Methodist denominations have a form of episcopal polity known as connexionalism.
In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders include the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, Assyrian, Old Catholic, Independent Catholic and some Lutheran churches. Except for Lutherans and some Anglicans, these churches regard ordination as a sacrament.
In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.
A pastor is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, pastors are always ordained. In Methodism, pastors may be either licensed or ordained.
The Church of God in Christ (COGIC) is an international Holiness–Pentecostal Christian denomination, and a large Pentecostal denomination in the United States. Although an international and multi-ethnic religious organization, it has a predominantly African-American membership based within the United States. The international headquarters is in Memphis, Tennessee. The current Presiding Bishop is Bishop John Drew Sheard Sr., who is the Senior Pastor of the Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ of Detroit, Michigan. He was elected as the denomination's leader on March 27, 2021. On November 12, 2024, Bishop Sheard was re-elected by acclamation to serve another four-year term as the presiding bishop and chief apostle of the denomination.
Restorationism, also known as Restitutionism or Christian primitivism, is a religious perspective according to which the early beliefs and practices of the followers of Jesus were either lost or adulterated after his death and required a "restoration". It is a view that often "seeks to correct faults or deficiencies, in other branches of Christianity, by appealing to the primitive church as normative model".
The Church of God is a holiness Pentecostal body that descends from the Christian Union movement of Richard Spurling, A. J. Tomlinson and others. They consider themselves officially The Church of God, but also designate themselves as The Church of God (1957 Reformation) and The Church of God (Jerusalem Acres), which is the name of their headquarters.
The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith (COOLJC)is a Oneness Pentecostal denomination with headquarters in Manhattan. It was founded in 1919 by Robert C. Lawson. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives in 2020, the denomination had 85,938 members in 527 churches.
Mother church or matrice is a term depicting the Christian Church as a mother in her functions of nourishing and protecting the believer. It may also refer to the primary church of a Christian denomination or (arch)diocese, i.e. a cathedral church. For a particular individual, one's mother church is the church in which one received the sacrament of baptism. The term has specific meanings within different Christian traditions. Catholics refer to the Catholic Church as "Holy Mother Church".
The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of Protestant denominations in South India that occurred after the independence of India.
A presiding bishop is an ecclesiastical position in some denominations of Christianity.
The Apostolic Church is an international Christian denomination and Pentecostal movement that emerged from the Welsh Revival of 1904–1905. Although the movement began in the United Kingdom, the largest national Apostolic Church became the Apostolic Church Nigeria. The term "Apostolic" refers to the role of apostles in the denomination's church government, as well as a desire to emulate 1st century Christianity in its faith, practices, and government.
The primacy of Peter, also known as Petrine primacy, is the position of preeminence that is attributed to Peter among the Twelve Apostles.
The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms priest refers only to presbyters and pastors. The church's doctrine also sometimes refers to all baptised (lay) members as the "common priesthood", which can be confused with the ministerial priesthood of the consecrated clergy.
Jesse Delano Ellis, II, commonly known as J. Delano Ellis, was an American Protestant religious leader and progenitor of unity among African American Pentecostals with Trinitarian and nontrinitarian affinities.
Robert Clarence Lawson was an early-20th-century American clergyman, best known for founding the Refuge Church of Christ, a predecessor of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Steven Allen Breedlove is an American prelate of the Anglican Church in North America. He was elected as the first Presider Bishop of PEARUSA, a missionary district that was formerly part of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, in 2012. From 2016 to 2024, Breedlove was the first diocesan bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Christ Our Hope.
In Christianity, the laying on of hands is both a symbolic and formal method of invoking the Holy Spirit primarily during baptisms and confirmations, healing services, blessings, and ordination of priests, ministers, elders, deacons, and other church officers, along with a variety of other church sacraments and holy ceremonies.
