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, Scandinavian Lutheran, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, Hussite, Moravian, and Old Catholic traditions maintain that "a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this 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.
The Society of Saint Pius X is a canonically irregular traditionalist Catholic priestly fraternity founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Lefebvre was a leading traditionalist at the Second Vatican Council with the Coetus Internationalis Patrum and Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers until 1968. The society was established as a pious union of the Catholic Church with the permission of François Charrière, the Bishop of Lausanne, Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland.
The Continuing Anglican movement, also known as the Anglican Continuum, encompasses a number of Christian churches, principally based in North America, that have an Anglican identity and tradition but are not part of the Anglican Communion.
Most Rev Dr Michael Patrick Cox, MA, OMD is an Irish independent bishop. From Mitchelstown, County Cork, he is a well-known member of the Independent Catholic movement in Ireland and is also known for ordaining the singer Sinéad O'Connor. He is the founder and bishop superior of the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Independent Catholicism is an independent sacramental movement of clergy and laity who self-identify as Catholic and form "micro-churches claiming apostolic succession and valid sacraments", in spite of not being affiliated to the historic Catholic church, the Roman Catholic church. The term "Independent Catholic" derives from the fact that "these denominations affirm both their belonging to the Catholic tradition as well as their independence from Rome".
Apostolicae curae is the title of an apostolic letter, issued in 1896 by Pope Leo XIII, declaring all Anglican ordinations to be "absolutely null and utterly void". The Anglican Communion made no official reply, but the archbishops of Canterbury and York of the Church of England published a response known by its Latin title Saepius officio in 1897.
The Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC), officially the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church (ICCEC), is a Christian denomination established in 1992. The ICCEC is a part of the Convergence Movement. Within North America, most of the Charismatic Episcopal Church's congregations and missions are located within the Northern, Southeastern, Midwest, and Western United States; it also has a presence in Texas, and in Western Canada.
Warren Prall Watters was the founding archbishop of the Free Church of Antioch, one of several Independent Catholic Churches in the United States.
The International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church is an international Christian communion established as an Autocephalous Patriarchate in 1992 with over 1,000 churches worldwide. The Communion has its apostolic succession within the historical episcopate through the Rebiban line via Roman Catholic Bishop Carlos Duarte Costa, who founded the Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church.
The Convergence Movement, also known as the Ancient-Future Faith, whose foundation is primarily attributed to Robert E. Webber in 1985, is an ecumenical movement. Developed as an effort among evangelical, charismatic and Pentecostal, and liturgical Christians and denominations blending their forms of worship, the movement has been defined for its predominant use of the Anglican tradition's Book of Common Prayer; use from additional liturgical sources common to Lutheranism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism have also been employed.
A consecrator is a bishop who ordains someone to the episcopacy. A co-consecrator is someone who assists the consecrator bishop in the act of ordaining a new bishop.
In the Catholic Church, a bishop is an ordained minister who holds the fullness of the sacrament of holy orders and is responsible for teaching doctrine, governing Catholics in his jurisdiction, sanctifying the world and representing the Church. Catholics trace the origins of the office of bishop to the apostles, who it is believed were endowed with a special charism and office by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Catholics believe this special charism and office has been transmitted through an unbroken succession of bishops by the laying on of hands in the sacrament of holy orders.
The timeline of Eastern Orthodoxy in North America represents a timeline of the historical development of religious communities, institutions and organizations of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in North America.
Austin Randolph (Papu) Adler was a bishop, primate, and patriarch of the International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church. He was consecrated on 26 June 1992, with Timothy Michael Barker of the International Free Catholic Communion—who was consecrated by Archbishop-Patriarch Herman Adrian Spruit of the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch, functioning as the principal consecrator. Adler served as the patriarch of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, primate of the United States Province, and Archbishop of San Clemente. He retired in October 2007 and died on December 9, 2016.
Hugh George de Willmott Newman was an Independent Catholic or independent Old Catholic bishop. He was known religiously as Mar Georgius I and bore the titles, among others, of Patriarch of Glastonbury, Catholicos of the West, and sixth British Patriarch. He was the head of the Catholicate of the West from when he became a bishop, in 1944, until his death in 1979.
The canonical situation of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), a group founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, is unresolved. The Society of Saint Pius X has been the subject of much controversy since 1988, when Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta were illicitly consecrated as bishops at Ecône, at the International Seminary of Saint Pius X, in violation of canon law. Lefebvre and the four other SSPX bishops individually incurred a disciplinary latae sententiae excommunication for this schismatic act. The excommunications of the four living SSPX bishops were remitted in 2009.
Archbishop Doyé Teido Agama is a Christian leader within the Pentecostal Holiness and Convergence movements. He is the founder of Apostolic Pastoral Congress, a collegiate collective of Pentecostal bishops and pastors adhering to paleo-orthodoxy and was for many years the organisation’s President and its presiding prelate. He leads the Christian Way of Life group of churches. He has been a prominent figure in the Churches Together in England movement and is involved extensively in the African diaspora and black and multicultural affairs.
