Do any Protestant communities have valid Apostolic Succession?

[MaryT777]

I have named all of the Catholic creeds as well as the Lutheran/ Catholic accords. You can choice to ignore them if you want. Thankfully those in charge of both of our Communions prefer to deal with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Something you may want to ponder.

The accords themselves call Lutherans Lutheran.
The LUTHERAN Catholic accord.
It’s not the
Evangelical Catholic/Catholic accord
or
Catholic/Catholic accord.

 

[PRmerger]

The accords themselves call Lutherans Lutheran.
The LUTHERAN Catholic accord.
It’s not the
Evangelical Catholic/Catholic accord
or
Catholic/Catholic accord.

That made me laugh out loud! You are right. If what EC is saying is correct, the dialogue would be titled as you cite it here.

 

[Peter_J]

Bouyer is the Lutheran, the author of the book Brumley writes about.

OIC, you mean he started out Lutheran. (He was Roman Catholic from 1939 until his death in 2004.)

 

[Peter_J]

The accords themselves call Lutherans Lutheran.

They do call Lutherans Lutheran, but only the Lutheran Lutherans.

 

[Peter_J]

As I said, I have no negative emotion attached to your wanting to call yourself Catholic.

Yes, I gathered that from your posts on the subject. :coolinoff:

 

[PRmerger]

Yes, I gathered that from your posts on the subject. :coolinoff:

That’s what I’m saying.

I repeat: It’s no skin off my nose if Christians want to call themselves Catholic. It gives testimony to the fact that people want to be a part of the Real Deal.

I take issue with someone claiming that there is some sort of “agreement” that Lutherans can be called Catholics by the CC.

There is not. That appears to be an illusory agreement.

That’s all.

Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[aidanbradypop]

So I spoke with a Canon Lawyer today for my Diocese and the Catholic Church, SSPX, Orthodox Churches and a few in the Utrecht union (depends on the Bishop) are the only oneswith a valid priesthood and valid Apostolic Succession. Sorry EC, Rome does not see any Lutherans to have a valid priesthood and Apostolic Succession.

 

[pablope]

OIC, you mean he started out Lutheran. (He was Roman Catholic from 1939 until his death in 2004.)

When you said 1939, I thought it was a mistake. That early in his life? I thought he converted much much later like the 50s or so, but it looks like you are close…in 1944.

He wrote the The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism in (1956)

 

[Peter_J]

When you said 1939, I thought it was a mistake. That early in his life? I thought he converted much much later like the 50s or so, but it looks like you are close…in 1944.

Could be, I was just going by en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Bouyer

 

[MaryT777]

So I spoke with a Canon Lawyer today for my Diocese and the Catholic Church, SSPX, Orthodox Churches and a few in the Utrecht union (depends on the Bishop) are the only oneswith a valid priesthood and valid Apostolic Succession. Sorry EC, Rome does not see any Lutherans to have a valid priesthood and Apostolic Succession.

 

[MaryT777]

So I spoke with a Canon Lawyer today for my Diocese and the Catholic Church, SSPX, Orthodox Churches and a few in the Utrecht union (depends on the Bishop) are the only oneswith a valid priesthood and valid Apostolic Succession. Sorry EC, Rome does not see any Lutherans to have a valid priesthood and Apostolic Succession.

Thanks for clarifying what seemed to be misunderstood by some.
Mary.

 

[aidanbradypop]

Thanks for clarifying what seemed to be misunderstood by some.
Mary.

I believe I left out the PNCC as well. They have valid Sacraments and Apostolic Succession. Just a bit out of step with the Chair of St. Peter.

 

[benjohnson]

Sorry EC, Rome does not see any Lutherans to have a valid priesthood and Apostolic Succession.

That seems logical from the Catholic viewpoint. Even this Lutheran would have to remark that even if our European Lutheran friends did maintain an apostolic succession of priests that if I did think that it was important that I’d probably seek shelter in the Orthodox, Catholic or high-chrch Anglicans before thinking that European Lutheran Apostolic Succession was a balm.

Granted, there are European Lutherans that have turned their back on the governments that have sought to secularize them - God bless them.

Of course, us old-tyme stick-in-the-mud Lutherans don’t subscribe to the notion that “who touched who” is important, but then again, the world has probably grown to expect such indifference to legalism from us.

 

[MaryT777]

That seems logical from the Catholic viewpoint. Even this Lutheran would have to remark that even if our European Lutheran friends did maintain an apostolic succession of priests that if I did think that it was important that I’d probably seek shelter in the Orthodox, Catholic or high-chrch Anglicans before thinking that European Lutheran Apostolic Succession was a balm.

Granted, there are European Lutherans that have turned their back on the governments that have sought to secularize them - God bless them.

Of course, us old-tyme stick-in-the-mud Lutherans don’t subscribe to the notion that “who touched who” is important, but then again, the world has probably grown to expect such indifference to legalism from us.

Am I to take it then you, as a LCMS Lutheran don’t find it important then?
That’s what I understood from the LCMS. I stand corrected if I’m wrong,

It did seem very important to a Lutheran here but I believe that Lutheran may have
been ELCA.
Mary.

 

[steido01]

So I spoke with a Canon Lawyer today for my Diocese and the Catholic Church, SSPX, Orthodox Churches and a few in the Utrecht union (depends on the Bishop) are the only oneswith a valid priesthood and valid Apostolic Succession. Sorry EC, Rome does not see any Lutherans to have a valid priesthood and Apostolic Succession.

I do not doubt you. In fact, I had kind of assumed that the RCC did not acknowledge any of the consecrations made by Lutheran bishops during/after the Reformation to be valid continuations of AS… but has the RCC ever specifically stated that their lines are no longer valid, or was it all assumed to be so after Trent, etc.? I’ve been consulting Google for whatever document that might address the issue, but no avail!

Nit-picking, I know, but I’m just curious. If the Lutheran lines were never officially considered broken, it could ease a potential point of conflict should reunion ever happen. Maybe I’ll contact the local cannon experts…

 

[JonNC]

Am I to take it then you, as a LCMS Lutheran don’t find it important then?
That’s what I understood from the LCMS. I stand corrected if I’m wrong,

It did seem very important to a Lutheran here but I believe that Lutheran may have
been ELCA.
Mary.

Is AS important? From the Apology of the Augsburg Confession:

Article XIV: Of Ecclesiastical Order.

24] The Fourteenth Article, in which we say that in the Church the administration of the Sacraments and Word ought to be allowed no one unless he be rightly called, they receive, but with the proviso that we employ canonical ordination. Concerning this subject we have frequently testified in this assembly that it is our greatest wish to maintain church-polity and the grades in the Church [old church-regulations and the government of bishops], even though they have been made by human authority [provided the bishops allow our doctrine and receive our priests]. For we know that church discipline was instituted by the Fathers, in the manner laid down in the ancient canons, with a good and useful intention.

Now, maybe “our greatest wish” was hyperbole, but there it is, in the confessions. For Lutherans to maintain that AS isn’t important, or is useless, or even dangerous, is contrary to the confessions!!

Jon

 

[pablope]

That seems logical from the Catholic viewpoint. Even this Lutheran would have to remark that even if our European Lutheran friends did maintain an apostolic succession of priests that if I did think that it was important that I’d probably seek shelter in the Orthodox, Catholic or high-chrch Anglicans before thinking that European Lutheran Apostolic Succession was a balm.

Granted, there are European Lutherans that have turned their back on the governments that have sought to secularize them - God bless them.

Of course, us old-tyme stick-in-the-mud Lutherans don’t subscribe to the notion that “who touched who” is important, but then again, the world has probably grown to expect such indifference to legalism from us

It was important enough in the early church…and was one of the argument of Ireneus against the gnostics.

If it is not important for you…then it seems Lutherans are forging their own tradition by disregarding the importance of Apostolic succession?

This seems like picking and choosing what you like about early church tradition?

 

[aidanbradypop]

I do not doubt you. In fact, I had kind of assumed that the RCC did not acknowledge any of the consecrations made by Lutheran bishops during/after the Reformation to be valid continuations of AS… but has the RCC ever specifically stated that their lines are no longer valid, or was it all assumed to be so after Trent, etc.? I’ve been consulting Google for whatever document that might address the issue, but no avail!

Nit-picking, I know, but I’m just curious. If the Lutheran lines were never officially considered broken, it could ease a potential point of conflict should reunion ever happen. Maybe I’ll contact the local cannon experts…

I cannot produce a document on the issue. I am just going by what I thought and what the lawyer stated. The Church does not have to deny something that is a given. In order for it to be valid, the Church must say as much and nothing has ever been said.

If anyone knows of a document on the issue then please share.

 

[Peter_J]

I believe I left out the PNCC as well. They have valid Sacraments and Apostolic Succession.

Just a bit out of step with the Chair of St. Peter.

Actually, the PNCC has very good relations with the RCC (also with the Orthodox, although that’s off-topic). So much so that a member of PNCC can receive communion in an RC parish.

 

[benjohnson]

Is AS important? From the Apology of the Augsburg Confession:

Now, maybe “our greatest wish” was hyperbole, but there it is, in the confessions. For Lutherans to maintain that AS isn’t important, or is useless, or even dangerous, is contrary to the confessions!!

Jon

You’re quite right - my indifference to AS is due to my sojourn in the ELCA where to me the laying of hands during ordinations from various church bodies seems to be done for show and not as a return to something longly desired that would lead to a fuller gospel.

If we are to be blessed with AS of polity again, I would be that it done in unity, and not as a furtive gathering seemingly motivated out of a need for legitimacy.

Herman Sasse says it best for me:

“Yet where one knows, however, what the church is, of which the New Testament speaks, the church that is the people of God, the Body of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, one knows that faith in the holy, catholic, apostolic Church is not faith in a concept, that is, an ideal to be actualized, or not to be actualized. For the one Church of God, to read according to the Lutheran Confessions, is not a Platonic city, but rather a reality in this world that will be believed and that can only be believed by one that believes in God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Faith in the Church is part and parcel of faith in the Triune God, who gives us testimony about Himself in Holy Scripture. The article about the Church therefore belongs in the Creed as a true article of comfort . . . It is therefore that we Christians need this article. To that end we pray it daily in the Creed, ne desperemus, “that we should not despair,” as the Latin text of the Apology says [VII/VIII.9]. For indeed, without this article we would otherwise despair and whoever does not understand this article, he must despair when he views the condition of Christianity and inquires about the one Church of God.”