Do any Protestant communities have valid Apostolic Succession?

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This is the continuation of a side-topic from another thread. I think it deserves it’s own thread…
 
benjohnson said:
We reject denominationalism, and make a positive claim to be a valid continuation of the western church.

We see it this way: that your church split from us when it decided to maintain some practices rather than stop them. As I understand it, the Eastern Orthodox don’t think of themselves as being the ones that separated.

That said, that we are close to you should be celebrated - frankly the talk of separation should be put on the back-burner in favor of understanding and reconciliation.
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No. Not a single Protestant group has valid Apostolic Succession.
 
rfournier103 said:
This is the continuation of a side-topic from another thread. I think it deserves it’s own thread…
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Am I mistaken in believing that the Catholic Church initially considered the Anglicans to have had valid Apostolic Succession until a certain point in which reforms were made to the Anglican Church?
 
I am only aware of the Church recognizing succession among the Orthodox, which are not Protestant. On each side it is recognized that what Christ has entrusted to his Church–profession of apostolic faith, participation in the same sacrament, above all the one priesthood celebrating the one sacrifice of Christ, the apostolic succession of bishops–cannot be considered the exclusive property of one of our Churches. (Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, 1993, #13)
cin.org/east/balamand.html
 
FabiusMaximus said:
Am I mistaken in believing that the Catholic Church initially considered the Anglicans to have had valid Apostolic Succession until a certain point in which reforms were made to the Anglican Church?
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It’s a complicated question. But in general, yes, though the specific point in time this was considered true is not made clear in the Bull. But it is certainly true of those individuals ordained with the Edwardine ordinal. After ++Parker was consecrated in 1559 is a common point to assert the Succession was generally broken

Anglicans have a different view of the subject (I don’t always say “of the matter”).

GKC
 
Technically, I don’t think the Catholic church has quite declared Lutheran apostolic sucuession as invalid. But… I have a good guess as what it would say given what has been said about Anglican apostolic sucuession.
 
Many of the protestant reformers left the Catholic church with valid priestly faculties but these died with them, because they had no Bishop to ordain a bishop or validate priest’s and deacons.

The Anglican Church did have (apostolic successors) bishops’ but these also died with their apostolic faculties, because King Henry the VIII changed the Ordination of bishops to obedience to his own royal crown instead of solely to ordaining his bishop’s to the King Jesus, which broke the apostolic succession in the Anglican Church.

There are some western Catholics that are in schism with the bishop of Rome, who maintain a valid priesthood and some valid bishops, but these are not yet fully separated from the valid priesthood and sacraments.
 
I am surprised by this question. Nearly all Protestant communities lack bishops. As Attwater’s “Catholic Dictionary” explains, apostolic succession refers to the unbroken succession of the powers Jesus gave Peter and the Apostles from them to the present Pope and bishops. If there are neither Pope nor bishops, there is no apostolic succession.
The Anglican/Episcopal Church however has “bishops.” After an investigation, in the 1890s the Pope declared that Anglicanism lacks valid orders–that is they have neither priests nor bishops.
The Orthodox and some other Eastern Churches do have valid bishops however–but these Churches are not Protestant.
 
What constitutes having an apostolic successor in the episcopacy and a valid priesthood summed up in Holy Orders. These hand down the apostolic teachings and sacred Traditions from the apostles unchanged. What is most important in possessing valid Holy orders is one who is able to present these apostolic teachings in Liturgy and administer the sacraments of Jesus Christ.

Protestants willfully separated themselves from the 2000 year old Catholic faith practice and chartered their own course of faith alone and scripture alone which developed into multiple splinter groups such as the Evangelicals who hold to the sola fide, sola scriptura protestantant doctrine, although expressed from a liturgy and some without a formal liturgy.

Those non-catholic christians (Evangelicals in particular) who express their faith without a liturgy see no need for bishops and a priesthood.There are even U.S tele-evangelist’s who call themselves bishop’s but are registered with their own community of believers and the city or state not the Church.

Although different Protestant denominational clergy have vestments and a liturgy, priestly garbs etc… the holy orders do not carry with them the validation of the sacrament handed down to us in the laying of hands from the apostles. The protestants willfully removed themselves from this apostolic succession and rejected the magesterium teachings.

It is not that the Catholic church who makes their (protestant) holy orders and sacraments invalid or calls them invalid. The reformers rejected them.

I think it was Knox who went to the Pope and pleaded with him to remove his priestly holy orders. The Pope was shocked and revealed that he is not God, and he being a man cannot separate what God has joined together. What the Church has in the divine authority given to her by our Lord Jesus to do, is remove the faculty of his priesthood so that Knox could not administer confession or confect the Eucharist, whatever Peter (bishop of Rome) binds and looses on earth, Jesus will bind and loose in heaven. But the Pope’s do not have the power to invalidate a valid sacrament.
 
None.

As I have shown on another thread, one of the most radical errors of Reformation theology was Luther’s denial of a distinct sacerdotal office or power and his corresponding claim that all believers are equally priests before God. This notion was incorporated into the Smalcald Articles and thus made Confessional doctrine.
 
Gabriel_of_12 said:
Many of the protestant reformers left the Catholic church with valid priestly faculties but these died with them, because they had no Bishop to ordain a bishop or validate priest’s and deacons.

The Anglican Church did have (apostolic successors) bishops’ but these also died with their apostolic faculties, because King Henry the VIII changed the Ordination of bishops to obedience to his own royal crown instead of solely to ordaining his bishop’s to the King Jesus, which broke the apostolic succession in the Anglican Church.

There are some western Catholics that are in schism with the bishop of Rome, who maintain a valid priesthood and some valid bishops, but these are not yet fully separated from the valid priesthood and sacraments.
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No, not Henry. That happened under Edward. Hence, the Edwardine Ordinal. And that wasn’t the change that caused the supposed problem. The change was to the form of consecration/ordination. Nothing to do with King or Jesus.

GKC
 
Gabriel_of_12 said:
Many of the protestant reformers left the Catholic church with valid priestly faculties but these died with them, because they had no Bishop to ordain a bishop or validate priest’s and deacons.

The Anglican Church did have (apostolic successors) bishops’ but these also died with their apostolic faculties, because King Henry the VIII changed the Ordination of bishops to obedience to his own royal crown instead of solely to ordaining his bishop’s to the King Jesus, which broke the apostolic succession in the Anglican Church.

There are some western Catholics that are in schism with the bishop of Rome, who maintain a valid priesthood and some valid bishops, but these are not yet fully separated from the valid priesthood and sacraments.
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Henry VIII didn’t make any changes to the Ordinal. That was done during the short reign of his son Edward. Leo’s bull was concerned with the Ordinal in use between 1550 and 1662, by which time he declared apostolic succession had been lost.
 
mdgspencer said:
I am surprised by this question. Nearly all Protestant communities lack bishops. As Attwater’s “Catholic Dictionary” explains, apostolic succession refers to the unbroken succession of the powers Jesus gave Peter and the Apostles from them to the present Pope and bishops. If there are neither Pope nor bishops, there is no apostolic succession.
The Anglican/Episcopal Church however has “bishops.” After an investigation, in the 1890s the Pope declared that Anglicanism lacks valid orders–that is they have neither priests nor bishops.
The Orthodox and some other Eastern Churches do have valid bishops however–but these Churches are not Protestant.
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That was Apostolicae Curae. Leo XIII’s signature over (mainly) Raphael Merry del Val’s words. A long and complicated topic.

GKC
 
liturgyluver said:
Henry VIII didn’t make any changes to the Ordinal. That was done during the short reign of his son Edward. Leo’s bull was concerned with the Ordinal in use between 1550 and 1662, by which time he declared apostolic succession had been lost.
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Yep.

GKC
 
mdgspencer said:
I am surprised by this question. Nearly all Protestant communities lack bishops. As Attwater’s “Catholic Dictionary” explains, apostolic succession refers to the unbroken succession of the powers Jesus gave Peter and the Apostles from them to the present Pope and bishops. If there are neither Pope nor bishops, there is no apostolic succession.
The Anglican/Episcopal Church however has “bishops.” After an investigation, in the 1890s the Pope declared that Anglicanism lacks valid orders–that is they have neither priests nor bishops.
The Orthodox and some other Eastern Churches do have valid bishops however–but these Churches are not Protestant.
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Apostolic Succession is not based on having a Pope, or not. The Orthodox have it, as you rightly say, but they do not recognise papal authority in the Roman Catholic sense.
 
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