Tracking Holy Orders

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Something that came up in my mind as a wonder was the question of how far back a priest could trace his Holy Orders and if it’s possible for any to find out which apostle ordained the priest that ordained the priest…ect… that ordained him. And if not, how far back would any such kind of record go? Since I know the line of popes is recorded, but I’m not sure in regards to priests.
 
Slight nitpick: priests can’t ordain other priests, only bishops can ordain people. Your question remains the same, though. We don’t have records directly back to the Apostles. Most clergy today can trace their holy orders back a few centuries. They tend to bottleneck into one or two bishops who are the common “ordainer” of nearly every Catholic bishop today. But the records don’t go much farther back than those common apostolic predecessors.
 
For most Latin bishops, they trace their episcopal lineage to Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. The record from there is lost as we do not know who consecrated him.
 
mVitus said:
Something that came up in my mind as a wonder was the question of how far back a priest could trace his Holy Orders and if it’s possible for any to find out which apostle ordained the priest that ordained the priest…ect… that ordained him. And if not, how far back would any such kind of record go? Since I know the line of popes is recorded, but I’m not sure in regards to priests.
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Each of us has access to our genealogy of Order. I received mine from my bishop.

The list goes back to the 16th century.
 
porthos11 said:
For most Latin bishops, they trace their episcopal lineage to Cardinal Scipione Rebiba. The record from there is lost as we do not know who consecrated him.
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It is commonly believed that Rebiba was ordained bishop by Gian Pietro Cardinal Carafa, who became Pope Paul IV
 
Don_Ruggero said:
Each of us has access to our genealogy of Order. I received mine from my bishop.

The list goes back to the 16th century.
Click to expand...
That’s pretty awesome. Thank you for sharing that.
And is the reason information isn’t from further back due to records being lost or did they not record it until a certain time?
 
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