Peter was Bishop of Rome and the first Pope. Do you somehow deny that he held the office of Bishop at the same time as he held that of Apostle?
Of course I do. The earliest lists of the Bishops of Rome did not include Peter.
Who would you say then is the first Bishop of Byzantium? Are you Eastern Orthodox? Which autocephalous Church are you a member of?
Tradition says that St Andrew founded the See although I have no idea if that is true or not. I am Orthodox and I am a member of the OCA.
How could Andrew, an Apostle, found a see if he did not have episcopal authority? That’s ridiculous. Ditto for Peter at Rome, and Thomas in India… it seems you espouse a “hermeneutic of rupture” whereby the Apostles were special unique animals and did not need to receive authority from Christ to ordain successors.
That doesn’t make any sense. The Apostles were unique. Their authority was more than that of a bishop. Of course they had the authority to ordain bishops, I never said they didn’t. Christ choose His Apostles who ordained bishops. Every bishop since then has been ordained by the laying of hands in a direct line from those first bishops. No break.
Of course they were more than bishops. They were taught by Christ Himself. They witnessed everything. There is no question they had authority bishops don’t have. Could the Archbishop of Boston as an example single handedly ordain any man he chooses as a new bishop of Medford? An Apostles certainly could have done that if he choose to.
No a priest is not a deacon.
Yes he is, actually. I don’t know about the Orthodox theology on this but in Catholic teaching (and this is a Catholic website and Catholic forum, so please place aside your dissent) a priest shares the ontological mark on his soul of diaconal ordination because he underwent it first before he became a priest. A priest can vest liturgically as a deacon and discharge that role at Mass. A bishop, likewise, is both priest and deacon, and in fact a Latin Catholic bishop vesting for Mass wears a pontifical dalmatic as a reminder of this, and a chasuble which is proper to the priest, in addition to his pontificalia.
But a priest is not a deacon, a bishop is not a priest, an Apostle is not a bishop. A deacon or priest cannot ordain. They do not have the same authority a bishop does. A bishop cannot unilaterally consecrate a bishop. An Apostle can.
Where does it say that Jesus laid hands on the Apostles at the Last Supper?
I find it interesting that St Clement, bishop of Rome sent a letter to the Corinthians to settle a dispute when during this time St John the apostle was still alive. St John lived in the Island of Patmos which is a lot closer to Corinth than Rome was, yet the bishop of Rome intervened rather than the apostle John to settle a dispute…
It is your understanding that has you going in circles…because a priest is a deacon, a bishop is a priest, and as has been shown, the Apostles were bishops…But a priest is not a deacon, a bishop is not a priest, an Apostle is not a bishop. A deacon or priest cannot ordain. They do not have the same authority a bishop does. A bishop cannot unilaterally consecrate a bishop. An Apostle can.
Either way we’re just going in circles. You have a nice day.
The facts speak for themselves.
I believe it was when Paul had his personal conversion experience
Then why do the earliest lists of popes not include St Peter?
Well wait a minute now. How about Matthias? I argued in another post that neither Matthias nor Judas were true apostles. Matthias was not chosen by Jesus nor was he sent by Jesus. Matthias was consecrated a bishop by the eleven apostles. Judas was chosen by Jesus but he was never sent. He was not empowered to consecrate tjhe Eucharist nor was he empowered to forgive sin. In addition, he vacated his ‘office’ and Matthias was then elected to fill the "office’. See Acts 1. The word translated as ‘office’ is the Greek word episkope meaning overseer or bishop. So the apostles were bishops in that they held that office just as bishops do today. There is no office in the church of apostle; never was. The word means ‘one who is sent’. Today we use the word ‘missionary’ derived from the Latin.