A few years back, an independent church’s web site once had a picture of its founder in a group photo with Pope Paul VI. The text on the site claimed that the pope conferred valid apostolic succession on the preacher, giving the independent protestant the right to call himself a bishop. Another in my area claimed to be an archbishop because someone in South America gave him the right.
I have sometimes wondered if the men really believed that. I believe people make these claims hoping to gain credibility. The reverse is true with me, but it does seem to work.
In a city near me there is a small group of people who run an Orthodox bookstore. There are a few families. One or two of them claims to be an Orthodox priest and wears priestly attire around town. They claim affiliation with an Orthodox bishop somehere in another country. I don’t know if they are legit. I have some suspicions that they are not, but it is none of my business. In another city nearby a man also claims to be an Orthodox priest. I have known him for many years, long before he took on his priestly role. His wife works to support him and they built a chapel. As far as I know he has never been to seminary and there are no Russian Orthodox bishops within a thousand miles. He claims to be legit. Who knows? Another small group also claiming to be Russian Orthodox also moved into town. They dispute one another’s legitimacy. Neither one of them has much of a membership, a small handful at most, or a real church. One holds services in a rented old hall. The other has a tiny chapel that is not allowed to have public meetings due to zoning regulations. Both claim to be the true Russian Orthodox presence in town and can’t stand one another.
The point is that there are all kinds of people making claims that they have holy orders or even that they are bishops, including women, with apostolic links. I don’t know which Orthodox priests and bishops are the real deal. Some definitely are and some are not. That is a question for the Orthodox and within Orthodoxy there is some dispute over recognizing one another’s claims.
I have read in the past that some Anglicans in order to bolster their claims of Apostolic Succession went to Orthodox bishops and they confered Orders on the Anglicans. Whether or not this is true I don’t know. If it is, whether or not those Orthodox bishops are real I don’t know.
What it says about the Anglicans who attempted this however, is interesting. Rome says Anglican Orders are invalid. The Anglicans insist they are not pretending and on calling themselves Catholic. Real Catholics see them as Catholic wannabes. But they must have had some doubts about their own claims of Apostolic Succession if they felt the need to go find a real bishop somewhere to connect them to the Church.
Now their leadership has women bishops, openly homosexual priests and a bishop, lesbian priests, and men marrying men. An Anglican contingent that is bright enough to realize this is insane and finally woke up to what happens to branches cut off from the vine wants to rejoin Rome. What a fine mess. On the bright side, the sheep are separated from the goats and the sheep are coming home.
But what about Anglican claims of valid orders? Rome says the Church has no power to ordain women. That can not happen. Anglican top leadership says the pope is wrong. Logic says both can’t be correct. If the pope is right, clearly Anglicans have no Orders. Are their attempts to ordain valid for men and not women, if the pope is right? Or, are they all invalid. The Anglican priests coming home are ordained by proper authorities. In accepting this they concede that the validity of their Anglican Orders is squishy, shakey, suspect, just as the ones who went to Orthodox bishops for ordination did years ago. When they claim succession by pointing to those ordinations they are abandoning their claims that Anglican bishops can validly ordain. This is not a belt and suspenders cover your bases just in case you need a backup issue.
