BROKEN CHAINS OR UNBROKEN COVENANT? APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION IN THE WESTERN DEBATE

The Contrasting Canonical and Historical Positions of English and Roman Apostolic Succession

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

INTRODUCTION

In debates over ecclesiastical authority and apostolic legitimacy, few topics inspire such passionate argument as the question of Apostolic Succession. Roman Catholic apologists have often denied the validity of English orders on the grounds that the chain of succession was broken, either by defect in form or intent during Reformation-era ordinations (before Women’s Ordination and liberal heresy did, indeed, invalidate Anglican orders). Yet irony abounds: nearly all modern Latin-Rite Roman Catholic Bishops trace their succession to a single 16th-century prelate whose own consecrator is unknown - Cardinal Scipione Rebiba.

This little-known fact complicates the absolutist claims often made about Roman continuity. It also lays bare the methodological inconsistency that frequently plagues Roman critiques of English orders. If uncertainty about episcopal lineage renders one’s succession suspect, what does it mean when a major global episcopate derives from a man whose own consecrator is lost to history?

THE UNUSUAL CASE OF CARDINAL REBIBA

Scipione Rebiba (AD 1504–1577) was a respected Italian prelate who became bishop in AD 1541. Yet no reliable record survives identifying the bishop who consecrated him. This might have remained a minor footnote in ecclesiastical history - except that Rebiba’s line was later propagated exponentially by Pope Benedict XIII, who personally consecrated 139 bishops in the 1720s. These bishops, in turn, consecrated others. The result: the overwhelming majority of Latin Rite bishops today - including modern popes - descend in their episcopal lineage from Rebiba.

This means that a vast segment of modern Roman Catholic succession rests upon a historically anonymous act. No documentation exists to prove who laid hands upon Rebiba. Traditional Catholic critics - especially among Sedevacantists and Old Catholic lines - have long used this fact to argue that Roman claims of ironclad succession are overstated. If this kind of lacuna disqualifies English orders, why does it not also challenge Roman ones?

THE SEVERE CASE AGAINST ENGLISH ORDERS

The English succession, by contrast, has been attacked by Rome since Pope Leo XIII’s 1896 bull “Apostolicae Curae”, which declared English orders “absolutely null and utterly void.” The arguments centered on two main points: the alleged defect in the AD 1552 Ordinal (the liturgical form used to ordain bishops and priests) and the supposed absence of proper sacramental intent. 

The English reply - articulated most powerfully in “Saepius Officio” (AD 1897) by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York - pointed out that the Roman argument relied not on historical failure of succession, but on a judgment of the rite’s theological adequacy. Yet the Edwardian consecrations were carried out by validly consecrated bishops (e.g., Archbishop Matthew Parker in AD 1559, consecrated by Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodgkins), using laying on of hands and prayer. Many Eastern Orthodox theologians acknowledged the technical validity of English orders based on form and succession in the 1920’s and 30’s, even if they have recently decided to settle on canonical fundamentalism that denies anything outside of their own synods as being blessed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. This now-popular position is based upon an idiosyncratic and anachronistic interpretation of a single Father - St. Cyprian of Carthage - and a strong cultural hardening of an anti-Ecumenical stance. 

The English argument thus turns the critique back upon Rome: If validity rests not on historical knowledge of every consecrator but on the use of appropriate form, matter, and intent, then English orders cannot be declared null simply for lacking a Latin template. Likewise, if Rome can accept Rebiba’s unknown consecrator by presumption, it must also consider whether its standards can justly be applied to others. This inconsistency and bias reveals more about the broken human psychology of Churches that refuse to repent and acknowledge their validity streams from faith in Christ, the impartation of the Holy Spirit in baptism, and the laying on of hands for the setting apart to the work of the Church. 

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES AND OBVIOUS DOUBLE STANDARDS

This debate reveals a deeper issue - the inconsistency of applying strict standards to one ecclesial body while exempting another from the same scrutiny. Roman arguments often claim unbroken succession from Peter, yet rely on assumptions, silences, and extrapolations no less than those they criticize. When pressed, Roman theologians appeal to the “principle of ecclesial presumption,” meaning that unless positive evidence of invalidity exists, the Church assumes the sacrament was valid. This is a reasonable principle - but one that must be consistently applied throughout all Apostolic and Orthodox Churches. 

It is also worth noting that even in the early Church, records of episcopal lineage were not always meticulously preserved. While St. Irenaeus was able to recount the succession of bishops in Rome up to his own time (Against Heresies 3.3.3), comparable records have not survived for many other Apostolic Sees. The discontinuities and inconsistencies among these lists present significant historical problems that modern scholarship has not resolved. Apostolicity, as understood by the Fathers, was not merely mechanical or genealogical; it was also doctrinal and spiritual. As St. Cyprian of Carthage declared, “He cannot have God for his Father who does not have the Church for his mother” (De Unitate Ecclesiae, 6). However, St. Cyprian also held that sacraments administered outside the visible unity of the Church - whether by heretics or schismatics - were null, a position he maintained even in opposition to St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, and the Synod of Papa bar Aggai in Seleucia-Ctesiphon (AD 410), which affirmed that the efficacy of sacraments does not depend on the moral or doctrinal purity of the minister alone. This demonstrates that Cyprian’s rigorist position was far stricter than that of most Church Fathers and is not consistently followed by any modern communion. Therefore, triumphalist Eastern Orthodox should not presume too quickly upon their supposed fidelity to St. Cyprian, especially in light of the Turkish Captivity, during which canonical order disintegrated and simony - explicitly condemned as invalidating by the canons - became the norm and corrupted all of the Patriarchates through the impositions of Constantinople. If canonical irregularity were a disqualifying measure, the validity of much of the Eastern episcopate itself would be in jeopardy. History makes clear that no Church rests upon an unbroken foundation of absolute canonical fidelity; rather, the Church endures by the mercy of God and the living presence of the Holy Spirit.

POLITICAL FACTORS AND ECCLESIASTICAL CLAIMS

The Roman rejection of English orders must also be seen in political light. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Reformation shattered Western Christendom’s unity. The English Church’s independence from Roman papal jurisdiction was as much political as theological. Rome’s declaration of invalidity helped solidify the claim that it remained the one true Church, while undermining the ecclesiastical legitimacy of its rivals. Yet this posture has changed over time: today, in ecumenical dialogues, Roman bishops often speak of Anglicanism as a “sister church” with whom “real though imperfect communion” is shared. Pope Francis recommended attendance in Anglican Churches if a Roman Catholic Church was unavailable. Such would have been considered unthinkable and heretical just a generation ago, and still challenges triumphalists today.

And it is precisely in this ecumenical and historical context that the Rebiba case becomes significant. If Rome is willing to accept a “practical” approach to succession where exact details are lost, it should reexamine its own judgments of other Christian traditions. As G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “A man must be orthodox upon most things, or he will never even have the chance to be orthodox upon anything.” Truth demands consistency. The logic that exonerates Rome must not simultaneously damn the English, Greek, Armenian or Indian Successions. 

TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF FAITHFUL CONTINUITY

What should we say about apostolic succession? It is surely a gift and a calling - a visible continuity of the Church with Christ’s apostles. But it is not a magical mechanism nor a political trophy. It is a sacramental sign of a deeper covenant: the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3), entrusted to faithful men (2 Timothy 2:2), and preserved in both flesh and doctrine. Its preservation lies not merely in unbroken hands, but in unbroken hearts. This idea is called “Dynamic Tension” and succeeds in preserving both inward and outward integrity. The laying on of hands must be present, in conformity to Scripture and Tradition, but it is not the only thing needful. 

As the Church navigates an age of uncertainty, faithful Christians would do well to remember the counsel of St. Augustine: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” Let us seek truth together, and judge with righteous judgment (John 7:24), not with the weight of inherited triumphalism but with the humility of those who know the weakness of all human record and the strength of divine grace. We must strive, in every way, to submit to the wisdom and rule of the Ancient Church. 

THE POSITION OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH OF THE WEST IN REGARD TO THIS DEBATE

The Ancient Church of the West, standing in the historic English Patrimony, affirms with full confidence the apostolic, valid, and efficacious nature of her orders and sacraments. Our succession flows unbroken through the historic episcopate of the Ancient Church in England, duly preserved and fortified by the canonical reception and regularization of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, confirmed by conditional consecrations from bishops of the Orthodox East, wiping away any of the Roman Church’s historical cautions or dismissals of our orders and sacraments. This sacred continuity, maintained in both form and faith, East and West, places our ministry and sacraments firmly within the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We are not shaken by the polemics against the Western Church by Roman or Byzantine partisans who would deny the catholicity or orthodoxy of any Church outside their own communion. Such dismissals, born of juridical triumphalism, pharisaical fundamentalism, historical anachronism and selective amnesia, cannot erase the manifest grace and fidelity with which Christ continues to guide His flock among us and the British Church in the English-speaking West from the beginning. The life of the Church is not proven by bureaucracy or historical dominance, wealth, power or centralization, but by the living flame of the Holy Spirit, present where the Word is rightly preached, the Sacraments faithfully administered, and the Apostolic faith confessed without compromise.

COLLECT FOR THE PURITY AND PERSEVERANCE OF THE CHURCH

O Almighty and Everlasting God, who didst send Thy holy Apostles to preach the Gospel and to ordain Bishops in every land, preserve, we beseech Thee, the unbroken witness of Thy Church in purity of doctrine and in the laying on of holy hands; grant us grace both to hold fast the form of sound words, and to walk humbly in the communion of Saints. 

Keep us from pride in our heritage, and from fear in our weakness; that whether by many or by few, Thy truth may be magnified, Thy Name glorified, and Thy Kingdom extended, until the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. 

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.