Apostolic Succession in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches
I ran across an interesting website: https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/.
It is actually a database of all Roman Catholic bishops, past and present, with their histories. What is really fascinating is that their chain of consecrations are listed, their “family tree” of having hands laid on them by bishops. For Roman Catholics, this unbroken chain of apostolic succession of bishops is considered to be absolutely necessary in their theology for the confection of the sacraments. Or so it seems.
Here’s the problem: their records of consecrations don’t even go back as far as the Reformation.
I looked at the episcopal lineages of popes Francis, Benedict, and John Paul. Their consecrations find a common “ancestor” in Pope Clement XIII - who was consecrated in 1743. I looked up the local Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond. His “ancestry” also runs through pope Clement XIII. Ditto for his predecessor Alfred Hughes. And his predecessor Francis Schulte. And his predecessor Philip Hannan. As a random exercise, I plugged in the bishop of Owensboro, Kentucky: William Medley. Yes, him too.
Just for kicks, I looked up the bishop of Mombassa, Kenya (Martin Musonde). Yes, his lineage also runs through Clement XIII, and in fact, he shares a closer link with Abp. Aymond of New Orleans, going back to Pope Pius X (1884). They’re practically kissing cousins.
Here is what is interesting: Pope Clement XIII’s lineage (and thus, it seems, all modern Roman bishops) hits a dead end with Scipone Cardinal Rebiba, the titular Roman Catholic patriarch of Constantinople, who was consecrated as a bishop in 1541. But we have no idea who consecrated him. The line of records stops here. Thus, the oldest recorded history of episcopal lineage for modern Roman bishops is more recent than the Reformation!
Interestingly, there are also no lineages for the first several hundred years of popes. The second bishop of Rome, Linus (served 68-79 AD), has no known lineage. Neither does Gregory the Great (590-604). John XVII - pope in the year 1000 - has no known lineage. Pope Julius III - pope in 1500 - has only two known generations. Leo X (of Reformation fame) has a whopping four generations. That’s it.
So Rome, who ostensibly bases its entire validity on canonical episcopal consecration cannot even trace its own clergy back to the Reformation. Roman Catholics simply have to take it on faith that their bishops (and thus the priests they ordain) are legitimate.
Scandinavian Lutheran bishops - and their “descendants” in the Baltics, Russia, and Africa - are likewise consecrated in apostolic succession (though not recognized as such by Rome), as the custom of traditional polity (bishop, priest, and deacon) and episcopal ordination were retained by the Scandinavian Lutherans as salutary traditions in accordance with the desire to do as so stated in our Book of Concord (Ap 14:1).
German Lutheran pastors after the Reformation were not ordained by bishops - but rather by other pastors - in a kind of presbyterial succession - which has indeed happened in antiquity and in the middle ages. This is so because Lutheran pastors do not ordain themselves, nor are they ordained by the laity. Our confessions speak of the church ordaining pastors “using their own pastors for this purpose” (SA 3:10, Tr 72). Dr. Arthur Carl Piepkorn referred to this as a “de facto succession of ordained ministers,” and he points out that Jerome considered not only bishops, but presbyters as well, to be “successors of the apostles.”
Piepkorn cites several historical instances of presbyters ordaining other presbyters and deacons, including in second century Alexandria and Lyons, as well as the Council of Ancyra (314) that includes a canon (13) that speaks to presbyters carrying out ordinations. Piepkorn also points out that John Cassian (360-435) records the fact that the Egyptian presbyter-abbot Paphnutius ordained his succesor both as a deacon and as a priest, and also that while before their episcopal consecrations, Sts. Willehad and Liudger, in the eighth century, were carrying out ordinations. Piepkorn also cites historical records from the thirteenth and even the fifteenth centuries - including papal bulls - recognizing presbyterial ordinations as valid (see “The Minister of Ordination in the Primitive and Medieval Church,” page 80 of The Church: Selected Writings of Arthur Carl Piepkorn).
It seems that the Roman Catholic rejection of Lutheran orders based on our lack of canonically-consecrated bishops as ministers of ordination (as we find in the Papal Confutation in response to AC14) is not based on consistent theology and practice in the Roman Church.
Piepkorn participated in “Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue” - which yielded some surprising conclusions (see Volume IV on Eucharist and Ministry). One of the Roman participants (Fr. George Tavard) concluded that presbyterial successions are a matter of history, and said:
I would be prepared to go further, and to admit that episcopal succession is not absolutely required for valid ordination…. The main problem, in our ecumenical context, does not lie in evaluating historical lines of succession, but in appreciating the catholicity of Protestantism today.
Fellow participant Fr. Harry McSorley concluded, after a thorough study of the Council of Trent:
We can say without qualification that there is nothing whatever in the Tridentine doctrine on sacrament of order concerning the reality of the eucharist celebrated by Christians of the Reformation churches. Catholic theologians who have maintained that there is no sacrament of the body and blood of Christ in Protestant churches because Protestant ministers are radically incapable of consecrating the eucharist are incorrect if they think this opinion is necessitated by the teaching of Trent.
Of course, we Lutherans don’t really care whether or not the papal church recognizes our ordinations or our eucharists as valid (though they do as a matter of course recognize our baptisms). But when examined in light of both actual history and the history of their theology, their exclusive claims regarding apostolicity come unraveled, even by their own pronouncements.
And here is the final irony: while modern Roman Bishops cannot prove their line of consecrations even as far back as the Reformation, Lutheran bishops consecrated by means of the Swedish line, can indeed trace their lineages back further. This paper includes an appendix showing the succession of Swedish bishops back to its Roman Catholic “ancestor” who was consecrated in 1524. This means that confessional Lutheran bishops in various church bodies around the world have a greater claim to apostolic succession in the historical sense than even the Roman pope.
Here is the episcopal lineage of the Church of Sweden from the paper “Den apostoliska successionen i Svenska kyrkan. En studie av den apostoliska successionens roll i dialogen med Church of England.”
6. Appendix: Svenska kyrkans historiskt dokumenterade vigningslinje
Paris de Grassi, biskop av Pesaro, vigde 1524 i sitt hus i Rom
Petrus Magni till biskop för Västerås stift som 1531 vigde
Laurentius Petri till ärkebiskop för Uppsala stift som 1536 vigde
Botvid Sunesson till biskop för Strängnäs stift som 1554 vigde
Paul Juusten till biskop för Viborgs stift (1563 Åbo) som 1575 vigde
Laurentius Petri Gothus till ärkebiskop för Uppsala stift som 1577 vigde
Andreas Laurentii Björnram till biskop för Växjö stift (1583 Uppsala) som 1583 vigde
Petrus Benedicti till biskop för Västerås stift (1587 Linköping) som 1594 vigde
Abraham Angermannus till ärkebiskop för Uppsala stift som 1595 vigde
Petrus Kenicius till biskop för Skara stift (1608 Strängnäs, 1609 Uppsala) som 1601 vigde
Olaus Martini till ärkebiskop för Uppsala stift som 1608 vigde
Laurentius Paulinus Gothus till biskop för Skara stift (1609 Strängnäs, 1637 Uppsala) som 1641 vigde
Jonas Magni Wexionensis till biskop för Skara stift som 1647 vigde
Johannes Lenaeus till ärkebiskop för Uppsala stift som 1668 vigde
Johannes Baazius d.y. till biskop för Växjö stift (1673 Skara, 1677 Uppsala) som 1678 vigde
Olaus Svebilius till biskop för Linköpings stift (1681 Uppsala) som 1695 vigde
Mattias Steuchius till biskop för Lunds stift (1714 Uppsala) som 1726 vigde
Eric Benzelius d.y. till biskop för Göteborgs stift (1731 Linköping, 1742 Uppsala) som 1742 vigde
Henrik Benzelius till biskop för Lunds stift (1747 Uppsala) som 1757 vigde
Carl Fredrik Mennander till biskop för Åbo stift (1775 Uppsala) som 1781 vigde
Uno von Troil till biskop för Linköpings stift (1786 Uppsala) som 1787 vigde
Jacob Axelsson Lindblom till biskop för Linköpings stift (1805 Uppsala) som 1809 vigde
Carl von Rosenstein till biskop för Linköpings stift (1819 Uppsala) som 1824 vigde
Johan Olof Wallin till biskop för Kungliga Serafimerorden (1837 Uppsala) som 1839 vigde
Hans Olof Holmström till biskop för Strängnäs stift (1852 Uppsala) som 1855 vigde
Henrik Reuterdahl till biskop för Lunds stift (1856 Uppsala) som 1864 vigde
Anton Niklas Sundberg till biskop för Karlstad stift (1870 Uppsala) som 1890 vigde
Martin Johansson till biskop för Härnösand stift som 1904 vigde
Olof Bergquist till biskop för Luleå stift som 1932 vigde
Erling Eidem till ärkebiskop för Uppsala stift som 1948 vigde
Gunnar Hultgren till biskop för Visby stift (1950 Härnösand, 1958 Uppsala) som 1959 vigde
Ruben Josefsson till biskop för Härnösand stift (1967 Uppsala) som 1970 vigde
Olof Sundby till biskop för Växjö stift (1972 Uppsala) som 1975 vigde
Bertil Werkström till biskop för Härnösand stift (1983 Uppsala) som 1986 vigde
Gunnar Weman till biskop för Luleå stift (1993 Uppsala) som 1995 vigde
Anders Wejryd till biskop för Växjö stift som blev ärkebiskop för Uppsala stift 2006
As an appendix to the appendix, Paris de Grassi, also known as Paride de Grassis (the bishop of Pesaro Italy who consecrated the first Swedish bishop), has a few more “generations” in his lineage:
Achille Cardinal Grassi † (1506)
Bishop of Bologna
Pope Julius II (1481)
(Giuliano della Rovere †)Pope Sixtus IV (1471)
(Francesco della Rovere, O.F.M. †)Guillaume Cardinal d’Estouteville, O.S.B. †
Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia (e Velletri)
Cardinal Guillaume was consecrated a bishop in 1439.
Thus modern Lutheran bishops have historical documentation of their successions dating back to 1439 - more than a century earlier than Roman bishops, whose records dead-end at 1541.