Apostolic Succession necessary for sacraments?

[AMM]

Hi all, I'm realizing that the last big thing for me is the EO view on apostolic succession. As a Lutheran, we do teach that we have proper apostolic succession. Our argument hinges on the fact that in the earliest days of the Church, the presbyter and bishop were the same office, and only later was presbyter distinguished for the sake of good order. As noted by the Legacy Icons didache:

"It should be noted that, at this time in Christian history, there was no distinct class of clergy who were presbyters (priests). The Christian community was small, and there was not yet a need to delegate a bishop's priestly duties to lower clergy; at this point in time, bishops personally led the church in worship in each Christian community."

So with that, I ask a few questions. Do the Orthodox understand apostolic succession the same as Rome?

Is apostolic succession necessary for a "valid" sacrament or for a "licit" sacrament? I.e., if a Roman Catholic priests speaks the verba and epiclesis, is Christ truly present, even if it is outside of the good order of the Holy Orthodox Church? (Does that make sense?)

To put it simply, convince me that Lutherans, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics don't have the Eucharist. (Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding your view)

 

[ArmyMatt]

well, Rome has it wrong in a few senses. mostly, you must have both the historical line and the maintained faith of the Apostles. only Orthodoxy has both and therefore true Apostolic succession.

as to your second point, it's one we cannot answer. while it's true that the fullness of God's grace and truth rests within His canonical Church (i.e. the Orthodox), we do not and cannot limit what He chooses to do outside of His Church. so I cannot prove that the heterodox don't have the Eucharist, but I can say they are not in the Body that has Christ's guarantee.

 

[LizaMarie]

Subscribing to this thread as I've been wondering the same thing...

 

[AMM]

well, Rome has it wrong in a few senses. mostly, you must have both the historical line and the maintained faith of the Apostles. only Orthodoxy has both and therefore true Apostolic succession.

as to your second point, it's one we cannot answer. while it's true that the fullness of God's grace and truth rests within His canonical Church (i.e. the Orthodox), we do not and cannot limit what He chooses to do outside of His Church. so I cannot prove that the heterodox don't have the Eucharist, but I can say they are not in the Body that has Christ's guarantee.

So essentially, the Eucharist is the Body of Christ, and the Church is the Body of Christ, and so where you have one you have the other. You start with the assumption that you are the Church and therefore you have the Eucharist, whereas others (I'd include Lutherans here) would start with the statement that we have the Eucharist and therefore we are members of the Church.

Is that a fair understanding/assessment?

 

[ArmyMatt]

So essentially, the Eucharist is the Body of Christ, and the Church is the Body of Christ, and so where you have one you have the other. You start with the assumption that you are the Church and therefore you have the Eucharist, whereas others (I'd include Lutherans here) would start with the statement that we have the Eucharist and therefore we are members of the Church.

Is that a fair understanding/assessment?

I'd say we start from both ends. we are the Church and therefore have the Eucharist, and because we have the Eucharist we know we are the Church. but most important for this point, is that we always have. there are no breaks in either the Body as the Church or the Body as the Eucharist.

no other group can make that claim.

 

[AMM]

I'd say we start from both ends. we are the Church and therefore have the Eucharist, and because we have the Eucharist we know we are the Church. but most important for this point, is that we always have. there are no breaks in either the Body as the Church or the Body as the Eucharist.

no other group can make that claim.

Interesting. That's a good point.

Would an Orthodox Christian be allowed to privately hold a belief that other Christians have the Eucharist?

 

[ArmyMatt]

Interesting. That's a good point.

Would an Orthodox Christian be allowed to privately hold a belief that other Christians have the Eucharist?

no, but one can certainly hope God is illumining them as He sees fit, which would have include their own liturgical life. but we cannot affirm what goes on outside of Orthodoxy. that is God's business.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Interesting. That's a good point.

Would an Orthodox Christian be allowed to privately hold a belief that other Christians have the Eucharist?

Just my personal little point of view, but I've been able to integrate my prior experience with Orthodoxy with the blessing of my priest.

It should certainly be permissible to believe that God can indeed impart grace through the reception of Communion in various denominations (indeed, I have heard this taught). I know myself I have received it before I ever heard of Orthodoxy.

But I don't tell myself that what was consecrated/given/received broadly in that fellowship IS the Eucharist, as we understand it. If that were the case, some congregations I've been in would be guilty of terrible blasphemy, throwing it in the garbage, letting it fall to the floor and stepping on it, and children even pelting each other with it. I realize that coming from Lutheranism that would probably horrify you as much as it did me, though apparently it didn't others where I used to attend. So you're in a bit of a different position.

But there is absolutely no limit on their Communion being a vehicle of GRACE - God can certainly do whatever He purposes, and we know that He purposes to save mankind.

 

[LizaMarie]

Just my personal little point of view, but I've been able to integrate my prior experience with Orthodoxy with the blessing of my priest.

It should certainly be permissible to believe that God can indeed impart grace through the reception of Communion in various denominations (indeed, I have heard this taught). I know myself I have received it before I ever heard of Orthodoxy.

But I don't tell myself that what was consecrated/given/received broadly in that fellowship IS the Eucharist, as we understand it. If that were the case, some congregations I've been in would be guilty of terrible blasphemy, throwing it in the garbage, letting it fall to the floor and stepping on it, and children even pelting each other with it. I realize that coming from Lutheranism that would probably horrify you as much as it did me, though apparently it didn't others where I used to attend. So you're in a bit of a different position.

But there is absolutely no limit on their Communion being a vehicle of GRACE - God can certainly do whatever He purposes, and we know that He purposes to save mankind.

they were throwing around the bread??? Yikes!
I know coming from a confessional Lutheran perspective we also handle the Eucharist reverently, and I know this as I am on altar duty every few months, setting up and taking down communion, the cloths, ect, and we have very strict intructions on how to put the wafers, wine back, ect, once it's been blessed it may not be thrown away. In fact, this is one of the reasons I had to leave non-denominational evangelicalism(Calvary Chapel) and move back to my Lutheran roots, for other reasons as well( more closely connected to the historical church) but a deal breaker for me is always if they believe in the real Presence. Our Catholic friends who had been giving us Catholic materials were telling us that we were not really getting the Real Presence,(although they would probably agree with what Matt said about grace outside of the RCC) because the WELS did not have an unbroken line of Apostolic Succession going back to Christ and the first apostles on the RCC and EO do.
I had read that once Martin Luther left the Church there was no apostolic succession after him. I don't know.

 

[~Anastasia~]

Yep, the children actually grabbed handfuls of the little crackers and were running about in the sanctuary, throwing them at each other. That was a sight burned in my memory, and one of the last straws that meant I had to leave the kind of congregations I'd been in up to that time. I figured if it had so severely degraded to that point, there wasn't much left. I was bothered before by several fellowships who just blessed it and left it in a dish somewhere fir people to commune themselves if they wanted to. Some would casually grab a bit and munch on it on the way out the door like it was an after-sermon snack. That was bad enough. But I had to ask myself, what was left there if something that Scripture said people DIED over taking it unworthily was given such low esteem?

I think it's a mercy from God that that WASN'T the Eucharist.

 

[AMM]

Just my personal little point of view, but I've been able to integrate my prior experience with Orthodoxy with the blessing of my priest.

It should certainly be permissible to believe that God can indeed impart grace through the reception of Communion in various denominations (indeed, I have heard this taught). I know myself I have received it before I ever heard of Orthodoxy.

But I don't tell myself that what was consecrated/given/received broadly in that fellowship IS the Eucharist, as we understand it. If that were the case, some congregations I've been in would be guilty of terrible blasphemy, throwing it in the garbage, letting it fall to the floor and stepping on it, and children even pelting each other with it. I realize that coming from Lutheranism that would probably horrify you as much as it did me, though apparently it didn't others where I used to attend. So you're in a bit of a different position.

But there is absolutely no limit on their Communion being a vehicle of GRACE - God can certainly do whatever He purposes, and we know that He purposes to save mankind.

Okay, that makes sense! That's a good perspective, I think.

And yeah, if I found out that a Lutheran congregation I was a part of was not treating the Eucharist with the utmost reverence, I'd be out of there in a heartbeat. Actually, two heartbeats, because first I'd try to correct the issue before getting called "too Catholic" and being run out as a closet papist haha

It is different as a Lutheran, I think, since we actually teach that the anti-Sacramental bodies do not have the true Eucharist in the first place:

For it does not depend upon the faith or unbelief of men, but upon God's Word and ordinance, unless they first change God's Word and ordinance and interpret it otherwise, as the enemies of the Sacrament do at the present day, who, of course, have nothing but bread and wine; for they also do not have the words and appointed ordinance of God, but have perverted and changed them according to their own [false] notion. Fol. 245.

(Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, VII 32)

 

[~Anastasia~]

Okay, that makes sense! That's a good perspective, I think.

And yeah, if I found out that a Lutheran congregation I was a part of was not treating the Eucharist with the utmost reverence, I'd be out of there in a heartbeat. Actually, two heartbeats, because first I'd try to correct the issue before getting called "too Catholic" and being run out as a closet papist haha

It is different as a Lutheran, I think, since we actually teach that the anti-Sacramental bodies do not have the true Eucharist in the first place:



(Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, VII 32)

Hmmmmm ... interesting to know the Lutheran perspective.

But then, those bodies I was in would have (mostly) been quick to say that they did not have "The Eucharist" (as they understood it) anyway. Being raised mostly Baptist, somehow I missed some of the memos, I think. But I'm more used to the memory of closed services, the bread held up and blessed, and treated with reverence. And that in Independent Baptist congregations. The memory was enough to shock me when I saw it handled so differently in other evangelical fellowships.

I think that's why when I visited a Methodist service where they had a procession, and at least treated the Eucharist with some reverence, I was suddenly awakened to what was missing in my church life - a sense of the Sacred. I had to search until I found it after that.

 

[buzuxi02]

In order to have apostolic succession one needs to have the laying on of hands and correct belief. St. Basil the Great explains that once a bishop departs from the Church he no longer has the grace to impart the mysteries onto others and becomes a simple layman. And no one can impart onto others what he himself does not have. You cannot depart from the unity of the one Church and take holy orders with you. The Holy Spirit acts only when the Bishop is in His Church as the Creed says 'in one holy catholic and apostolic church'. In Orthodox tradition "to have a calling" to the priesthood does not mean having a personal inner yearning or a tugging of the heart to be elected to the sacredotal order. Having a calling to the priesthood means the laity and clergy are calling you to lead them. It is from within the laity that you are pushed forward as a candidate, thus if you leave that one Body which called you out and gave you that Grace which belongs to Her, once you depart you cannot take apostolic succession with you. Clement of Rome in 96 AD in his epistle to the Corinthians explains being called out:

For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those presbyters who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure [from this world]; for they have no fear lest any one deprive them of the place now appointed them. (ch 47).

Thus just as there is no Church without abishop with Apostolic succession and right belief, there is no grace-filled bishop, no apostolic succession apart from that One Church.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Procatechesis to his lectures in verse 7 writes:

7. We may not receive Baptism twice or thrice; else it might be said, Though I have failed once, I shall set it right a second time: whereas if you fail once, the thing cannot be set right; for there is one Lord, and one faith, and one baptism: for only the heretics are re-baptized , because the former was no baptism.

 

[AMM]

In order to have apostolic succession one needs to have the laying on of hands and correct belief. St. Basil the Great explains that once a bishop departs from the Church he no longer has the grace to impart the mysteries onto others and becomes a simple layman. And no one can impart onto others what he himself does not have. You cannot depart from the unity of the one Church and take holy orders with you. The Holy Spirit acts only when the Bishop is in His Church as the Creed says 'in one holy catholic and apostolic church'. In Orthodox tradition "to have a calling" to the priesthood does not mean having a personal inner yearning or a tugging of the heart to be elected to the sacredotal order. Having a calling to the priesthood means the laity and clergy are calling you to lead them. It is from within the laity that you are pushed forward as a candidate, thus if you leave that one Body which called you out and gave you that Grace which belongs to Her, once you depart you cannot take apostolic succession with you. Clement of Rome in 96 AD in his epistle to the Corinthians explains being called out:

For this reason, therefore, inasmuch as they had obtained a perfect foreknowledge of this, they appointed those [ministers] already mentioned, and afterwards gave instructions, that when these should fall asleep, other approved men should succeed them in their ministry. We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ, in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. For our sin will not be small, if we eject from the episcopate those who have blamelessly fulfilled its duties. Blessed are those presbyters who, having finished their course before now, have obtained a fruitful and perfect departure [from this world]; for they have no fear lest any one deprive them of the place now appointed them. (ch 47).

Thus just as there is no Church without abishop with Apostolic succession and right belief, there is no grace-filled bishop, no apostolic succession apart from that One Church.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem in his Procatechesis to his lectures in verse 7 writes:

7. We may not receive Baptism twice or thrice; else it might be said, Though I have failed once, I shall set it right a second time: whereas if you fail once, the thing cannot be set right; for there is one Lord, and one faith, and one baptism: for only the heretics are re-baptized , because the former was no baptism.

Thank you, that's phenomenal. That really clears up a lot of questions and my understanding of apostolic succession.

Regarding Baptism -- didn't the council that addressed the Donatist controversy conclude that heretics are not rebaptized, but only chrismated?

 

[AMM]

Wait... what about some of the bishops who were also heretical -- are their ordinations invalid? I know Pope Honorius was a heretical bishop; Nestorius was bishop of Constantinople for a time as well, right? So what does it mean to "depart from the unity of the one Church"?

 

[klutedavid]

well, Rome has it wrong in a few senses. mostly, you must have both the historical line and the maintained faith of the Apostles. only Orthodoxy has both and therefore true Apostolic succession.

as to your second point, it's one we cannot answer. while it's true that the fullness of God's grace and truth rests within His canonical Church (i.e. the Orthodox), we do not and cannot limit what He chooses to do outside of His Church. so I cannot prove that the heterodox don't have the Eucharist, but I can say they are not in the Body that has Christ's guarantee.

Not sure that I would agree.

The apostles were corrected by Jesus and by each other, the folk they taught would also be error prone. One would fully expect the churches through history, to constantly fall into error. I think this is the reason why we have a number of creeds, an attempt to establish common doctrine through the churches.

We can find fault with the church of Rome but we also live in glass houses.

 

[Albion]

Subscribing to this thread as I've been wondering the same thing...

What "Lutheran Monk" has described as the Lutheran view of Apostolic Succession isn't what every other church that claims Apostolic Succession means by the term.

This would seem to me to be something that has to be resolved before heading deeper into this subject, LizaMarie.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Not sure that I would agree.

The apostles were corrected by Jesus and by each other, the folk they taught would also be error prone. One would fully expect the churches through history, to constantly fall into error. I think this is the reason why we have a number of creeds, an attempt to establish common doctrine through the churches.

We can find fault with the church of Rome but we also live in glass houses.

that ignores that Christ and the Holy Spirit are active in the Church. neither are absent, so we are kept together and corrected by the same Lord Who did the same to the Apostles.

 

[klutedavid]

that ignores that Christ and the Holy Spirit are active in the Church. neither are absent, so we are kept together and corrected by the same Lord Who did the same to the Apostles.

That does not explain why there are more than a thousand different denominations?

 

[ArmyMatt]

That does not explain why there are more than a thousand different denominations?

one adheres to the Truth of Christ, the others don't.