www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Apostolic Succession for Church of Sweden?

Does anyone know does the Lutheran Church of Sweden (or for that matter any of the Scandanavian Countries possess Apostolic Succession? As far as I am aware of, That when Scandanavia became Lutheran that Several Bishops joined in.
Maybe my question is more what exactly is Apostolic Succession? Is it just proving that your spiritual ancestry reaches back to the apostles (that an apostle was the consecrator of the consecrator of the consecrator.... of the present bishop? Or does it also depends as to what you beleve happens at the liturgy by the celebrant

Theodor,

Apostolic Succession isn't just a pedigree. There is more to it than that. Take the Anglican Church in England. When it was first started they had valid Bishops. However at a later date they changed the ordinal (the rite where a priest becomes a priest and a bishop becomes a bishop.) From that point they had valid bishops using an invalid ordinal which in turn made invalid ordinations. After a long while, they changed back to original ordinal, but then the problem was that now they had invalid bishops using a valid ordinal, which caused the same problems i.e. invalid ordinations.

The Lutherans also changed their ordination rites, and also caused them to become invalid.

An interesting aside, earlier in our time in the 1980s here in America, ICEL produced an ordinal and submitted it to Rome. Rome rejected it because it was so bad that it would have caused invalid ordinations. It was also one of the final nails in the coffin for ICEL and its lock on English translations of the liturgy in the Western Rite.

John Gibson

As John Gibson says, the historic succession ofthe bishops of the Church of Sweden is indisputable - but the orthodoxy of their teaching is anything else but. Oddly enough, they have recovered a fair understanding of the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the twentieth century, which might conceivably raise the question of the possibility of Apostolic Succession being "dormant" in the interim. Anyway, as soon as they began ordaining women, that was the end of the discussion so far as the Catholics and the Orthodox are concerned.

Incognitus

John,

Please excuse my ignorance, but who is the ICEL? Could you (or someone) explain that post a little bit?

Thanks!

In His Name,
Stephen

Dear Friends,

I'm fascinated by the High Church movement in Anglicanism, Lutheranism et al. and how they claim that they have valid orders from this or that ordination event in their history . . .

Assyrian bishops often attend Anglican ordinations, as I am led to understand. Does this pass on Apostolic Succession to them?

Alex

Dear Stephen:

It is the acronym for the "International Commission on English in the Liturgy."

ICEL was created in 1963. It is a joint enterprise of the Bishops' Conferences of Australia, Canada, England and Wales, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Scotland, Southern Africa, and the United States to enable these Conferences to collaborate in the development of the vernacular (in this case, English is the common "vernacular" language of these countries) liturgy in light of the reform of the Roman Rite called for by the Second Vatican Council.

It is governed by a Board composed of Bishops nominated by each of the member National Episcopal Conferences, usually the head of their respective Liturgical Commission. ICEL's headquarters are in Washington, D.C.

The works of the ICEL can come into effect/use only after they are approved by Rome through the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments. Currently, the VOX CLARA Committee, established by Pope John Paul II under that Congregation, monitors the works of the ICEL so that every translation of the Novus Ordo from its original language in Latin into English follows strictly the guidelines.

Amado

Given Luther's emphasis on the priesthood of believers, I don't think he had any desire for apostolic succession or orders.

True about Luther but here's a suprise other protestants didn't agree with Luther!

It is a popular theory that Luther did believe in apostolic succession - her certainly didn't dismiss this early on. But when the catholic German bishops rejected his overatures to become part of the Lutheran church and continue apostolic succession it is then Luther developed his priesthood of all beleivers theory to include no clergy and laity distinction and the concept of holy orders was deemded unecssary.
While there were no German Catholic Bishops who defected from ROme this wasn't the case in Sweeden many defected to the Lutheran camp and of course being ex-catholics didn't quite buy into Luther's innovation which he would not have invented if he could get German catholic bishops to defect. SO just in case (Luther was wrong, by their actions you could tell they were not sure) they cotinued holy orders to their successors an until quite recently it was deemed valid but lately the church has now ordained women so who knows how if that contineues though a woman bishop?
Anyways why play around with a question mark when you know the catholic or orthodox communion has the real things and won't be ordaining questionable candidates anytime soon.

The more I have read about Luther, the more I am convinced he was an arrogant, stubborn, rogue who just wanted his own way. It seems to me he recognized no authority greater than his own.

In fact, there is no one single view of Lutheranism on a number of issues.

One could hold to either consubstantiation or transubstantiation and be a Lutheran in good standing.

The Swedish and Finnish Churches were "High Church" and rejected the "priesthood of all believers" in the sense of denying Holy Orders and Apostolic Succession.

We Catholics tend to inject our own view of how "doctrine is done" onto others and this is just wrong.

Luther venerated the Mother of God all his life and believed in images - but this didn't prevent many of his followers from being iconoclasts etc.

Luther was no "pope" and today's High Church Lutherans affirm in practice what amounts to a wholesale denial of many of Luther's tenets.

They often justify this as an appeal to the "early Luther."

Alex