Apostolic Succession

[John Charmley]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I wonder whether there would be interest here in joining in a discussion on the Apostolic Succession? I don't think we have discussed it directly, and yet it is one of the things I get asked about when talking about the BOC and the Coptic Church.

Apostolic Succession would seem to be for the Orthodox a critical part of how we can be sure whose Gospel it is we preach, and by whose authority we do so - that of the Apostles as the appointed representatives of Christ Himself.

The role of the Apostles was to pass on the right teachings of the Lord. As we can see even from the Pauline epistles (which most would agree are the earliest Christian writings), there was a need to assert the right teaching because some were already making their own interpretation of it. So we see in Galatians 1:6-12, St. Paul invoking a solemn curse on anyone who departs from the Gospel he is preaching. His preaching, as he makes clear in 1 Thess. 2:13 is 'the word of God'. This is not open to the interpretation of any Christian who just happens to think he knows better. In 2 Thess. 3:14 he tells that Church that rejection of his teaching will bring excommunication. In 1 Cor. 7:17 he makes no distinction between the authority of his teaching and the Lord: 'This is my rule in all the Churches.'

Acts shows us the Apostles building up a Church and exercising discipline within it (see Acts 5:1-11). Both the fellowship and the authorised teaching of the Church is their fellowship and teaching, which is the teaching of the Lord Himself. (Acts 2:42). The are the Lord's representatives for building up the Church (2 Cor. 10:8) and for judging it (2 Cor. 13:1,2). An apostle can, in the name of Christ, deliver an impenitent Church member over to Satan (1 Cor. 5:3-5).

There are those, most recently Bauckham in his The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, who would see St. John's Gospel as being different in style from that of the Synoptics because by the time he wrote, others were trying to claim things about the Lord he, as the surviving Apostle, knew were not so; hence his insistence upon his status as eye witness, and on the divinity of the Lord, which those we loosely call gnostics were denying.

The Apostles were the custodians, guardians and evangelists of the 'Faith once delivered'. But as they passed away, how was this one Church to maintain its authority and integrity in the face of those who were already teaching another gospel? The answer is that the early Church looked to the Apostles as their authority for the gospel they preached.

Clement calls them 'the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church', and in 1 Clement 42 tells us that the Apostles 'appointed their first fruits, when they had tested them by the Spirit, to be overseers and deacons of the future believers.' Clement was writing possibly before John's Gospel was written, and shows quite clearly how the Apostles tried to maintain the Truth they had received. He tells the Corinthians to 'take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle.'

The importance of the Apostles is underlined if we look at Polycarp's one surviving letter, where he quotes from 1 Peter eight times, Ephesians three times, 1 Corinthians four times, 2 Corinthians twice, Galatians four times, 1 Timothy thrice, 2 Timothy twice, Romans twice, 1 John once, Philippians twice, and 2 Thessalonians twice. So when he writes: 'I am persuaded that you are well schooled in the sacred writings', we can see what he meant by his own writing.

There was one Church, one tradition, one gospel and one way of passing it on; through the authority of the Apostles in two ways: by their authoritative writings, and by the teachings of their 'first fruits' who had been 'tested' by them.

Of course, we can see that it has not preserved the external unity of the Church, but it seems to me that the Canon and Apostolic Succession are key ways in which we know whose Gospel it is we receive, and by whose authority those who teach us do so.

Abba Seraphim's own recent writings have been most instructive in showing the line of Apostolic Succession in the old Orthodox Church in the British Isles, and as we know, the Pope himself recognised the validity of the BOC's orders.

Speaking for myself, this all seems crucial. Having spent time in the USA where many a 'Pastor Bob' told me he was inspired directly by the Spirit, before proceeding to pronounce some notion unheard of in the early Church, it seems an important guard against inadvertently receiving 'another gospel'.

How do others see this?

In Christ,

John