Successio Apostolica

As with all historic Christian churches, the British Orthodox Church adheres firmly to the transmission of the Sacred Ministry in an unbroken succession from the Lord’s Apostles, which – having prevailed inviolate throughout the ages – ensures that its holy orders are universally admitted as valid. Although its mission was re-established though an episcopal consecration deriving from the Syrian Orthodox Church in 1866; its association over the intervening century and a half has resulted in additional lines of apostolic succession deriving from a variety of Orthodox and Catholic churches becoming united with its original line, which came to be regarded as an “Œcumenical Apostolic Succession”. Following its union with the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria for more than two decades, this not only augmented the existing historic Orthodox successions but today is regarded as paramount. In addition to the historic accounts of the various Apostles and their successions, a number of issues and predicaments raised against them are discussed in full, as well as the Church’s response and ways of settlement, especially oikonomia in the Orthodox tradition as well as the approach regarding the integrity of Apostolic Succession as being equable with the Apostolic Faith.