Church of the Holy Grail

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Divine Grace

Apostolic Succession

Have you an Apostolic Succession?

Unfold your line of Bishops.

~ Tertullian

“By the end of the seventh century the Grail Church ceased to exist when its apostolic succession was broken down and ended in favour of the Roman Catholic succession of Canterbury. An historic continuity passing backwards in time to the apostles and Our Lord Himself was nevertheless restored to the spiritual heirs of the ancient Grail Church on the feast of St Francis of Assisi 1991. … Archbishop Bertil Persson of Scandinavia sent his congratulations and reminded us that the Grail Church has received apostolic ecumenical lines through Archbishop Thomas, whom he conditionally consecrated, including a line back to the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Archbishop Persson is Missionary General to the Philippine Independent Catholic Church. Archbishop Williams, the original consecrator of Archbishop Thomas, passed on the Syrian and Greek Melkite lines; also the Syro-Gallican and Old Catholic lines of succession. A letter signed by the then Vatican Archivist, Cardinal Mercati, [dated 21 July 1952] to Archbishop Irenaeus d’Eschevannes ratifies the holy orders of the Syro-Gallican line as being entirely valid [in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church]. … The Roman Catholic line is followed from the apostles of Our Lord to Cardinal Barberini on whom depends the historical line of succession of the Dutch Old Catholics. The irony of reclaiming a valid succession from a line whose source, the Roman Church, was responsible for its disappearance some twelve centuries prior, is not lost on those within the present-day Grail Church. … The English Old Catholic line continues through Arnold Harris Mathew … consecrated on 28 April 1908 as Regionary Old Catholic Bishop for Great Britain and Ireland … [via] Illtyd Thomas [to] Seán Manchester [who] has the equivalent dignity of the office of archbishop as it is described in some other jurisdictions.”

Archbishop Persson, in a letter dated 6 December 1991, confirmed that his particular line (inherited by the Grail Church via Archbishop Thomas) is “accepted by the Utrecht Old Catholic Communion.” In his Foreword to The Grail Church book, Br Keith Maclean informs that Bishop Manchester “only employs the three ministerial titles of deacon, priest and bishop” whilst holding the equivalent office of archbishop. The Grail Church does not ordain women to the priesthood; though, like the early Church, it accepts women deacons. There is clear evidence that women were properly received into the diaconate, but nothing exists anywhere to suggest that any proceeded to become priests. Women did not assist at the Eucharist where bread and wine is transformed into the true Body and Blood of Christ, but were still validly made deacons both in the early Church and today in parts of the Catholic Church.

A deacon receives the Blood of Christ during the Grail Church Eucharist.

“The episcopate, as embodied in the office of bishop, is one of the essential forms of the Body of Christ. … We must not be discouraged from our Faith by any faults and failings of the members of the Church or by our own; for the act of Faith is directed not to the human element in the Church but to the divine. Nor must we be too concerned by the variety of autocephalous jurisdictions. St Cyprian of Carthage (192-258) remarked: ‘There are many churches, just as there are many rays of the sun, but only one source of light.’ … The Grail Church inherited the Old Catholic line, the Chaldean Catholic line, the Armenian Catholic line, the Russian Orthodox line, the Syrian Orthodox line, the Assyrian line, the Greek Melkite line, the Syro-Gallican line, the Anglican and Non-Juring lines of succession. The historic continuity of the apostolic succession thus imparted cannot be questioned. The Apostolic Church of the Holy Grail therefore traces its restored continuity of succession back to the Old Catholic Church of Holland and to the Orthodox Churches of the East. This historic relationship with both East and West derives from the fact that its holy orders stem from a bishop who, in an endeavour to promote Church Unity, received conditional consecration from bishops of different jurisdictions. Having this historic ministry, the Grail Church holds the Faith of the Undivided Church prior to the Great Schism. Its standards of doctrine are founded on the Bible, the Creeds and the teachings of the early Fathers. The additions of Rome and the subtractions of the Protestant World are rejected.”