So the churches are heretical…. Now what?

On this website and on our Youtube channel, we expose the Catholic and Orthodox churches to be heretical, and we demonstrate that the early church held to the true doctrines of the Christian faith. But the next natural question to ask is, “What are we supposed to do now? Is apostolic succession really lost forever?”

The question about apostolic succession and where the true bishops are is an essential question. Apostolic succession consists of two things: 1) Having a legitimate ordination from other bishops, and 2) preserving the teachings of the apostles. The Cathodox have lost both of these things. Their heresies about Mary, war, divorce and remarriage, and worshiping images would put them out of the church even if they were duly ordained, but they don’t even have apostolic succession in that respect either.

Starting after the council of Nicaea, both Constantine and his son started choosing bishops to preside over the church. Before this, the church had explicitly forbidden Christians from holding government office. They also taught that if any Christian made use of the government to obtain ordination as a bishop, the ordination was invalid. For this reason, practically all ordinations after the council of Nicaea were invalid, because Constantine and his son Constantius selected the men who were to be ordained as bishops. If an emperor really did have authority to appoint bishops, then that would make emperors part of the clergy, and the most powerful class. But the church taught explicitly that if anyone wants to become a catechumen (someone who learns about the faith in preparation for baptism), they have to give up government office first.

Starting with Athanasius, the post-Nicene bishops recognized that apostolic succession was destroyed by the false bishops being set up by the emperors. However, this creates a problem for us. How are we supposed to have baptism and the eucharist without ordained priests? The answer is, both the pre-Nicene and post-Nicene church taught that the laity can baptize and offer the eucharist. We don’t need the false priests to baptize us or offer profane sacrifices for us.

The church fathers said that a time would come when all of the bishops would fall away. Even the Cathodox believe that time will eventually come, but they believe it’ll consist of a very brief period just before Jesus returns.

The leadership of the church may have fallen away by allowing a non-Christian to rule over them, give them salaries, and draft them to fight in his wars, but just because the leadership fell away doesn’t mean the laity all fell away too. It has always been a remnant within the church that’s being saved, even before Nicaea. The pre-Nicene church fathers said so, as did Christ.

We have apostolic succession in the sense that we preserve the teachings of the apostles, even though we lack the authority to officially excommunicate anyone. We must reserve fellowship for those who strictly abide by all of the church’s teachings without compromise, and dedicate ourselves to the writings of the early church as diligent catechumens, making sure to align ourselves with their unanimous teachings.