title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: The integral formula has broad applications. First, it implies that a function which is holomorphic in an open set is in fact infinitely differentiable there. Furthermore, it is an analytic function, meaning that it can be represented as a power series. The proof of this uses the dominated convergence theorem and the geometric series applied to


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: The formula is also used to prove the residue theorem, which is a result for meromorphic functions, and a related result, the argument principle. It is known from Morera's theorem that the uniform limit of holomorphic functions is holomorphic. This can also be deduced from Cauchy's integral formula: indeed the formula also holds in the limit and the integrand, and hence the integral, can be expanded as a power series. In addition the Cauchy formulas for the higher order derivatives show that all these derivatives also converge uniformly.


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: The analog of the Cauchy integral formula in real analysis is the Poisson integral formula for harmonic functions; many of the results for holomorphic functions carry over to this setting. No such results, however, are valid for more general classes of differentiable or real analytic functions. For instance, the existence of the first derivative of a real function need not imply the existence of higher order derivatives, nor in particular the analyticity of the function. Likewise, the uniform limit of a sequence of (real) differentiable functions may fail to be differentiable, or may be differentiable but with a derivative which is not the limit of the derivatives of the members of the sequence.


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: Another consequence is that if is holomorphic in and then the coefficients satisfy Cauchy's inequality


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: From Cauchy's inequality, one can easily deduce that every bounded entire function must be constant (which is Liouville's theorem).


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: In other words, the average value of over the circle centered at with radius is . This can be calculated directly via a parametrization of the circle.


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: A version of Cauchy's integral formula is the Cauchy–Pompeiu formula, and holds for smooth functions as well, as it is based on Stokes' theorem. Let be a disc in and suppose that is a complex-valued function on the closure of . Then


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: One may use this representation formula to solve the inhomogeneous Cauchy–Riemann equations in . Indeed, if is a function in , then a particular solution of the equation is a holomorphic function outside the support of . Moreover, if in an open set "D",


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: The first conclusion is, succinctly, that the convolution of a compactly supported measure with the Cauchy kernel


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: is a holomorphic function off the support of . Here denotes the principal value. The second conclusion asserts that the Cauchy kernel is a fundamental solution of the Cauchy–Riemann equations. Note that for smooth complex-valued functions of compact support on the generalized Cauchy integral formula simplifies to


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: and is a restatement of the fact that, considered as a distribution, is a fundamental solution of the Cauchy–Riemann operator . The generalized Cauchy integral formula can be deduced for any bounded open region with boundary from this result and the formula for the distributional derivative of the characteristic function of :


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: In several complex variables, the Cauchy integral formula can be generalized to polydiscs . Let be the polydisc given as the Cartesian product of open discs :


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: The Cauchy integral formula is generalizable to real vector spaces of two or more dimensions. The insight into this property comes from geometric algebra, where objects beyond scalars and vectors (such as planar bivectors and volumetric trivectors) are considered, and a proper generalization of Stokes' theorem.


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: Geometric calculus defines a derivative operator under its geometric product — that is, for a -vector field , the derivative generally contains terms of grade and . For example, a vector field () generally has in its derivative a scalar part, the divergence (), and a bivector part, the curl (). This particular derivative operator has a Green's function:


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: where is the surface area of a unit -ball in the space (that is, , the circumference of a circle with radius 1, and , the surface area of a sphere with radius 1). By definition of a Green's function,


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: where, for an -dimensional vector space, is an -vector and is an -vector. The function can, in principle, be composed of any combination of multivectors. The proof of Cauchy's integral theorem for higher dimensional spaces relies on the using the generalized Stokes theorem on the quantity and use of the product rule:


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: When , is called a "monogenic function", the generalization of holomorphic functions to higher-dimensional spaces — indeed, it can be shown that the Cauchy–Riemann condition is just the two-dimensional expression of the monogenic condition. When that condition is met, the second term in the right-hand integral vanishes, leaving only


title: Cauchy's integral formula

text: Thus, as in the two-dimensional (complex analysis) case, the value of an analytic (monogenic) function at a point can be found by an integral over the surface surrounding the point, and this is valid not only for scalar functions but vector and general multivector functions as well.


title: Matrilineality

text: Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles. A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant (of either sex) in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothersin other words, a "mother line". In a matrilineal descent system, an individual is considered to belong to the same descent group as their mother. This ancient matrilineal descent pattern is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of patrilineal descent from which a family name is usually derived. The "matriline" of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.


title: Matrilineality

text: In the late 19th century, almost all prehistorians and anthropologists believed, following Lewis H. Morgan's influential book "Ancient Society", that early human kinship everywhere was matrilineal. This idea was taken up by Friedrich Engels in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State". The Morgan-Engels thesis that humanity's earliest domestic institution was not the family but the matrilineal clan soon became incorporated into communist orthodoxy. In reaction, most 20th century social anthropologists considered the theory of matrilineal priority untenable, although during the 1970s and 1980s, a range of feminist scholars often attempted to revive it.


title: Matrilineality

text: In recent years, evolutionary biologists, geneticists and palaeoanthropologists have been reassessing the issues, many citing genetic and other evidence that early human kinship may have been matrilineal after all. One crucial piece of indirect evidence has been genetic data suggesting that over thousands of years, women among sub-Saharan African hunter-gatherers have chosen to reside postmaritally not with their husbands' family but with their own mother and other natal kin. Another line of argument is that when sisters and their mothers help each other with childcare, the descent line tends to be matrilineal rather than patrilineal. Biological anthropologists are now widely agreed that cooperative childcare was a development crucial in making possible the evolution of the unusually large human brain and characteristically human psychology. Although others refute the claims of supporters of the universality of matrilocality or patrilocality, pointing out that hunter-gatherer societies have a flexible philopatry or practice multilocality, which in turn leads to a more egalitarian society, since both men and women have the right to choose with whom to live. It is worth noting that according to some data, pastoralists and farmers strongly gravitate towards patrilocality, so patrilocality is a common phenomenon among non-Pygmies. But among some hunter-gatherers, patrilocality is less common than among farmers. So for example, among the pygmies of aka, which includes biaka and benzene, a young couple usually settles in her husband's camp after the birth of their first child. However, the husband can stay in the wife's community, where one of his brothers or sisters can join him. This can happen in societies where the bride's service is practiced. Or in any other societies. According to the data above, some scientists also say that kinship and residence in hunter-gatherer societies are complex and multifaceted. For example, when re-checking past data (which were not very reliable), the researchers note that about 40% of the groups were bilocal, 22.9% were matrilocal and 25% were patrilocal. A number of scientists also advocate multilocality, refuting the concepts of exceptional matrilocality (matrilineality) or patrilocality (patrilineality).


title: Matrilineality

text: "Matrilineal" surnames are names transmitted from mother to daughter, in contrast to the more familiar "patrilineal surnames" transmitted from father to son, the pattern most common among family names today. For clarity and for brevity, the scientific terms "patrilineal surname" and "matrilineal surname" are usually abbreviated as "patriname" and "matriname".


title: Matrilineality

text: There appears to be some evidence for the presence of matrilineality in Pre-Islamic Arabia, in a very limited number of the Arabian peoples (first of all among the Amorites of Yemen, and among some strata of Nabateans in Northern Arabia); on the other hand, there seems to be some reliable evidence for the presence of matrilineality in Islamic Arabia, the descendants of prophet Muhammad 12 imams are said to be from the lineage of his daughter Fatima termed as "sons of Fatima".


title: Matrilineality

text: A modern example from South Africa is the order of succession to the position of the Rain Queen in a culture of matrilineal primogeniture: not only is dynastic descent reckoned through the female line, but only females are eligible to inherit.


title: Matrilineality

text: In some traditional societies and cultures, membership in their groups was – and, in the following list, still "is" if shown in "italics" – inherited matrilineally. Examples include the Cherokee, Choctaw, "Gitksan", Haida, Hopi, Iroquois, Lenape, Navajo and Tlingit of North America; the "Kuna people" of Panama; the "Kogi" and Carib of South America; the "Minangkabau" people of West Sumatra, Indonesia and Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia; the "Trobrianders", "Dobu" and "Nagovisi" of Melanesia; the Nairs, some Thiyyas & Muslims of Kerala and the Mogaveeras, Billavas & the Bunts of Karnataka in south India; the "Khasi", "Jaintia" and "Garo" of Meghalaya in northeast India and Bangladesh; the "Ngalops" and "Sharchops" of Bhutan; the "Mosuo" of China; the "Kayah" of Southeast Asia, the Picti of Scotland, the Basques of Spain and France; the Ainu of Japan, the "Akan" including the "Ashanti", "Bono", "Akwamu", "Fante" of Ghana; most groups across the so-called "matrilineal belt" of south-central Africa; the Nubians of Southern Egypt & Sudan and the "Tuareg" of west and north Africa; the "Serer" of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania.


title: Matrilineality

text: Most of the example cultures in this article are based on (matrilineal) clans. Any clan might possibly contain from one to several or many "descent groups" or "family groups" – i.e., any matrilineal clan might be descended from one or several or many unrelated female ancestors. Also, each such descent group might have its own family name or "surname", as one possible cultural pattern. The following two example cultures each follow a different pattern, however:


title: Matrilineality

text: Example 1. Members of the (matrilineal) clan culture Minangkabau do not even have a "surname" or "family name", see this culture's own section below. In contrast, members do have a "clan name", which is important in their lives although not included in the member's name. Instead, one's name is just one's given name.


title: Matrilineality

text: Example 2. Members of the (matrilineal) clan culture Akan, see its own section below, also do not have matrilineal "surnames" and likewise their important "clan name" is not included in their name. However, members' names do commonly include second names which "are called surnames" but which are "not" routinely passed down from either father or mother to all their children as a "family name".


title: Matrilineality

text: Note well that if a culture did include one's "clan name" in one's name and routinely handed it down to all children in the "descent group" then it would automatically be the "family name" or "surname" for one's descent group (as well as for all other descent groups in one's clan).


title: Matrilineality

text: While a "mother" normally takes care of her own children in all cultures, in some matrilineal cultures an "uncle-father" will take care of his nieces and nephews instead: in other words "social fathers" here are uncles. There is not a necessary connection between the role of father and genitor. In many such matrilineal cultures, especially where residence is also matrilocal, a man will exercise guardianship rights not over the children he fathers but over his sisters' children, who are viewed as 'his own flesh'. These children's biological father – unlike an uncle who is their mother's brother and thus their caregiver – is in some sense a 'stranger' to them, even when affectionate and emotionally close.


title: Matrilineality

text: According to Steven Pinker, attributing to Kristen Hawkes, among foraging groups matrilocal societies are less likely to commit female infanticide than are patrilocal societies.


title: Matrilineality

text: While men held positions of religious and political power, Spartan constitution mandated that inheritance and proprietorship pass from mother to daughter.


title: Matrilineality

text: In Pictish society, succession in leadership (later kingship) was matrilineal (through the mother's side), with the reigning chief succeeded by either his brother or perhaps a nephew but not through patrilineal succession of father to son.


title: Matrilineality

text: Occupied for 10,000 years by Native Americans, the land that would become New Jersey was overseen by clans of the Lenape or Lenni Lenape or Delaware, who farmed, fished, and hunted upon it. The pattern of their culture was that of a matrilineal agricultural and mobile hunting society that was sustained with fixed, but not permanent, settlements in their "matrilineal clan" territories. Leadership by men was inherited through the maternal line, and the women elders held the power to remove leaders of whom they disapproved.


title: Matrilineality

text: Villages were established and relocated as the clans farmed new sections of the land when soil fertility lessened and when they moved among their fishing and hunting grounds by seasons. The area was claimed as a part of the Dutch New Netherland province dating from 1614, where active trading in furs took advantage of the natural pass west, but the Lenape prevented permanent settlement beyond what is now Jersey City.


title: Matrilineality

text: "Early Europeans who first wrote about these Indians found matrilineal social organization to be unfamiliar and perplexing. As a result, the early records are full of 'clues' about early Lenape society, but were usually written by observers who did not fully understand what they were seeing."


title: Matrilineality

text: The Hopi (in what is now the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona), according to Alice Schlegel, had as its "gender ideology ... one of female superiority, and it operated within a social actuality of sexual equality." According to LeBow (based on Schlegel's work), in the Hopi, "gender roles ... are egalitarian ... [and] [n]either sex is inferior." LeBow concluded that Hopi women "participate fully in ... political decision-making." According to Schlegel, "the Hopi no longer live as they are described here" and "the attitude of female superiority is fading". Schlegel said the Hopi "were and still are matrilinial" and "the household ... was matrilocal".


title: Matrilineality

text: Schlegel explains why there was female superiority as that the Hopi believed in "life as the highest good ... [with] the female principle ... activated in women and in Mother Earth ... as its source" and that the Hopi "were not in a state of continual war with equally matched neighbors" and "had no standing army" so that "the Hopi lacked the spur to masculine superiority" and, within that, as that women were central to institutions of clan and household and predominated "within the economic and social systems (in contrast to male predominance within the political and ceremonial systems)", the Clan Mother, for example, being empowered to overturn land distribution by men if she felt it was unfair, since there was no "countervailing ... strongly centralized, male-centered political structure".


title: Matrilineality

text: The Iroquois Confederacy or League, combining five to six Native American Haudenosaunee nations or tribes before the U.S. became a nation, operated by The Great Binding Law of Peace, a constitution by which women retained matrilineal-rights and participated in the League's political decision-making, including deciding whether to proceed to war, through what may have been a matriarchy or "gyneocracy". The dates of this constitution's operation are unknown: the League was formed in approximately 1000–1450, but the constitution was oral until written in about 1880. The League still exists.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Powhatan and other tribes of the Tsenacommacah, also known as the Powhatan Confederacy, practiced a version of male-preference matrilineal seniority, favoring brothers over sisters in the current generation (but allowing sisters to inherit if no brothers remained), but passing to the next generation through the eldest female line. In "A Map of Virginia" John Smith of Jamestown explains:His <nowiki>[</nowiki>Chief Powhatan's] kingdome descendeth not to his sonnes nor children: but first to his brethren, whereof he hath 3 namely Opitchapan, Opechancanough, and Catataugh; and after their decease to his sisters. First to the eldest sister, then to the rest: and after them to the heires male and female of the eldest sister; but never to the heires of the males.


title: Matrilineality

text: Some 20 million Akan live in Africa, particularly in Ghana and Ivory Coast. (See as well their subgroups, the Ashanti, also called Asante, Akyem, Bono, Fante, Akwamu.) Many but not all of the Akan still (2001) practice their traditional matrilineal customs, living in their traditional extended family households, as follows. The traditional Akan economic, political and social organization is based on maternal lineages, which are the basis of inheritance and succession. A lineage is defined as all those related by matrilineal descent from a particular ancestress. Several lineages are grouped into a "political unit" headed by a chief and a council of elders, each of whom is the elected head of a lineage – which itself may include multiple extended-family households. Public offices are thus vested in the lineage, as are land tenure and other lineage property. In other words, lineage property is inherited only by matrilineal kin.


title: Matrilineality

text: "The principles governing inheritance stress sex, generation and age – that is to say, men come before women and seniors before juniors." When a woman's brothers are available, a consideration of generational seniority stipulates that the line of brothers be exhausted before the right to inherit lineage property passes down to the next senior genealogical generation of sisters' sons. Finally, "it is when all possible male heirs have been exhausted that the females" may inherit.


title: Matrilineality

text: Each lineage controls the lineage land farmed by its members, functions together in the veneration of its ancestors, supervises marriages of its members, and settles internal disputes among its members.


title: Matrilineality

text: The political units above are likewise grouped into eight larger groups called "abusua" (similar to clans), named Aduana, Agona, Asakyiri, Asenie, Asona, Bretuo, Ekuona and Oyoko. The members of each "abusua" are united by their belief that they are all descended from the same ancient ancestress. Marriage between members of the same "abusua" is forbidden. One inherits or is a lifelong member of the lineage, the political unit, and the "abusua" of one's mother, regardless of one's gender and/or marriage. Note that members and their spouses thus belong to different "abusuas", mother and children living and working in one household and their husband/father living and working in a different household.


title: Matrilineality

text: According to this source of further information about the Akan, "A man is strongly related to his mother's brother (wɔfa) but only weakly related to his father's brother. This must be viewed in the context of a polygamous society in which the mother/child bond is likely to be much stronger than the father/child bond. As a result, in inheritance, a man's nephew (sister's son) will have priority over his own son. Uncle-nephew relationships therefore assume a dominant position."


title: Matrilineality

text: Certain other aspects of the Akan culture are determined patrilineally rather than matrilineally. There are 12 patrilineal Ntoro (which means spirit) groups, and everyone belongs to their father's Ntoro group but not to his (matrilineal) family lineage and "abusua". Each patrilineal Ntoro group has its own surnames, taboos, ritual purifications, and etiquette.


title: Matrilineality

text: A recent (2001) book provides this update on the Akan: Some families are changing from the above "abusua" structure to the nuclear family. Housing, childcare, education, daily work, and elder care etc. are then handled by that individual family rather than by the "abusua" or clan, especially in the city. The above taboo on marriage within one's abusua is sometimes ignored, but "clan membership" is still important, with many people still living in the "abusua" framework presented above.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Tuareg (Arabic:طوارق, sometimes spelled Touareg in French, or Twareg in English) are a large Berber ethnic confederation found across several nations in north Africa, including Niger, Mali and Algeria. The Tuareg are "clan"-based, and are (still, in 2007) "largely matrilineal". The Tuareg are Muslim, but mixed with a "heavy dose" of their pre-existing beliefs including matrilineality.


title: Matrilineality

text: Tuareg women enjoy high status within their society, compared with their Arab counterparts and with other Berber tribes: Tuareg social status is transmitted through women, with residence often matrilocal. Most women could read and write, while most men were illiterate, concerning themselves mainly with herding livestock and other male activities. The livestock and other movable property were owned by the women, whereas personal property is owned and inherited regardless of gender. In contrast to most other Muslim cultural groups, men wear veils but women do not. This custom is discussed in more detail in the Tuareg article's clothing section, which mentions it may be the protection needed against the blowing sand while traversing the Sahara desert.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania are patrilineal ("simanGol" in Serer language) as well as matrilineal ("tim"). There are several Serer matriclans and . Some of these matriarchs include Fatim Beye (1335) and Ndoye Demba (1367) – matriarchs of the Joos matriclan which also became a dynasty in Waalo (Senegal). Some matriclans or maternal clans form part of Serer medieval and history, such as the Guelowars. The most revered clans tend to be rather ancient and form part of Serer ancient history. These proto-Serer clans hold great significance in Serer religion and mythology. Some of these proto-Serer matriclans include the "Cegandum" and "Kagaw", whose historical account is enshrined in Serer religion, mythology and traditions.


title: Matrilineality

text: In Serer culture, inheritance is both matrilineal and patrilineal. It all depends on the asset being inherited – i.e. whether the asset is a paternal asset – requiring paternal inheritance ("kucarla" ) or a maternal asset – requiring maternal inheritance ("den yaay" or "ƭeen yaay"). The actual handling of these maternal assets (such as jewelry, land, livestock, equipment or furniture, etc.) is discussed in the subsection Role of the Tokoor of one of the above-listed main articles.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Berber inhabitants of Gran Canaria island had developed a matrilineal society by the time the Canary Islands and their people, called Guanches, were conquered by the Spanish.


title: Matrilineality

text: Matrilineality among the Muslims and Tamils in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka arrived from Kerala, India via Muslim traders before 1200 CE. Matrilineality here includes kinship and social organization, inheritance and property rights. For example, "the mother's dowry property and/or house is passed on to the eldest daughter." The Sinhalese people are the third ethnic group in eastern Sri Lanka, and have a kinship system which is "intermediate" between that of matrilineality and that of patrilineality, along with "bilateral inheritance" (in some sense intermediate between matrilineal and patrilineal inheritance). While the first two groups speak the Tamil language, the third group speaks the Sinhala language. The Tamils largely identify with Hinduism, the Sinhalese being primarily Buddhist. The three groups are about equal in population size.


title: Matrilineality

text: Patriarchal social structures apply to all of Sri Lanka, but in the Eastern Province are mixed with the matrilineal features summarized in the paragraph above and described more completely in the following subsection:


title: Matrilineality

text: According to Kanchana N. Ruwanpura, Eastern Sri Lanka "is highly regarded even among" feminist economists "for the relatively favourable position of its women, reflected" in women's equal achievements in Human Development Indices "(HDIs) as well as matrilineal and" bilateral "inheritance patterns and property rights".


title: Matrilineality

text: She also conversely argues that ""feminist economists" need to be cautious in applauding Sri Lanka's gender-based achievements and/or matrilineal communities", because these matrilineal communities coexist with ""patriarchal" structures and ideologies" and the two "can be strange but ultimately compatible bedfellows", as follows:


title: Matrilineality

text: She "positions Sri Lankan women within gradations of "patriarchy" by beginning with a brief overview of the main religious traditions," Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, "and the ways in which patriarchal interests are promoted through religious practice" in Eastern Sri Lanka (but without being as repressive as classical patriarchy). Thus, "feminists have claimed that Sri Lankan women are relatively well positioned in the" South Asian region, despite "patriarchal institutional laws that ... are likely to work against the interests of women," which is a "co-operative conflict" between women and these laws. (Clearly "female-heads have no legal recourse" from these laws which state "patriarchal interests".) For example, "the economic welfare of female-heads [heads of households] depends upon networks" ("of kin and [matrilineal] community"), "networks that mediate the patriarchal-ideological nexus." She wrote that "some female heads possessed" "feminist consciousness" and, at the same time, that "in many cases female-heads are not vociferous feminists ... but rather 'victims' of patriarchal relations and structures that place them in precarious positions... [while] they have held their ground ... [and] provided for their children".


title: Matrilineality

text: On the other hand, she also wrote that feminists including Malathi de Alwis and Kumari Jayawardena have criticized a romanticized view of women's lives in Sri Lanka put forward by Yalman, and mentioned the Sri Lankan case "where young women raped (usually by a man) are married-off/required to cohabit with the rapists!"


title: Matrilineality

text: In the Minangkabau matrilineal clan culture in Indonesia, a person's clan name is important in their marriage and their other cultural-related events. Two totally unrelated people who share the same clan name can never be married because they are considered to be from the same clan mother (unless they come from distant villages). Likewise, when Minangs meet total strangers who share the same clan name, anywhere in Indonesia, they could theoretically expect to feel that they are distant relatives. Minang people do not have a family name or surname; neither is one's important clan name included in one's name; instead one's given name is the only name one has.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Minangs are one of the world's largest matrilineal societies/cultures/ethnic groups, with a population of 4 million in their home province West Sumatra in Indonesia and about 4 million elsewhere, mostly in Indonesia. The Minang people are well known within their country for their tradition of matrilineality and for their "dedication to Islam" – despite Islam being "supposedly patrilineal". This well-known accommodation, between their traditional complex of customs, called adat, and their religion, was actually worked out to help end the Minangkabau 1821-37 Padri War. This source is available online.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Minangkabau are a prime example of a matrilineal culture with female inheritance. With Islamic religious background of complementarianism and places a greater number of men than women in positions of religious and political power. Inheritance and proprietorship pass from mother to daughter. The society of Minangkabau exhibits the ability of societies to lack rape culture without social equity of genders.


title: Matrilineality

text: Besides Minangkabau, several other ethnics in Indonesia are also matrilineal and have similar culture as the Minangkabau. They are Suku Melayu Bebilang, Suku Kubu and Kerinci people. Suku Melayu Bebilang live in Kota Teluk Kuantan, Kabupaten Kuantan Singingi (also known as Kuansing), Riau. They have similar culture as the Minang. Suku Kubu people live in Jambi and South Sumatera. They are around 200 000 people. Suku Kerinci people mostly live in Kabupaten Kerinci, Jambi. They are around 300 000 people


title: Matrilineality

text: Originally, Chinese surnames were derived matrilineally, although by the time of the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 BCE) they had become patrilineal.


title: Matrilineality

text: Archaeological data supports the theory that during the Neolithic period (7000 to 2000 BCE) in China, Chinese matrilineal clans evolved into the usual patrilineal families by passing through a transitional patrilineal clan phase. Evidence includes some "richly furnished" tombs for young women in the early Neolithic Yangshao culture, whose multiple other collective burials imply a matrilineal clan culture. Toward the late Neolithic period, when burials were apparently of couples, "a reflection of patriarchy", an increasing elaboration of presumed chiefs' burials is reported.


title: Matrilineality

text: Relatively isolated ethnic minorities such as the Mosuo (Na) in southwestern China are highly matrilineal. (See several sections of the Mosuo article.)


title: Matrilineality

text: On North Vietnam, according to Alessandra Chiricosta, the legend of Âu Cơ is said to be evidence of "the presence of an original 'matriarchy' ... and [it] led to the double kinship system, which developed there ... [and which] combined matrilineal and patrilineal patterns of family structure and assigned equal importance to both lines."


title: Matrilineality

text: Of communities recognized in the national Constitution as Scheduled Tribes, "some ... [are] matriarchal and matrilineal" "and thus have been known to be more egalitarian." Several Hindu communities in South India practiced matrilineality, especially the Nair (or "Nayar") and Tiyyas in the state of Kerala, and the Bunts and Billava in the states of Karnataka. The system of inheritance was known as Marumakkathayam in the "Nair" community or Aliyasantana in the "Bunt" and the "Billava" community, and both communities were subdivided into clans. This system was exceptional in the sense that it was one of the few traditional systems in western historical records of India that gave women some liberty and the right to property.


title: Matrilineality

text: In the matrilineal system, the family lived together in a tharavadu which was composed of a mother, her brothers and younger sisters, and her children. The oldest male member was known as the "karanavar" and was the head of the household, managing the family estate. Lineage was traced through the mother, and the children belonged to the mother's family. In earlier days, surnames would be of the maternal side. All family property was jointly owned. In the event of a partition, the shares of the children were clubbed with that of the mother. The karanavar's property was inherited by his sisters' sons rather than his own sons. (For further information see the articles Nair and Bunts and Billava.) Amitav Ghosh has stated that, although there were numerous other matrilineal succession systems in communities of the south Indian coast, the Nairs "achieved an unparalleled eminence in the anthropological literature on matrilineality".


title: Matrilineality

text: In the northeast Indian state Meghalaya, the Khasi, Garo, Jaintia people have a long tradition of a largely matrilinear system in which the youngest daughter inherits the wealth of the parents and takes over their care.


title: Matrilineality

text: A culture similar to the those practiced by the "Minangkabau" as a product of West Sumatran migration into the Malay peninsula in the 15th century becoming the basis for the state of Negeri Sembilan known as the Adat Perpatih.


title: Matrilineality

text: Matrilineality was occasionally practiced by mainstream Sorani, Zaza, Feyli, Gorani, and Alevi Kurds, though the practice was much rarer among non-Alevi Kurmanji-speaking Kurds.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Mangur clan of the, Culturally, Mokri tribal confederation and, politically, Bolbas Federation is an enatic clan, meaning members of the clan can only inherit their mothers last name and are considered to be a part of the mothers family. The entire Mokri tribe may have also practiced this form of enaticy before the collapse of their emirate and its direct rule from the Iranian or Ottoman state, or perhaps the tradition started because of depopulation in the area due to raids.


title: Matrilineality

text: Some oceanic societies, such as the Marshallese and the Trobrianders, the Palauans, the Yapese and the Siuai, are characterized by matrilineal descent. The sister's sons or the brothers of the decedent are commonly the successors in these societies.


title: Matrilineality

text: Matrilineality in Judaism or matrilineal descent in Judaism is the tracing of Jewish descent through the maternal line. Close to all Jewish communities have followed matrilineal descent from at least early Tannaitic (c. 10-70 CE) times through modern times.


title: Matrilineality

text: The origins and date-of-origin of matrilineal descent in Judaism are uncertain. Orthodox Jews, who believe that matrilineality and matriarchy within Judaism are related to the metaphysical concept of the Jewish soul, maintain that matrilineal descent is an Oral Law from at least the time of the Receiving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai (c. 1310 BCE). Conservative Jewish Theologian Rabbi Louis Jacobs suggests that the marriage practices of the Jewish community were re-stated as a law of matrilineal descent in the early Tannaitic Period (c. 10-70 CE).


title: Matrilineality

text: The law of matrilineal descent was first codified, as all Jewish Oral Law, in the Mishnah (c. 2nd century CE). The Talmud (c. 500 CE) adduces the law of matrilineal descent from Deuteronomy: You shall not intermarry with them: you shall not give your daughter to his son, and you shall not take his daughter for your son. For he will turn away your son from following Me, and they will worship the gods of others... Conservative Jewish Theologian Rabbi Louis Jacobs dismisses the suggestion that "the Tannaim were influenced by the Roman legal system..." and that "even if the Rabbis were familiar with the Roman law, they might have reacted to it [instead] by preserving the patrilineal principle, holding fast to their own system."


title: Matrilineality

text: The Jewish Oral Tradition cites the Book of Ezra, Chapters 9, 10, regarding the law of matrilineal descent in Judaism. The medieval French commentator, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (1040-1105 CE), in his commentary on Prophets references the law of matrilineal descent regarding Tamar, daughter of King David. Maimonides re-codified the law of matrilineal descent in his compilation of Jewish Law, Mishneh Torah (c. 1170-1180 CE). The law of matrilineal descent was again re-codified in the Code of Jewish Law, Shulchan Aruch (1563 CE), without mention of any dissenting opinion.


title: Matrilineality

text: The Hellenized Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (c. 20 BCE – 50 CE) calls the child of a Jew and a non-Jew a "nothos" (bastard), regardless of whether the non-Jewish parent is the father or the mother.


title: Matrilineality

text: While Flavius Josephus (c. 37-100 CE), the Romanized Jewish historian, writing about events that were alleged to have occurred a century prior, has Antigonus II Mattathias (c. 63-37 BCE), the last Hasmonean king of Judea, denigrating Herod –whose father's family were Idumean Arabs forcibly converted to Judaism by John Hyrcanus (c. 134-104 BCE) and whose mother, according to Josephus, was either an Idumean Arab or Arabian (Nabatean Arab)– by referring to him as "an Idumean i.e. a half-Jew" and as therefore unfit to be given governorship of Judea by the Romans.


title: Matrilineality

text: In practice, Jewish denominations define "Who is a Jew?" via descent in different ways. All denominations of Judaism have protocols for conversion for those who are not Jewish by descent.


title: Matrilineality

text: Orthodox Judaism practices matrilineal descent and considers it axiomatic. The Conservative Jewish Movement also practices matrilineal descent as virtually all Jewish communities have for at least two thousand years. In 1986, the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly reiterated the commitment of the Conservative Movement to the practice of matrilineal descent.


title: Matrilineality

text: In 1983, the Central Conference of American Rabbis of Reform Judaism passed a resolution waiving the need for formal conversion for anyone with at least one Jewish parent, provided that either (a) one is raised as a Jew, by Reform standards, or (b) one engages in an appropriate act of public identification, formalizing a practice that had been common in Reform synagogues for at least a generation. This 1983 resolution departed from the Reform Movement's previous position requiring formal conversion to Judaism for children without a Jewish mother. However, the closely associated Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism has rejected this resolution and requires formal conversion for anyone without a Jewish mother.


title: Matrilineality

text: Karaite Judaism does not accept Jewish Oral Law as definitive, believing that all divine commandments were recorded with their plain meaning in the written Torah. As such, they interpret the Hebrew Bible to indicate that Jewishness can only follow patrilineal descent.


title: Matrilineality

text: In 1968, the Reconstructionist movement became the first American Jewish movement to pass a resolution recognizing Jews of patrilineal descent.


title: Matrilineality

text: Certain ancient myths have been argued to expose ancient traces of matrilineal customs that existed before historical records.


title: Matrilineality

text: The ancient historian Herodotus is cited by Robert Graves in his translations of Greek myths as attesting that the Lycians of their times "still reckoned" by matrilineal descent, or were matrilineal, as were the Carians.


title: Matrilineality

text: In Greek mythology, while the royal function was a male privilege, power devolution often came through women, and the future king inherited power through marrying the queen heiress. This is illustrated in the Homeric myths where all the noblest men in Greece vie for the hand of Helen (and the throne of Sparta), as well as the Oedipian cycle where Oedipus weds the recently widowed queen at the same time he assumes the Theban kingship.


title: Matrilineality

text: This trend also is evident in many Celtic myths, such as the (Welsh) mabinogi stories of Culhwch and Olwen, or the (Irish) Ulster Cycle, most notably the key facts to the Cúchulainn cycle that Cúchulainn gets his final secret training with a warrior woman, Scáthach, and becomes the lover of her daughter; and the root of the Táin Bó Cuailnge, that while Ailill may wear the crown of Connacht, it is his wife Medb who is the real power, and she needs to affirm her equality to her husband by owning chattels as great as he does.


title: Matrilineality

text: A number of other Breton stories also illustrate the motif. Even the King Arthur legends have been interpreted in this light by some. For example, the Round Table, both as a piece of furniture and as concerns the majority of knights belonging to it, was a gift to Arthur from Guinevere's father Leodegrance.


title: Matrilineality

text: Arguments also have been made that matrilineality lay behind various fairy tale plots which may contain the vestiges of folk traditions not recorded.


title: Matrilineality

text: For instance, the widespread motif of a father who wishes to marry his own daughter—appearing in such tales as "Allerleirauh", "Donkeyskin", "The King who Wished to Marry His Daughter", and "The She-Bear"—has been explained as his wish to prolong his reign, which he would lose after his wife's death to his son-in-law. More mildly, the hostility of kings to their daughter's suitors is explained by hostility to their successors. In such tales as "The Three May Peaches", "Jesper Who Herded the Hares", or "The Griffin", kings set dangerous tasks in an attempt to prevent the marriage.


title: Matrilineality

text: Fairy tales with hostility between the mother-in-law and the heroine—such as "Mary's Child", "The Six Swans", and Perrault's Sleeping Beauty—have been held to reflect a transition between a matrilineal society, where a man's loyalty was to his mother, and a patrilineal one, where his wife could claim it, although this interpretation is predicated on such a transition being a normal development in societies.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: The twelfth season of the American television medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" was ordered on May 7, 2015, by ABC. It premiered on September 24, 2015, in the United States on ABC. The twelfth season includes the show's 250th episode, "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", which is the fifth episode of the season. The season is produced by ABC Studios, in association with Shondaland Production Company and The Mark Gordon Company; the showrunners being Stacy McKee and William Harper. The season commenced airing with the premiere episode "Sledgehammer" and concluded with the finale episode "Family Affair".


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: This season was the first not to feature Patrick Dempsey as Dr. Derek Shepherd following the death of the character at the end of the eleventh season. On June 5, 2015 ABC announced that Jason George has been promoted to series-regular status after having performed a recurring role as Dr. Ben Warren since the sixth season of the medical drama. Part way into the season, Martin Henderson was introduced as new regular character, Dr. Nathan Riggs. In the tenth episode of the season, Giacomo Gianniotti was also promoted to series-regular status as intern Andrew DeLuca.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: The season garnered 11.21 million average viewers and was ranked #21 overall in total viewers which is 15 spots higher than the previous season. TV critics and analysts noted the renewed interest in viewership with Rich Kissell of "Variety" calling it a 'renaissance.' "Grey's Anatomy" finished the 2015–16 television season as ABC's highest-rated drama in the 18-49 demographics and also ranked among the top 5 dramas on all of broadcast, averaging a 3.9 rating in the demo, an unprecedented accomplishment for a show in its 12th season. On March 3, 2016, the network renewed "Grey's Anatomy" for a thirteenth season.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: The number in the "No. overall" column refers to the episode's number within the overall series, whereas the number in the "No. in season" column refers to the episode's number within this particular season. "U.S. viewers in millions" refers to the number of Americans in millions who watched the episodes live. Each episode of this season is named after a song.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: On May 7, 2015, ABC renewed "Grey's Anatomy" for a twelfth season for the 2015-16 television season. ABC president Paul Lee confirmed that the twelfth season would not be the final season, as he said "I would like to see it run for many, many years to come. It is powerful, vibrant brand with incredibly passionate audiences" Debbie Allen was promoted to executive producer for the twelfth season, and directed multiple episodes for the season while still recurring on camera as Dr. Catherine Avery. Production began on May 21, 2015, when Rhimes announced on Twitter that the writers were in full swing mapping the twelfth season. A promotional poster was released on September 16, 2015.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: The season included the 250th episode named "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", being the fifth episode. The cast of "Grey's Anatomy" had a special celebration for the 250th episode of the show with several actors sharing the celebration on Twitter on September 15, 2015. Jessica Capshaw revealed that the episode included her favorite scene so far in the season. Because of the annual Halloween television special "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", the twelfth season had a hiatus on October 29, 2015 following the 250th episode.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: The remaining fall schedule for ABC was announced on November 16, 2015 where it was announced that "Grey's Anatomy" would air 8 episodes in the fall with the fall finale to air on November 19, 2015, just like the rest of ABC's primetime lineup "TGIT" "Scandal" and "How to Get Away with Murder", which was the same last year. The remaining 16 episodes will air after the winter break, beginning on February 11, 2016, and ending on May 19, 2016, as a result of ABC airing the television miniseries "Madoff" over 2 nights on February 3–4, 2016 in the same time-slot as "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scandal". On March 3, 2016, ABC announced that "Grey's Anatomy" was renewed for a 13th season.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: Regarding the death of Dr. Derek Shepherd, showrunner Shonda Rhimes commented on how future seasons would be affected by the death as she said: "Now, Meredith and the entire "Grey’s Anatomy" family are about to enter uncharted territory as we head into this new chapter of her life. The possibilities for what may come are endless. As Ellis Grey would say: the carousel never stops turning."


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: During an interview with" TVLine", Shonda Rhimes said that the twelfth season will take "a much lighter tone" in the wake of Derek's death. She continued talking about Meredith's evolvement as she said "Meredith is single, and she is living this life that she’s never thought she’d be living again. She’s living in a house with her sisters. She’s surrounded by women who are dating and having a whole life, and she’s not interested in all that. [Meredith is] starting to wonder is there a second life here or are your best years behind you? I guess the theme [of Season 12] is rebirth. That evolution for that character is beautiful".


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: On January 23, 2014, it was reported that Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey had renewed their contracts for another 2 seasons, as Drs. Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd, respectively, meaning their characters would be staying on the medical drama for seasons 11 and 12. On April 24, 2015, Patrick Dempsey revealed that he would be leaving "Grey's Anatomy" after the eleventh season despite having a contract through another season. Thus, this will be the first season in which Dr. Derek Shepherd, portrayed by Patrick Dempsey, is not included in the main cast of characters. Dempsey's character Dr. Derek Shepherd was killed off towards the end of the eleventh season in the episode "How to Save a Life", meaning he will not return for the twelfth season as previously thought. ABC put out a statement claiming Dempsey wanted to pursue other interests.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: On May 2, 2014, the rest of the 6 original cast mates, Justin Chambers, Chandra Wilson and James Pickens Jr., excluding Sandra Oh, renewed their contracts for another two seasons (11 and 12) as Drs. Alex Karev, Miranda Bailey, and Richard Webber, respectively. Sara Ramirez also renewed her contract for another 2 seasons as Dr. Callie Torres, which will run out after the twelfth season. However, it was later announced on May 20, 2016 that Sara Ramirez, who portrayed Callie Torres for 10 seasons, would leave "Grey's". Chambers announced on March 11, 2016, on Twitter that he will return as Dr. Alex Karev for the 13th season.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: On June 5, 2015, it was announced that after several seasons of being a recurring role, Jason George was upgraded to a series-regular. It was announced on June 15, 2015, that Martin Henderson, who played a doctor on the ShondaLand produced show "Off the Map", would be added as a series-regular for the twelfth season. He will make his debut in the middle of the season, according to Rhimes. On June 28, 2015, it was announced that Jessica Capshaw, whose contract expired after Season 11, had renewed her contract for another 3 seasons as Dr. Arizona Robbins. This means that her character will be staying on the show through seasons 12 as well as possible seasons 13 and 14.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: It was announced on September 11, 2015 that "Chasing Amy" actress Joey Lauren Adams would guest star as Dr. Tracy McConnell, Dr. Bailey's opponent for Chief of Surgery, and appeared in the season premiere. TV veteran Bill Smitrovich was announced on November 12, 2015, to guest star as a therapist in the tenth episode of the season. After appearing as Dr. Andrew DeLuca as a guest-star in the first eight episodes, Giacomo Gianniotti was upgraded to a series-regular on January 8, 2016. It was announced on January 8, 2016 that Maya Stojan will appear in 1 episode as a guest-star which later turned out to be Jackson's patient Tatiana whom he treated over several years. On February 26, 2016, it was announced that Casey Wilson and Rita Moreno would both guest star in episode 14 of the season. "Variety" announced on March 8, 2016, that Wilmer Valderrama was cast as Kyle Diaz, a recurring role which he will play in a multi-episode arc.


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: The season marked the last appearance for long-time cast member Sara Ramirez who played Dr. Callie Torres on the series since 2006. Her character was involved in a custody battle with ex-wife Dr. Arizona Robbins, played by Jessica Capshaw, which led to the former's move to New York from Seattle. On May 19, in a note posted on Twitter after the season finale, Ramirez wrote that she was “taking some welcome time off.” Rhimes replied to the tweet by saying, “I will miss Callie tremendously, but am excited for what the future holds for Sara. She will always have a home at Shondaland.” Later, speaking at the Vulture Festival in New York City on May 22, Rhimes, told that she didn't know that Ramirez was leaving until they had shot the finale. She addressed Callie's send-off and said, “This one was different because it wasn’t a big planned thing, I had a different plan going and when Sara came in and said, ‘I really need to take this break,’ I was lucky that we’d shot the end of the season with her going to New York.”


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: Prepping for the season began on July 13, 2015. The table read for the premiere was on July 15, 2015. Filming began on July 22, 2015. Two-time Academy Awards winner Denzel Washington was announced by "TVLine" to direct the ninth episode of the season, which will be Washington's first go at directing television. He previously directed the films "Antwone Fisher" and "The Great Debaters ".


title: Grey's Anatomy (season 12)

text: "NPR" listed "Grey's Anatomy" as #7 on their list of the best television of 2015. "A.V. Club"'s Caroline Siede described the twelfth season of "Grey's Anatomy" as "phenomenal", stating that the series underwent a "powerful renaissance this year". A final grade of A− was given to the season.


title: Caleb

text: Caleb (), sometimes transliterated as Kaleb (, "Kalev", ; Tiberian vocalization: Kālēḇ; Hebrew Academy: Kalev), is a figure who appears in the Hebrew Bible as a representative of the Tribe of Judah during the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land.


title: Caleb

text: A reference to him is also found in the Quran, although his name is not mentioned (Al-Ma'idah: 20-26).


title: Caleb

text: According to "The Jewish Encyclopedia", "since 'Caleb' signifies dog, it has been thought that the dog was the totem of a clan". The New American Standard Exhaustive Concordance states that the name "Kaleb" (Caleb) is related to the word for "dog" (). The Bible was written down centuries before Hebrew diacritics were introduced, and there is no certain knowledge of how the name was pronounced when the biblical text was written.


title: Caleb

text: In Modern Hebrew, the name is pronounced ; the modern English pronunciation is a result of the Great Vowel Shift.


title: Caleb

text: An alternate Hebrew meaning offered for "Caleb" is "faithful, zealous, ruthless, bold, brave". This is on the basis of its being actually a compound word, a phenomenon quite common in ancient Hebrew. "Col" (, Kaf + Lamed) = "all" or "whole"; "Lev" (, Lamed + Bet) means "heart". Therefore, Caleb (or Calev as pronounced in Hebrew) would actually mean "whole-hearted" or "single-minded" or perhaps "fanatical". This might be due to the personal qualities of the Biblical Caleb, a companion of Moses and Joshua.


title: Caleb

text: Caleb, son of Jephunneh (Book of Numbers, ) is not to be confused with Caleb, great-grandson of Judah through Tamar (). This other Caleb was the son of Hezron, and his wife was Azubah ().


title: Caleb

text: According to , Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, was one of the twelve spies sent by Moses into Canaan. Their task, over a period of 40 days, was to explore the Negev and surrounding area, and to make an assessment of the geographical features of the land, the strength and numbers of the population, the agricultural potential and actual performance of the land, settlement patterns (whether their cities were like camps or strongholds), and forestry conditions. Moses also asked them to be courageous and to return with samples of local produce.


title: Caleb

text: In the Numbers 13 listing of the heads of each tribe, reads "Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh." Caleb's report balanced the appeal of the land and its fruits with the challenge of making a conquest.


title: Caleb

text: Caleb the spy is the son of Jephunneh. Jephunneh is called a Kenizzite (, ,). The Kenizzites are listed as one of the nations associated with the land of Canaan at the time that God made a covenant with Abraham (). However, Caleb is mentioned alongside the descendants of Judah recorded in : "And the sons of Caleb the son of Jephunneh: Iru, Elah, and Naam; and the sons of Elah: Kenaz" (). , likewise, lists Caleb as a tribal leader in Judah. Contrarily, The Kenizzites are also generally associated with Kenaz, the son of Esau, making them an Edomite clan (see ).


title: Caleb

text: In the aftermath of the conquest, Caleb asks Joshua to give him a mountain in property within the land of Judah, and Joshua blesses him as a sign of God's blessing and approval, giving him Hebron (). Since Hebron itself was one of the Cities of Refuge to be ruled by the Levites, it is later explained that Caleb actually was given the outskirts (). Caleb promised his daughter Achsah in marriage to whomever would conquer the land of Debir from the giants. This was eventually accomplished by Othniel Ben Kenaz, Caleb's nephew (), who became Caleb's son-in-law as well ().


title: Caleb

text: 1 Samuel states that Nabal, the husband of Abigail before David, was "a Calebite" (Hebrew "klby"). It is not stated whether this refers to one of the Calebs mentioned in the Bible, or another person bearing the same name.


title: Caleb

text: Traditional Jewish sources record a number of stories about Caleb which expand on the biblical account.


title: Caleb

text: One account records that Caleb wanted to bring produce from the land, but that the other spies discouraged him from doing so in order to avoid giving the Israelites a positive impression of Canaan. They only agreed to carry in samples of produce after Caleb brandished a sword and threatened to fight over the matter. A Midrash refers to Caleb being devoted to the Lord and to Moses, splitting from the other scouts to tour Hebron on his own and visit the graves of the Patriarchs. While in Canaan with the spies, Caleb's voice was so loud that he succeeded in saving the other spies by frightening giants away from them.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bishops. Those of the Anglican, Church of the East, Eastern Orthodox, Hussite, Moravian, Old Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Scandinavian Lutheran traditions maintain that "a bishop cannot have regular or valid orders unless he has been consecrated in this apostolic succession". These traditions do not always consider the episcopal consecrations of all of the other traditions as valid.


title: Apostolic succession

text: This series was seen originally as that of the bishops of a particular see founded by one or more of the apostles. According to historian Justo L. González, apostolic succession is generally understood today as meaning a series of bishops, regardless of see, each consecrated by other bishops, themselves consecrated similarly in a succession going back to the apostles. According to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, "apostolic succession" means more than a mere transmission of powers. It is succession in a church which witnesses to the apostolic faith, in communion with the other churches, witnesses of the same apostolic faith. The "see ("cathedra") plays an important role in inserting the bishop into the heart of ecclesial apostolicity", but, once ordained, the bishop becomes in his church the guarantor of apostolicity and becomes a successor of the apostles.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Those who hold for the importance of apostolic succession via episcopal laying on of hands appeal to the New Testament, which, they say, implies a personal apostolic succession (from Paul to Timothy and Titus, for example). They appeal as well to other documents of the early Church, especially the Epistle of Clement. In this context, Clement explicitly states that the apostles appointed bishops as successors and directed that these bishops should in turn appoint their own successors; given this, such leaders of the Church were not to be removed without cause and not in this way. Further, proponents of the necessity of the personal apostolic succession of bishops within the Church point to the universal practice of the undivided early Church (up to AD 431), before it was divided into the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Some Protestants deny the need for this type of continuity, and the historical claims involved have been severely questioned by them; Anglican academic Eric G. Jay comments that the account given of the emergence of the episcopate in Chapter III of the dogmatic constitution "Lumen gentium" (1964) "is very sketchy, and many ambiguities in the early history of the Christian ministry are passed over".


title: Apostolic succession

text: Michael Ramsey, an English Anglican bishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury (1961–1974), described three meanings of "apostolic succession":


title: Apostolic succession

text: He adds that this last has been controversial in that it has been claimed that this aspect of the doctrine is not found before the time of Augustine of Hippo, while others allege that it is implicit in the Church of the second and third centuries.


title: Apostolic succession

text: In its 1982 statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches stated that "the primary manifestation of apostolic succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole. ... Under the particular historical circumstances of the growing Church in the early centuries, the succession of bishops became one of the ways, together with the transmission of the Gospel and the life of the community, in which the apostolic tradition of the Church was expressed." It spoke of episcopal succession as something that churches that do not have bishops can see "as a sign, though not a guarantee, of the continuity and unity of the Church" and that all churches can see "as a sign of the apostolicity of the life of the whole church".


title: Apostolic succession

text: The Porvoo Common Statement (1996), agreed to by the Anglican churches of the British Isles and most of the Lutheran churches of Scandinavia and the Baltic, echoed the Munich (1982) and Finland (1988) statements of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church by stating that "the continuity signified in the consecration of a bishop to episcopal ministry cannot be divorced from the continuity of life and witness of the diocese to which he is called."


title: Apostolic succession

text: Some Anglicans, in addition to other Protestants, held that apostolic succession "may also be understood as a continuity in doctrinal teaching from the time of the apostles to the present". For example, the British Methodist Conference locates the "true continuity" with the Church of past ages in "the continuity of Christian experience, the fellowship in the gift of the one Spirit; in the continuity in the allegiance to one Lord, the continued proclamation of the message; the continued acceptance of the mission".


title: Apostolic succession

text: According to International Theological Commission (ITC), conflicts could not always be avoided between individuals among the New Testament communities; Paul appealed to his apostolic authority when there was a disagreement about the Gospel or principles of Christian life. How the development of apostolic government proceeded is difficult to say accurately because of the paucity of relevant documents. ITC says that the apostles or their closest assistants or their successors directed the local colleges of "episkopoi" and "presbyteroi" by the end of the first century; while by the beginning of the second century the figure of a single bishop, as the head of the communities, appears explicitly in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch ( 35-107). In the "Epistle to the Smyrnaeans", Ignatius wrote about three degrees ministry:


title: Apostolic succession

text: See that you all follow the "bishop", even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the "presbytery" as you would the apostles; and reverence the "deacons", as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Ramsey says that the doctrine was formulated in the second century in the first of the three senses given by him, originally as a response to Gnostic claims of having received secret teaching from Christ or the apostles; it emphasised the public manner in which the apostles had passed on authentic teaching to those whom they entrusted with the care of the churches they founded and that these in turn had passed it on to their successors. Ramsey argues that only later was it given a different meaning, a process in which Augustine (Bishop of Hippo Regis, 395–430) played a part by emphasising the idea of "the link from consecrator to consecrated whereby the grace of order was handed on".


title: Apostolic succession

text: Writing in about AD 94, Clement of Rome states that the apostles appointed successors to continue their work where they had planted churches and for these in their turn to do the same because they foresaw the risk of discord: "Our Apostles, too, by the instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ, knew that strife would arise concerning the dignity of a bishop; and on this account, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed the above-mentioned as bishops and deacons: and then gave a rule of succession, in order that, when they had fallen asleep, other men, who had been approved, might succeed to their ministry." According to Anglican Eric G. Jay, the interpretation of his writing is disputed, but it is clear that he supports some sort of approved continuation of the ministry exercised by the apostles which in its turn was derived from Christ.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Hegesippus (180?) and Irenaeus (180) introduce explicitly the idea of the bishop's succession in office as a guarantee of the truth of what he preached in that it could be traced back to the apostles, and they produced succession lists to back this up. That this succession depended on the fact of ordination to a vacant see and the status of those who administered the ordination is seldom commented on. Woollcombe also states that no one questioned the apostolicity of the See of Alexandria despite the fact that its Popes were consecrated by the college of presbyters up till the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325. On the contrary, other sources clearly state that Mark the Evangelist is the first bishop of Alexandria (Pope of Alexandria), then he ordained Annianus as his successor bishop (2nd Pope) as told by Eusebius.


title: Apostolic succession

text: James F. Puglisi, director of Centro Pro Unione, made a conclusion about Irenaeus' writings: "the terms "episkopos" and "presbyteros" are interchangeable, but the term "episkopos" [bishop] is applied to the person who is established in every Church by the apostles and their successors". According to Eric G. Jay, Irenaeus also refers to a succession of presbyters who preserve the tradition "which originates from the apostles". and later goes on to speak of their having "an infallible gift of truth" ["charisma veritatis certum"]. Jay comments that this is sometimes seen as an early reference to the idea of the transmission of grace through the apostolic succession which in later centuries was understood as being specifically transmitted through the laying on of hands by a bishop within the apostolic succession (the "pipeline theory"). He warns that this is open to the grave objection that it makes grace a (quasi)material commodity and represents an almost mechanical method of imparting what is by definition a free gift. He adds that the idea cannot be squeezed out of Irenaeus' words.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Writing a little later, Tertullian makes the same main point but adds expressly that recently founded churches (such as his own in Carthage) could be considered apostolic if they had "derived the tradition of faith and the seeds of doctrine" from an apostolic church. His disciple, Cyprian (Bishop of Carthage 248–58) appeals to the same fundamental principle of election to a vacant see in the aftermath of the Decian Persecution when denying the legitimacy of his rigorist rival in Carthage and that of the anti-pope Novatian in Rome. The emphasis is now on legitimating Cyprian's episcopal ministry as a whole and specifically his exclusive right to administer discipline to the lapsed rather than on the content of what is taught. Cyprian also laid great emphasis on the fact that any minister who broke with the Church lost "ipso facto" the gift of the Spirit which had validated his orders. This meant that the minister would have no power or authority to celebrate an efficacious sacrament.


title: Apostolic succession

text: For the adherents of this understanding of apostolic succession, grace is transmitted during episcopal consecrations (the ordination of bishops) by the laying on of hands of bishops previously consecrated within the apostolic succession. They hold that this lineage of ordination derives from the Twelve Apostles, thus making the Church the continuation of the early Apostolic Christian community. They see it as one of four elements that define the true Church of Jesus Christ, and legitimize the ministry of its clergy, since only a bishop within the succession can perform valid ordinations and only bishops and presbyters (priests) ordained by bishops in the apostolic succession can validly celebrate (or "confect") several of the other sacraments, including the Eucharist, reconciliation of penitents, confirmation and anointing of the sick. Everett Ferguson argued that Hippolytus, in "Apostolic Tradition 9", is the first known source to state that only bishops have the authority to ordain; and normally at least three bishops were required to ordain another bishop. Cyprian also asserts that "if any one is not with the bishop, he is not in the church".


title: Apostolic succession

text: This position was stated by John Henry Newman, before his conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, in "Tracts for the Times":


title: Apostolic succession

text: We [priests of the Church of England] have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The Lord Jesus Christ gave His Spirit to His Apostles; they in turn laid their hands on those who should succeed them; and these again on others; and so the sacred gift has been handed down to our present bishops, who have appointed us as their assistants, and in some sense representatives. ... we must necessarily consider none to be ordained who have not been ordained.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Ferguson, in "Encyclopedia of Early Christianity", says that example of James and the elders (presbyters) of the Jerusalem Church (Acts 21:18) may have provided a model for the development of 'monepiscopacy', in which James' position has figured conspicuously in modern theories about the rise of the monepiscopacy. Raymond E. Brown says that in the earlier stage (before the third century and perhaps earlier) there were plural bishops or overseers ("presbyter-bishops") in an individual community; in the later stage changed to only one bishop per community. Little is known about how the early bishops were formally chosen or appointed; afterwards the Church developed a regularized pattern of selection and ordination of bishops, and from the third century on that was universally applied. Brown asserts that the ministry was not ordained by the Church to act on its own authority, but as an important part to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ and helps to make the Church what it is.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Raymond E. Brown also states that by the early second century, as written in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, in the threefold structure of the single bishop, plural presbyters, and plural deacons, the celebration of the Eucharist is assigned to the bishop alone; the bishop may delegate others when he goes away. At the Last Supper, Jesus says to those present, who were or included the Twelve Apostles, "Do this in remembrance of me," Brown presumes that the Twelve were remembered as presiding at the Eucharist. But they could scarcely have been present at all the Eucharists of the first century, and no information in New Testament whether a person was regularly assigned to do this task and, if so, who that person was. After all the Church regulated and regularized the celebration of the Eucharist, as that was an inevitable establishment if communities were to be provided regularly with the 'bread of life', since it could not rely on gratuitous provision.


title: Apostolic succession

text: According to William Griffith Thomas, some Protestants have objected that this theory is not explicitly found in Scripture, and the New Testament uses 'bishop' and 'presbyter' as alternative names for the same office. Michael Ramsey argued it is not clearly found in the writings of the Fathers before Augustine in the fourth century and there were attempts to read it back as implicit in earlier writers.


title: Apostolic succession

text: For example, C. K. Barrett points out that the Pastoral Epistles are concerned that ministers of the generation of Timothy and Titus should pass on the doctrine they had received to the third generation. According to Barrett, teaching and preaching are "the main, almost the only, activities of ministry". He argues that in Clement of Rome ministerial activity is liturgical: the undifferentiated 'presbyter-bishops' are to "make offerings to the Lord at the right time and in the right places" something which is simply not defined by the evangelists. He also mentions the change in the use of sacrificial language as a more significant still: for Paul the Eucharist is a receiving of gifts from God, the Christian sacrifice is the offering of one's body. Moving on to Ignatius of Antioch, Barrett states that a sharp distinction found between 'presbyter' and 'bishop': the latter now stands out as "an isolated figure" who is to be obeyed and without whom it is not lawful to baptise or hold a love-feast. He also points out that when Ignatius writes to the Romans, there is no mention of a bishop of the Roman Church, "which we may suppose had not yet adopted the monarchical episcopate". Jalland comes to a similar conclusion and locates the change from the "polyepiscopacy" of the house church model in Rome, to monepiscopacy as occurring before the middle of the second century.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Similar objections are voiced by Harvey who comments that there is a "strong and ancient tradition" that the presence of an ordained man is necessary for the celebration of the Eucharist. But, according to him, there is "certainly no evidence for this view in the New Testament" and in the case of Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch the implication is not that it be celebrated by anyone else, but that it not. Harvey says in the third century this "concern for propriety" begins to be displaced by the concept of 'power' to do so which means that in the absence of such a man it is "literally impossible" for a Eucharist to be celebrated.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Some Protestant denominations, not including Scandinavian Lutherans, Anglicans and Moravians, deny the need of maintaining episcopal continuity with the early Church, holding that the role of the apostles was that, having been chosen directly by Jesus as witnesses of his resurrection, they were to be the "special instruments of the Holy Spirit in founding and building up the Church". Anglican theologian E. A. Litton argues that the Church is "built upon 'the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles', but a foundation does not repeat itself"; therefore he says that when the apostles died, they were replaced by their writings. To share with the apostles the same faith, to believe their word as found in the Scriptures, to receive the same Holy Spirit, is to many Protestants the only meaningful "continuity". The most meaningful "apostolic succession" for them, then, is a "faithful succession" of apostolic teaching.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Max Thurian, before his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1988, described the classic Reformed/Presbyterian concept of apostolic succession in the following terms. "The Christian ministry is not derived from the people but from the pastors; a scriptural ordinance provides for this ministry being renewed by the ordination of a presbyter by presbyters; this ordinance originates with the apostles, who were themselves presbyters, and through them it goes back to Christ as its source.". Then he continued:


title: Apostolic succession

text: "it does not guarantee the continuity and faithfulness of the Church. A purely historical or mechanical succession of ministers, bishops or pastors would not mean "ipso facto" true apostolic succession in the church, Reformed tradition, following authentic Catholic tradition, distinguishes four realities which make up the true apostolic succession, symbolized, but not absolutely guaranteed, by ministerial succession." At the same time Thurian argued that the realities form a "composite faithfulness" and are (i) "perseverance in the apostolic doctrine"; (ii) "the will to proclaim God's word"; (iii) "communion in the fundamental continuity of the Church, the Body of Christ, the faithful celebration of Baptism and the Eucharist"; (iv) "succession in the laying on of hands, the sign of ministerial continuity".


title: Apostolic succession

text: According to Walter Kasper, the Reformed-Catholic dialogue came to belief that there is an apostolic succession which is important to the life of the Church, though both sides distinguish the meaning of that succession. Besides, the dialogue states that apostolic succession "consists at least in continuity of apostolic doctrine, but this is not in opposition to succession through continuity of ordained ministry". While the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue distinguishes between apostolic succession in faith (in substantive meaning) and apostolic succession as ministerial succession of bishops; agreed that "succession in the sense of the succession of ministers must be seen within the succession of the whole church in the apostolic faith".


title: Apostolic succession

text: The Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church asserts that apostolic succession means something more than just a transmission of authorities; it witnesses to the apostolic faith from the same apostolic faith, and in communion with other churches (attached to the apostolic communion). Apostolic tradition deals with the community, not only an ordained bishop as an isolated person. Since the bishop, once ordained, becomes the guarantor of apostolicity and successor of the apostles; he joins together all the bishops, thus maintaining "episkope" of the local churches derived from the college of the apostles.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Churches that claim some form of episcopal apostolic succession, dating back to the apostles or to leaders from the apostolic era, include:


title: Apostolic succession

text: The Anglican Communion and those Lutheran churches which claim apostolic succession do not specifically teach this but exclusively practice episcopal ordination. While some Anglicans claim it for their communion, their views are often nuanced and there is widespread reluctance to 'unchurch' Christian bodies which lack it.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Roman Catholics recognize the validity of the apostolic successions of the bishops, and therefore the rest of the clergy, of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East, and Polish National Catholic Church. The Orthodox generally recognize Roman Catholic clerical orders as being of apostolic lineage, but have a different concept of the apostolic succession as it exists outside the canonical borders of the Eastern Orthodox Church, extending the term only to bishops who have maintained communion, received ordination from a line of apostolic bishops, and preserved the catholic faith once delivered through the apostles and handed down as Holy Tradition. The lack of apostolic succession through bishops is the primary basis on which Protestant denominations (barring some like Anglicans and Old Catholics) are not called "churches", in the proper sense, by the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, the latter referring to them as "ecclesial communities" in the official documents of the Second Vatican Council.


title: Apostolic succession

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also claims apostolic succession. According to Latter-day Saint tradition, in 1829, Joseph Smith received the priesthood from a visit from heaven of Jesus' disciples Peter, James, and John. After its establishment, each subsequent prophet and leader of the church have received the authority passed down by the laying on of hands, or through apostolic succession. Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant Christians reject the claim that Smith possessed direct or indirect apostolic authority.


title: Apostolic succession

text: An early understanding of apostolic succession is represented by the traditional beliefs of various churches, as organised around important episcopal sees, to have been founded by specific apostles. On the basis of these traditions, the churches hold they have inherited specific authority, doctrines or practices on the authority of their founding apostle(s), which is understood to be continued by the bishops of the apostolic throne of the church that each founded and whose original leader he was. Thus:


title: Apostolic succession

text: Teachings on the nature of Apostolic Succession vary depending on the ecclesiastic body, especially within various Protestant denominations. Christians of the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church teach apostolic succession. Among the previously mentioned churches opinions vary as to the validity of succession within Old Catholic, Anglican, Moravian, and Lutheran communities.


title: Apostolic succession

text: In Catholic theology, the doctrine of apostolic succession is that the apostolic tradition – including apostolic teaching, preaching, and authority – is handed down from the college of apostles to the college of bishops through the laying on of hands, as a permanent office in the Church. Historically, this has been understood as a succession in office, a succession of valid ordinations, or a succession of the entire college. It is understood as a sign and guarantee that the Church, both local and universal, is in diachronic continuity with the apostles; a necessary but insufficient guarantor thereof.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Papal primacy is different though related to apostolic succession as described here. The Roman Catholic Church has traditionally claimed a unique leadership role for the Apostle Peter, believed to have been named by Jesus as head of the Apostles and as a focus of their unity, who became the first Bishop of Rome, and whose successors inherited the role and accordingly became the leaders of the worldwide Church as well. Even so, Roman Catholicism acknowledges the papacy is built on apostolic succession, not the other way around. As such, apostolic succession is a foundational doctrine of authority in the Catholic Church. Peter was succeeded by Linus, Linus by Clement, Clement by Anacletus, Anacletus by Evaristus..."The Roman Catholic position is summarised this way: "The Lord says to Peter: 'I say to you,’ he says, 'that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it ...’ On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep, and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity... If someone [today] does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?"


title: Apostolic succession

text: Roman Catholicism holds that Christ entrusted the Apostles with the leadership of the community of believers, and the obligation to transmit and preserve the "deposit of faith" (the experience of Christ and his teachings contained in the doctrinal "tradition" handed down from the time of the apostles and the written portion, which is Scripture). The apostles then passed on this office and authority by ordaining bishops to follow after them.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Roman Catholic theology holds that the apostolic succession effects the power and authority to administer the sacraments except for baptism and matrimony. (Baptism may be administered by anyone and matrimony by the couple to each other.) Authority to so administer such sacraments is passed on only through the sacrament of Holy Orders, a rite by which a priest is ordained (ordination can be conferred only by bishop). The bishop, of course, must be from an unbroken line of bishops stemming from the original apostles selected by Jesus Christ. Thus, apostolic succession is necessary for the valid celebration of the sacraments.


title: Apostolic succession

text: In the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIII stated in his 1896 bull "Apostolicae curae" that the Catholic Church believes specifically that Anglican orders were to be considered "absolutely null and utterly void".


title: Apostolic succession

text: His argument was as follows. First, the ordination rite of Edward VI had removed the language of a sacrificial priesthood. Ordinations using this new rite occurred for over a century and, because the restoration of the language of "priesthood" a century later in the ordination rite "was introduced too late, as a century had already elapsed since the adoption of the Edwardine Ordinal ... the Hierarchy had become extinct, there remained no power of ordaining." With this extinction of validly ordained bishops in England, "the true Sacrament of Order as instituted by Christ lapsed, and with it the hierarchical succession." As a result, the pope's final judgment was that Anglican ordinations going forward were to be considered "absolutely null and utterly void". Anglican clergy were from then on to be ordained as Roman Catholic priests upon entry into the Catholic Church.


title: Apostolic succession

text: A reply from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (1896) was issued to counter Pope Leo's arguments: "Saepius officio: Answer of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the Bull Apostolicae Curae of H. H. Leo XIII". They argued that if the Anglican orders were invalid, then the Roman orders were as well since the Pope based his case on the fact that the Anglican ordinals used did not contain certain essential elements but these were not found in the early Roman rites either. Catholics argue, this argument does not consider the sacramental intention involved in validating Holy Orders. In other words, Roman Catholics believe that the ordination rites were reworded so as to invalidate the ordinations because the intention behind the alterations in the rite was a fundamental change in Anglican understanding of the priesthood.


title: Apostolic succession

text: It is Roman Catholic doctrine that the teaching of "Apostolicae curae" is a truth to be "held definitively, but are not able to be declared as divinely revealed," as stated in a commentary by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Cardinal Basil Hume explained the conditional character of his ordination of Graham Leonard, former Anglican bishop of the Diocese of London, to the priesthood in the following way: "While firmly restating the judgement of "Apostolicae Curae" that Anglican ordination is invalid, the Roman Catholic Church takes account of the involvement, in some Anglican episcopal ordinations, of bishops of the Old Catholic Church of the Union of Utrecht who are validly ordained. In particular and probably rare cases the authorities in Rome may judge that there is a 'prudent doubt' concerning the invalidity of priestly ordination received by an individual Anglican minister ordained in this line of succession." At the same time, he stated: "Since the church must be in no doubt of the validity of the sacraments celebrated for the Roman Catholic community, it must ask all who are chosen to exercise the priesthood in the Catholic Church to accept sacramental ordination in order to fulfill their ministry and be integrated into the apostolic succession." Since "Apostolicae curae" was issued many Anglican jurisdictions have revised their ordinals, bringing them more in line with ordinals of the early Church.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Timothy Dufort, writing in "The Tablet" in 1982, attempted to present an ecumenical solution to the problem of how the Roman Catholic Church might accept Anglican orders without needing to formally repudiate "Apostolicae curae" at all. Dufort argued that by 1969 all Anglican bishops had acquired apostolic succession fully recognized by Rome, since from the 1930s Old Catholic bishops (the validity of whose orders the Vatican has never questioned) have acted as co-consecrators in the ordination of Anglican bishops. This view has not yet been considered formally by the Holy See, but after Anglican Bishop Graham Leonard converted to Roman Catholicism, he was only reordained in 1994 because of the presence of Old Catholic bishops at his ordination.


title: Apostolic succession

text: The question of the validity of Anglican orders has been further complicated by the Anglican ordination of women. In a document it published in July 1998, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that the Catholic Church's declaration on the invalidity of Anglican ordinations is a teaching that the church has definitively propounded and that therefore every Roman Catholic is required to give "firm and definitive assent" to this matter. This being said, in May 2017, Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, has asked whether the current Roman Catholic position on invalidity could be revised in the future.


title: Apostolic succession

text: While Eastern Orthodox sources often refer to the bishops as "successors of the apostles" under the influence of Scholastic theology, strict Orthodox ecclesiology and theology hold that all legitimate bishops are properly successors of Peter. This also means that presbyters (or "priests") are successors of the apostles. As a result, Orthodox theology makes a distinction between a geographical or historical succession and proper ontological or ecclesiological succession. Hence, the bishops of Rome and Antioch can be considered successors of Peter in a historical sense on account of Peter's presence in the early community. This does not imply that these bishops are more successors of Peter than all others in an ontological sense.


title: Apostolic succession

text: According to ancient canons still observed with the Orthodox communion, a bishop must be consecrated by at least three other bishops; so-called "single handed ordinations" do not exist. Moreover, bishops are never ordained "at large" but only for a specific Eucharist community, in due historical and sacramental succession.


title: Apostolic succession

text: The Eastern Orthodox have often permitted non-Orthodox clergy to be rapidly ordained within Orthodoxy as a matter of pastoral necessity and economia. Priests entering Eastern Orthodoxy from Oriental Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism have usually been received by "vesting" and have been allowed to function immediately within Eastern Orthodoxy as priests. Recognition of Roman Catholic orders by the Russian Orthodox Church was stipulated in 1667 by the Synod of Moscow, but this position is not universal within the Eastern Orthodox communion. For example, Fr. John Morris of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, states that "Apostolic Succession is not merely a historical pedigree, but also requires Apostolic Faith. This is because Apostolic Succession is not the private possession of a bishop, but is the attribute of a local Church. A bishop who goes in schism or is cast out of office due to heresy does not take his Apostolic Succession with him as a private possession." The validity of a priest's ordination is decided by each autocephalous Orthodox church.


title: Apostolic succession

text: The Armenian Apostolic Church, which is one of the Oriental Orthodox churches, recognises Roman Catholic episcopal consecrations without qualification.


title: Apostolic succession

text: In 1922 the Eastern Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople recognised Anglican orders as valid, holding that they carry "the same validity as the Roman, Old Catholic and Armenian churches possess". In the encyclical "From the Oecumenical Patriarch to the Presidents of the Particular Eastern Orthodox churches", Meletius IV of Constantinople, the Oecumenical Patriarch, wrote: "That the Orthodox theologians who have scientifically examined the question have almost unanimously come to the same conclusions and have declared themselves as accepting the validity of Anglican Orders." Following this declaration, in 1923, the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church of Cyprus agreed by "provisionally acceding that Anglican priests should not be re-ordained if they became Orthodox"; in 1936, the Romanian Orthodox Church "endorsed Anglican Orders". Historically, some Eastern Orthodox bishops have assisted in the consecration of Anglican bishops; for example, in 1870, the Most Reverend Alexander Lycurgus, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Syra and Tinos, was one of the bishops who consecrated Henry MacKenzie as the Suffragan Bishop of Nottingham.


title: Apostolic succession

text: Succeeding judgements have been more conflicting. The Eastern Orthodox churches require a totality of common teaching to recognise orders and in this broader view find ambiguities in Anglican teaching and practice problematic. Accordingly, in some parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican clergy who convert to Orthodoxy are reordained, rather than vested.


title: Apostolic succession

text: The Anglican Communion "has never officially endorsed any one particular theory of the origin of the historic episcopate, its exact relation to the apostolate, and the sense in which it should be thought of as God given, and in fact tolerates a wide variety of views on these points". Its claim to apostolic succession is rooted in the Church of England's evolution as part of the Western Church. Apostolic succession is viewed not so much as conveyed mechanically through an unbroken chain of the laying-on of hands, but as expressing continuity with the unbroken chain of commitment, beliefs and mission starting with the first apostles; and as hence emphasising the enduring yet evolving nature of the Church.


title: Apostolic succession

text: When Henry VIII broke away from the jurisdiction of Rome in 1533/4, the English Church () claimed the episcopal polity and apostolic succession inherent in its Roman Catholic past. Reformed theology gained a certain foothold, and under his successor, Edward VI what had been an administrative schism – as the Church under Henry was separated from Rome but remained essentially Roman Catholic in its theology and practice – became a reformation under the guiding hand of Thomas Cranmer. Although care was taken to maintain the unbroken sequence of episcopal consecrations – particularly in the case of Matthew Parker, who was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559 by two bishops who had been ordained in the 1530s with the Roman Pontifical and two ordained with the Edwardine Ordinal of 1550 – apostolic succession was not seen as a major concern that a true ministry could not exist without episcopal consecrations: English Reformers such as Richard Hooker rejected the Roman position that Apostolic Succession is divinely commanded or necessary for true Christian ministry. American Episcopal theologian Richard A. Norris argues that the ""foreign" Reformed [Presbyterian] churches" were genuine ones despite the lack of apostolic succession because they had been abandoned by their bishops at the Reformation. In very different ways both James II and William III of England made it plain that the Church of England could no longer count on the 'godly prince' to maintain its identity and traditions and the 'High Church' clergy of the time began to look to the idea of apostolic succession as a basis for the church's life. For William Beveridge (Bishop of St Asaph, 1704–8) the importance of this lay in the fact that Christ himself is "continually present at such imposition of hands; thereby transferring the same Spirit, which He had first breathed into His Apostles, upon others successively after them", but the doctrine did not really come to the fore until the time of the Tractarians.