apostolic succession

Doctrine in the Christian church that certain spiritual powers were received by the first apostles directly from Jesus, and have been handed down in the ceremony of ‘laying on of hands’ from generation to generation of bishops.

The Protestant churches rejected this doctrine at the Reformation, and formed new ministries of their own, on what were taken to be New Testament lines, which had no claim to an apostolic succession. The Church of England claims to possess the apostolic succession but leaves it an open question whether the ancient Catholic teaching on the apostolic succession is true or not.