Historical episcopate

The episcopate is the collective body of all the bishops of a church. The term is also used to refer to the status or term in office of an individual bishop.

The historical episcopate comprises all the bishops who are in valid apostolic succession. This succession is transmitted from each bishop to their successors by the rite of Holy Orders.

In the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic, Moravian, and Independent Catholic churches, the Anglican Communion, and the Assyrian Church of the East, it is held that only a person in apostolic succession, a line of succession of bishops dating back to the Apostles, can be a bishop, and only such a person can validly ordain Priests, deacons and bishops and validly celebrate the sacraments of the church.

The definition of the historic(al) episcopate is to some extent an open question by some. For example, Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America lay claim to the apostolic succession through the laying on of hands by bishops of the Episcopal Church, which is the U.S. Province of the Anglican Communion. Some theologians, such as R.J. Cooke, have argued that the Methodist Church is also within the historic episcopate, being "in direct succession to the apostles through the bishops and patriarchs of the Eastern Church".An Anglican-Methodist Covenant stated that

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