"Where the bishop appears, there let the people be"

Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to baptise or give communion without the consent of the bishop. On the other hand, whatever has his approval is pleasing to God. (St Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans)

St Ignatius of Antioch

For a while I owned the trade magazine for the religious publishing and retail industry here in the UK. After I sold it in 2002 I continued to write articles for the new owner. One rather daunting task was an extended round-up of titles on Church history - from the popular to the academic. With my growing awareness of the breadth of Christianity I made sure I included titles from Catholic and Orthodox perspectives and publishers.

In the extensive reading for preparation for the article I can remember being startled, ut somewhat encourage, by a number of things. The Real Presence in the Eucharist was there from the earliest post-Apostolic writers and, most importantly at that moment, the Episcopacy. My Christian formation up to this point was essentially Baptist - local Churches that are self-governing with a multiplicity of 'elders' governing the congregation. I had thought until recently at this point that this was the 'clear teaching' of Scripture. The evidence from the few generations after the apostles gave me considerable pause for thought.

In particular, the quote above from the early Church Father St Ignatius was light a lightening bolt that illuminated, initially briefly, the centrality of the Episcopacy for the validity of the Church. Without a Bishop there was no true Church, and no guarantee of the presence of Christ.

It took another eight years, and much more research, for this to form into a convinced belief in the importance of Apostolic succession. The implications of this became clear to me in 2011 but it took another eighteen months before I finally started to act on it.