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Successors of the Apostles

APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION OF THE OLD CATHOLIC CONFEDERATION

Episcopal Lineage/Apostolic Succession of :

The Rt. Rev. Dr. Craig J. N. de Paulo

      

NOTES

 

* Through Archbishop Peter Brennan, whose Principal Consecrator to the holy Episcopate was Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo, Roman Catholic Archbishop Emeritus of Lusaka (Zambia), Bishop de Paulo's Episcopal lineage and Apostolic Sucession directly derives from St. Pope Paul VI. As such, Bishop de Paulo shares in the same episcopal lineage of ninety-five percent of all Roman Catholic bishops that derive from Scipione Cardinal Rebiba, who was consecrated in 1541.

 

Further, as the only Old Catholic bishop in the United States to have an Episcopal bishop participate in his Consecration for over one hundred years, Bishop de Paulo also holds lines of Apostolic Succession from the Anglican Communion (and he is the only U.S. Old-Catholic bishop to hold Historic Succession in the Episcopal Church of the United States) and from the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands of the Union of Utrecht (Polish National Catholic Church) through Bishop Rodney R. Michel (#928), then Assisting Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, who was de Paulo’s Principal Co-Consecrator. Bishop Michel’s Principal Consecrator was Bishop Edmund Browning (#630), then Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States. Bishop Browning’s Principal Co-Consecrator was Bishop Francis Carl Rowinski, who was then Prime Bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church (which, at the time, had full Communion with the Episcopal Church as a Member Church of the Union of Utrecht.) Bishop Rowinski's lineage comes directly from Bishop Franciszek Hodur, who was the founder and Prime Bishop of the Polish National Catholic Church, who was consecrated a Bishop by Archbishop Gerardus Gul, then Old Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht, on September 29, 1907, assisted by Bishop Jan Van Thiel of Haarlem and Bishop Peter Spitz of Deventer.

 

Thus, aside from the bishops of the Polish National Catholic Church, Bishop de Paulo is the only Old Catholic bishop in the United States with the same Episcopal Lineage as the Archbishop of Utrecht, deriving from Archbishop Gerardus Gul. 

 

**Having finished his term as Archbishop, Bishop de Paulo chose to return to the style of a bishop.

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