“Apostolic Succession is not a claim that the bishops are new Apostles.”
Apostolic Succession is a claim that the bishops, priests, popes, etc. have authority over the church and its doctrine and that this authority was handed down to them in a continuous chain from the first Apostles.
As I showed from the Bible, this claim is untrue. Apostolic authority was vested in specific people who then became the source of New Testament scriptures from which we are able to receive clear and specific instruction with apostolic authority. This authority is not from man but from God’s word. Those who speak the words of God are backed by His authority. Those who speak from their own authority are false.
Apostolic Succession further claims that Rome is “greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul” (according to Catholic websites).
Paul and Peter did go to Rome and were martyred there, but they did not found or organize the church there. Paul wrote to the Roman church (the book of Romans) before he ever visited Rome. Further, Rome is spoken of symbolically in Revelation not for its lofty position over the church but for its great sin, iniquity, and bloodshed of believers. This was true of pagan Rome which killed Paul and Peter and many other believers. It was also true of religious Rome which killed Christians who challenged its false doctrines. And while I am unaware of any such murder being openly orchestrated by the Vatican today, the history of Rome certainly contradicts the claims of Apostolic succession being traced to Rome. Neither Paul nor Peter had any supposed heretics executed. They dealt with heresy by proclaiming the truth.
That message is where we can look for Apostolic authority rather than to a piece of real estate or to robed men who have never received signs of apostleship and have not seen the risen Christ. They have failed the tests which the Bible admonishes believers to use when responding to claims of apostolic authority.
For more than two hundreds years after the death of John of the Revelation, there were five bishoprics, each considered equal. Rome had one, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. It was only after the Roman Empire broke into two 'legs' that the Bishopric at Rome tried to make all the others subservient. The Bishop at Rome excommunicated the Bishop at Constantinople, and then the Bishop in Constantinople returned the favor. In 445 Leo I had the Emperor declare him the 'Primate of all Bishops'. Which lasted not too long because the Western leg of the Empire fell in 476. The Eastern leg outlasted the Western by 1000 years. Oddly, the conferences held in Constantinople, before the great schism, were conducted in Greek, not Latin.
Truth! Bless you!