Lutheran Orthodox Church
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The Lutheran Orthodox Church is a very small Lutheran Church in valid Apostolic Succession. The Lutheran Orthodox Church does not consider itself a Protestant denomination, but rather an Evangelical Catholic denomination, in the same manner that Martin Luther considered himself and his followers. A more accurate description of this denomination would appropriately be described as Catholic Church-Lutheran Rite.
The Lutheran Orthodox Church sprang from a controversy within the Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church(LEPC) over the issue of Apostolic Succession, which has since been reconciled. The LEPC traces its roots to the Reformation in Germany in the 1500s. The immediate history of The Lutheran Orthodox Church began in 2004 when several Bishops of The Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church, GCEPC were offered the privilege and opportunity to be consecrated in the valid Apostolic Succession by Bishops of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches. The process began in January of 2004 and culminated on July 11th, 2004 when LEPC Bishops Samuel Guido, and Raymond Copp, both from Pennsylvania, as well as Bishop Tan Binh Phan Nguyen, an ECCL Bishop from Atlanta, Georgia, were consecrated as Bishops in valid Apostolic Succession in a beautiful ceremony held in NYC. The main consecrator, Archbishop Bertil Persson, Primate of the Order of Corporate Reunion,and Presiding Bishop of The Apostolic Episcopal Church (Holy Eastern Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox) and serving as Missionary General Igreja Catolica Apostolica Brasileira, (Scandinavia), and Missionary General of The Philippine Independent Catholic Church, (Scandinavia and all of Europe), flew in from Sweden to conduct the ceremony, extending the lineage of Apostolic Succession to the Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church. Co-Consecrators were the Most Reverend Irl Gladfelter, Primate of The Evangelical Community Church-Lutheran, of Kansas City and The Most Reverend Peter Paul Brennan, of the Ecumenical Catholic Diocese of New York. Many other Bishops,including Archbishop Francis C.Spataro, of the Apostolic Episcopal Church, Bishop Paget James Mack, of the African Orthodox Church and Bishop Patrick E. Trujillo, to name a few, attended and extended their own lines of Apostolic Succession to these recipients.
