Basileia traces its lineage in the Church back 2,000 years specifically to the apostles Peter, James the Just (the brother of the Lord) and John. Humanity is hardwired with a sense that even across time and space we are somehow connected with others in a shared eternal community. Therefore, individuals, families and entire cultures keep genealogical records. The Church calls this sense of continuity the Communion of Saints. In the Liturgy, for example, we actually connect across space and time with angels and archangels and the spirits of just men made perfect. Another way this sense of connection is made real and concrete is in the practice of Apostolic Succession, which began when Christ’s original apostles appointed bishops as their successors to teach, govern and ordain. These bishops in turn appointed bishops after them and so on, creating diverse lines of bishops that lead right up to the present day. The lines that converge in Basileia pass through 2,000 years of Celtic, Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican expressions of the Church. One line, for example, begins with the Apostle John who in A.D. 97 appointed Polycarp as Bishop of Smyrna. Polycarp in turn consecrated Pothines in A.D. 136, and then sent him to Moul, France where he became the first Bishop of Lyon. After Pothines was martyred, Irenaeus succeeded him. Skipping ahead in this line, the 33rd bishop from John, Aetherius, consecrated Augustine in A.D. 597 as the first Bishop of Canterbury. Leaping forward again, on February 4, 1787 the 86th bishop from Augustine, Bishop John Moore, consecrated William White as the first Bishop of Pennsylvania in a line of bishops that lead to Bishop William Paul Mikler who, in Colorado Springs, Colorado on December 29, 2004, ordained the founders of Basileia.
Also see the 47-page document, “The Apostolic Succession of William Paul Mikler,” and Communion of Saints.