Specific Anglican tenets he singles out for attack include the Branch theory and the sacramental validity of Anglican ministry and holy orders.

---- Such assaults could be nipped in the bud, the orthodox believed, by insisting that the merit of the officiant was not the basis of sacramental validity.

The sacramental validity of the ordination is not recognised by the Roman Catholic Church, setting up a fundamental dispute between the Danube Seven and the Church.

While traditional teaching maintains that any bishop with apostolic succession can validly perform the ordination of another bishop, some churches require two or three bishops participate, either to ensure sacramental validity or to conform with church law.

This refusal of 'recognisation' was because the priests that Archbishop Milingo ordained were already 'married' and as such is classified in Canon Law as an 'Impediment' against receiving Orders, nothing however related to their Sacramental Validity which was clearly accepted subsequently by the Official Vatican Spokesmen.

In Western Christianity it has traditionally been taught, since as far back as the time of the Donatist controversy of the fourth and fifth centuries, that any bishop can consecrate any other baptised man as a bishop provided that the bishop observes the minimum requirements for the sacramental validity of the ceremony.