Jesse Delano Ellis II, known as J. Delano Ellis, is a leader in African-AmericanPentecostalism in the United States and is the founding President/Chairman and Archbishop Metropolitan of the Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops. Ellis is also the founder and former presiding prelate of the United Pentecostal Churches of Christ and presiding prelate of Pentecostal Churches of Christ. J. Delano Ellis began as a clergyman in the Church of God in Christ before being asked to lead a local congregation outside that denomination. He was the senior pastor of the Pentecostal Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio, a ministry to which he was called on May 14, 1989. His wife, Dr. Sabrina Ellis, currently serves as senior pastor after abdicating from ministry after 30 years of leadership. Ellis is widely known as a progenitor of unity among African-American Pentecostals. He has worked to introduce order, identity, and an appreciation of Christian history among Pentecostal churches. As a promoter of ecumenism, Ellis has put the Pentecostal movement as it is manifested among African-Americans in conversation with the broader Christian community around the world. The Apostolic Pastoral Congress, a British organization, derives succession from Ellis through Abp. Doye Agama.
Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops
The Joint College of African-American Pentecostal Bishops, simply the Joint College of Bishops, is an ecumenical college established by J. Delano Ellis, Wilbert Sterling McKinley, Roy Edward Brown, and Paul S. Morton in November 1993. The Joint College of Bishops originally functioned as a High Church Pentecostal body, later expanding into other Protestant traditions and the Convergence Movement. Unique among adherents of paleo-orthodoxy, members of the Joint College of Bishops are noted for redefining the meaning of Western Christian vestments. The Joint College of Bishops has also admitted and certified gay bishop O.C. Allen of the Vision Church of Atlanta.
Apostolic succession
In an Appendix to his book The Bishopric – a handbook on creating episcopacy in the African-American Pentecostal Church, Ellis claims both western and eastern streams of "apostolic succession" for himself and for United Pentecostal Churches of Christ, as summarized below.
Western stream
Ellis claims this succession via the Church of England, John Wesley, Thomas Coke, Francis Asbury, the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Church of God in Christ. The link from the Methodist Episcopal church is stated as being via three Church of God in Christ bishops, all of whom held "Holy Orders" from the Methodist Episcopal Church. Ellis also notes that in 1964 he had been ordained presbyter by Bishop Ozro Thurston Jones of the Church of God in Christ, and he notes his episcopal consecration in 1970 by Bishop Brumfield Johnson of the Mount Calvary Holy Church of America Incorporated of Boston, Massachusetts, with other Mount Calvary bishops assisting. His book cites no episcopal apostolic lineage for this 1970 consecration.
Eastern stream
This succession is traced from the Syro-Chaldean church in the East, via Archbishop Bertram S. Schlossbereg, archbishop-metropolitan of the Syro-Chaldean Church of North America, now known as the Evangelical Apostolic Church of North America. In 1995, Ellis states, the Evangelical Apostolic Church of North America entered into collegial fellowship with the United Pentecostal Churches of Christ. At a Holy Convocation of the United Pentecostal Churches of Christ, Bishop Robert Woodward Burgess II assisted at the consecration of a number of additional bishops. Archbishop Schlossberg and Bishop Burgess possess lineages from the Bishops Prazsky, and from Bishop Gaines converge in Schlossberg and Burgess, as well as numerous lineages deriving via Hugh George de Willmott Newman. In his book, Ellis mentions the Slavonic and Russian/Ukrainian lineages via the Prazskys and Gaines, but the only one of Newman's many lineages that he cites is the Syro-Chaldean.
