Having said that, though, how do you think their ordination of females to the episcopate and presbyterate impacts this?
Currently their bishop of Lund is Christina Odenberg. She will be replaced by Antje Jackelén. Stockholm's bishop is Caroline Krook.
Do you see it as a matter of the female 'ordinations' as causing them to lose that distinction or as a matter of an eventual watering-down of the legitimacy?
"Do you see it as a matter of the female 'ordinations' as causing them to lose that distinction or as a matter of an eventual watering-down of the legitimacy?"
It is a violation of the canons of the One Church to ordain women beyond minor orders such as reader and likely some special form of the diaconate. Ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopacy is a clear violation. From my pov these women are not bishops and cannot ever become bishops, thus they are not within the Apostolic Succession or would any bishop consecrated by them. For that matter, one must also question the validity of the ordination of any priests ordained by them.
As to the male bishops within the Apostolic Succession who consecrated these women, well I don't think that their violation of the canons vitiates the Apostolic Succession. The history of the early Church is filled with bishops and patriarchs who were raging heretics but their position in the Apostolic Succession was never questioned nor to my knowledge the validity of the ordinations they performed before being anathemized as heretics. Even today we see vagante bishops running around ordaining people. The ordinands are certainly not ordained into the Church but there is clearly something there (absent an anathema/excommunication)even if it is uncanonical and irregular.
I do not see this as an internal problem as they have been properly consecrated; but it does create an ecumenical crisis parallel to the Anglican crisis over female Priests, Bishops, and now, a Primate.
There is a similar situation here in the US in that ELCA Bishop Carol S. Hendrix (ironically, one of the most conservative and tradionalist of all the synodical Bishops) was elevated to the episcopate following the provisions of the Called to Common Mission agreement with the Episcopal Church, so technically she is within the apostolic succession. At the time of her elevation the Roman Catholic Bishop of Harrisburg was Nicholas Datillo, and he simply could not even acknowledge her existence. Her predecessor, Guy S. Edmiston had been consecrated in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Not so for Bishop Hendrix. There is a new Bishop of Harrisburg so things have changed so greatly that in late May an ecumencial Vespers will be celebrated with Cardinal Keeler preaching and Bishop Hendrix officiating.
Complicated, not?