Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Legal judgement on the LCC/LCCI case now available online
The legal case between the two factions of the Liberal Catholic Church originated in 1946 but was not resolved in court until 1961. The judgement led to the separation of two distinct parts of the Liberal Catholic movement. As will be seen from the document, the judgement was unambiguously in favor of the entity known within the United States as the Liberal Catholic Church and outside it as the Liberal Catholic Church International, as then led by Presiding Bishop Edward M. Matthews.
Addendum to the Mathew-Willoughby Chronology
An addendum to the previously-discussed Mathew-Willoughby chronology by S. David Sandercock is now available.
Photographs of the consecration of +E. James Burton
S. David Sandercock has kindly sent a number of photographs of the consecration of Ernest James Burton (1908-96), late Regionary Bishop for Great Britain and Ireland (1971-78) of the Liberal Catholic Church. The consecrator was LCC Presiding Bishop Sir Hugh Sykes, Bt.
The photographs show the interior of the former St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, which was situated on London's Caledonian Road and has since been demolished.
The photographs show the interior of the former St Mary's Pro-Cathedral, which was situated on London's Caledonian Road and has since been demolished.
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Work on +J.S.M. Ward website advances
The website on the life and teachings of John Sebastian Marlow Ward (1885-1949), Archbishop of the Orthodox Catholic Church, by his son Bishop John Cuffe, has continued with the uploading of material concerning +Ward's theology, as well as a biography of his predecessor Archbishop Churchill Sibley and of the last of his priests, now Archbishop Peter Gilbert Strong.
+Ward was in his time one of the most important bishops representing the esoteric Independent Catholic tradition, and his life and work continue to have significant resonances for his many Apostolic descendants.
The website may be found at http://jsmward.tripod.com
+Ward was in his time one of the most important bishops representing the esoteric Independent Catholic tradition, and his life and work continue to have significant resonances for his many Apostolic descendants.
The website may be found at http://jsmward.tripod.com
Sunday, 2 November 2008
+Mathew-+Willoughby timeline by Fr. Gregory Tillett
In response to our post below (http://mathewcenter.blogspot.com/2007/12/ah-mathew-and-lcc-archives.html) concerning the controversy that surrounds the interpretation of the events leading up to the establishment of the Liberal Catholic Church, Father Gregory Tillett has kindly written to us sending a timeline based on his own research.
Fr. Gregory, who serves within the British Orthodox Church, has conducted research on the origins of the LCC (1915-20). This has established that the interpretation promoted by the Liberal Catholic Church as seen in the writings of Presiding Bishop +James Burton reproduced in the Mathew Center archive, is factually incorrect regarding the date of +Mathew's submission to the Vatican. The correct date is 19 December 1915, not 19 December 1914. This is confirmed by announcements in letters in “The Times” of 31 December, 1915 and in “The Tablet” on January 16, 1916.
Fr. Gregory cites in addition "Archbishop Mathew and the Old Roman Catholic Rite in England, Together with Some Notes on Subsequent Events", an unpublished manuscript by +Mathew's successor in the ORCCGB, +Bernard Mary Williams, a copy of which is in the archives of the British Orthodox Church. He says, "The Williams manuscript is most precise on all factual details and was based on the copies of the original documents that Williams had received from Mathew."
While the error made by +Burton might have its origin in a simple lapse of the pen and the subsequent compounding of that error in secondary sources, it seems more likely that its purpose was to reinforce the claim of the LCC to be the sole continuation of +Mathew's movement. The legend that +Mathew left his church and +Wedgwood and others carried it on must have been convenient for a number of reasons, but it has no historical basis in fact. This is shown among other things by the fact that +Wedgwood and the other Theosophists wrote letters of resignation - they would hardly have resigned from an organisation they were helping to maintain. On a doctrinal level, also, they were bound by the dogmatic constitution of the ORCCGB, which was hardly compatible with the basic tenets of Theosophy.
+Mathew seems more than likely to have tolerated the Theosophical interests of his clergy, and the fact that he was at the time in poverty and receiving aid from +Wedgwood should not be overlooked. It was the letter from Farrer that pointed out that the Theosophical Society was more important to him than the church that caused the eventual outcome.
We are most grateful to Fr. Gregory for his assistance. His timeline can be accessed at www.thedegree.org/csism.html.
Fr. Gregory, who serves within the British Orthodox Church, has conducted research on the origins of the LCC (1915-20). This has established that the interpretation promoted by the Liberal Catholic Church as seen in the writings of Presiding Bishop +James Burton reproduced in the Mathew Center archive, is factually incorrect regarding the date of +Mathew's submission to the Vatican. The correct date is 19 December 1915, not 19 December 1914. This is confirmed by announcements in letters in “The Times” of 31 December, 1915 and in “The Tablet” on January 16, 1916.
Fr. Gregory cites in addition "Archbishop Mathew and the Old Roman Catholic Rite in England, Together with Some Notes on Subsequent Events", an unpublished manuscript by +Mathew's successor in the ORCCGB, +Bernard Mary Williams, a copy of which is in the archives of the British Orthodox Church. He says, "The Williams manuscript is most precise on all factual details and was based on the copies of the original documents that Williams had received from Mathew."
While the error made by +Burton might have its origin in a simple lapse of the pen and the subsequent compounding of that error in secondary sources, it seems more likely that its purpose was to reinforce the claim of the LCC to be the sole continuation of +Mathew's movement. The legend that +Mathew left his church and +Wedgwood and others carried it on must have been convenient for a number of reasons, but it has no historical basis in fact. This is shown among other things by the fact that +Wedgwood and the other Theosophists wrote letters of resignation - they would hardly have resigned from an organisation they were helping to maintain. On a doctrinal level, also, they were bound by the dogmatic constitution of the ORCCGB, which was hardly compatible with the basic tenets of Theosophy.
+Mathew seems more than likely to have tolerated the Theosophical interests of his clergy, and the fact that he was at the time in poverty and receiving aid from +Wedgwood should not be overlooked. It was the letter from Farrer that pointed out that the Theosophical Society was more important to him than the church that caused the eventual outcome.
We are most grateful to Fr. Gregory for his assistance. His timeline can be accessed at www.thedegree.org/csism.html.
Saturday, 4 October 2008
Eucharistic Liturgy of the Catholic Apostolic Church now online
The first online version of the Eucharistic Liturgy of the Catholic Apostolic Church, commonly called Irvingites, has been published by the Center.
Edited by Mar Alexei of the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church, it draws principally on the 1899 published Liturgy.
Edited by Mar Alexei of the Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church, it draws principally on the 1899 published Liturgy.
Sunday, 17 August 2008
New book by Professor +Bertil Persson
In "Fight Against Sects: A Summarized Ideo-historical Study", Professor +Bertil Persson turns his attention to the issue of conflict against sects in the West. He writes, "It’s a great pleasure for me to bid you welcome to meet background, motives and tools for that fight against sects which above all have influenced Europe and in the extension the American Continent during the latest 2000 years.
The subject is next to inexhaustible. Is there a reason for fight against sects? If so, which are the criteria and who have the competence to decide the judgement? One of the goals with this study is to throw light over and impart a factual perspective on these questions. Another intention is to create awareness about those forces which consider themselves to have the monopoly on Knowledge and Truth and who from that assumption define sect and dedicate fight against sects. A third purpose is, in accordance with above quoted articles, to stand guard for the respect for and the trustworthiness to international documentary knowledge about Life, about man’s intrinsic value and about religious movements in history and in present time.
The book has the character of a collection of essays. The texts are abbreviated versions of articles which exist in manuscript for a forthcoming book, Emilsen, Ragnar & Persson Bertil, Andlighetens vägar i Sverige. En Handbok [The Ways of the Spirituality in Sweden. A Handbook]. Exceptions are the chapters ”That which we call God” and Religion which in an enlarged edition are published in Dialogue & Alliance. A Journal of the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace, Vol. 20, No.1 2006."
Of the book, Prof. Dr. Eliezer Glaubach-Gal of Jerusalem speaks highly. He says, "Fight Against Sects is a convincing masterpiece which may bring the reader close to a full understanding of the relentless attitudes towards some so-called sects and the right to be different. Thus the author lays before us a grand sweeping panorama of relevant information leading to a balanced outlook.
The author’s main goals are surely achieved through mediating true knowledge. Dr Persson has turned his scholarly exploration into a factual masterwork that should serve our modern society which is struggling to change certain religious patterns and behaviours.
This book resonates impressively with the United Nations’ principles and the European Union’s values such as respect for human dignity, freedom and democracy, the rule of law and the importance of human rights.
The author seeks to do justice to those religious communities whose intent it was to free society from oppressive attitudes and actions, and to enhance harmony for mankind.
He attempts to lead the reader to a more liberal understanding, which prevents one from automatically negating, denying or rejecting new and original ways of thinking."
The book is currently in pre-publication and will be available later this year. EAU will publicise details for ordering when they are available.
A pre-publication leaflet with useful information and a summary of contents can be downloaded from the Center homepage at www.thedegree.org/csism.html
The subject is next to inexhaustible. Is there a reason for fight against sects? If so, which are the criteria and who have the competence to decide the judgement? One of the goals with this study is to throw light over and impart a factual perspective on these questions. Another intention is to create awareness about those forces which consider themselves to have the monopoly on Knowledge and Truth and who from that assumption define sect and dedicate fight against sects. A third purpose is, in accordance with above quoted articles, to stand guard for the respect for and the trustworthiness to international documentary knowledge about Life, about man’s intrinsic value and about religious movements in history and in present time.
The book has the character of a collection of essays. The texts are abbreviated versions of articles which exist in manuscript for a forthcoming book, Emilsen, Ragnar & Persson Bertil, Andlighetens vägar i Sverige. En Handbok [The Ways of the Spirituality in Sweden. A Handbook]. Exceptions are the chapters ”That which we call God” and Religion which in an enlarged edition are published in Dialogue & Alliance. A Journal of the Inter-Religious Federation for World Peace, Vol. 20, No.1 2006."
Of the book, Prof. Dr. Eliezer Glaubach-Gal of Jerusalem speaks highly. He says, "Fight Against Sects is a convincing masterpiece which may bring the reader close to a full understanding of the relentless attitudes towards some so-called sects and the right to be different. Thus the author lays before us a grand sweeping panorama of relevant information leading to a balanced outlook.
The author’s main goals are surely achieved through mediating true knowledge. Dr Persson has turned his scholarly exploration into a factual masterwork that should serve our modern society which is struggling to change certain religious patterns and behaviours.
This book resonates impressively with the United Nations’ principles and the European Union’s values such as respect for human dignity, freedom and democracy, the rule of law and the importance of human rights.
The author seeks to do justice to those religious communities whose intent it was to free society from oppressive attitudes and actions, and to enhance harmony for mankind.
He attempts to lead the reader to a more liberal understanding, which prevents one from automatically negating, denying or rejecting new and original ways of thinking."
The book is currently in pre-publication and will be available later this year. EAU will publicise details for ordering when they are available.
A pre-publication leaflet with useful information and a summary of contents can be downloaded from the Center homepage at www.thedegree.org/csism.html
Photo archive of the Apostolic Episcopal Church now online
The Center has begun a photo archive of the Apostolic Episcopal Church. By kind courtesy of former Primate Archbishop Bertil Persson, we have photographs of some of the principal places in the AEC's history, including the historic Christ's Church by the Sea, Long Island, associated with the AEC since its inception in the United States.
The archive, which will be added to in time, may be accessed at www.thedegree.org/aec.html
The archive, which will be added to in time, may be accessed at www.thedegree.org/aec.html
Monday, 7 July 2008
The Special Mission of the Liberal Catholic Church
THE SPECIAL MISSION OF THE LIBERAL CATHOLIC CHURCH
by The Very Rev. Frederick A. Shade, Vicar, St. John The Beloved, Melbourne, Australia
Before entering into what we may consider to be the mission of the Church, I think I should first give a brief outline of what the Church claims to be and what it does. What is the purpose of the Church? The often quoted answer to this question comes from the Church's official document a "Statement of Principles". In the Introduction paragraph it begins with these words: "The Liberal Catholic Church exists to forward Christ's work in the world" (p.5) It continues later in the paragraph "It aims at combining Catholic forms of worship, stately ritual, deep mysticism and witness to the reality of sacramental grace with the widest measure of intellectual liberty and
respect for the individual conscience.
And in order to do this, the Church has a building, a team of clergy and servers for the conduct of services and the sacraments, and a congregation that worships regularly and forms the faith-community. We also claim to be part of what is described as "the mystical body of Christ." We say that the essential Teachings and Doctrine of the Liberal Catholic Church are expressed in the official Liturgy of the Church. This is as it should be.
Now in regard to its Principles, Teaching, Doctrine and Practice, these help us to determine what the mission of the Church may be. So far, we appear to be little different, in general terms, to other Christian denominations of the Catholic and Sacramental tradition in regard to belief and practice. But it is the superstructure that we build on these foundations that makes us different, that makes us a distinctive faith community with something special to offer the world.
In the LCC we offer a particular form of worship and a freedom of personal belief in regard to doctrine and scripture. This is still a radical policy. We also offer a perspective of the 2000-year history of the Christian Church, its festivals and teachings that is very hard to find in other denominations. Much of the knowledge of the Christian Church and its spiritual experiences we have retained, and much of it has also been further developed, refined or changed to reflect the new knowledge and insights of the modern person in the 20th and 21st century. Of course, some will argue that too much has been changed and others will say (as they do) that not enough has been changed!
History and Sacred Text
As we are an historical church, i.e. a church that is connected to the whole Christian Church and its history, we are directly connected to our Lord Jesus Christ who appeared on earth 2,000 years ago and ushered in the New Dispensation. He founded the Church, the ecclesia and we, as individuals and as a faith community, are an integral part of it. Also, the Sacred Text we use, the Holy Bible, is an historical document. It links us (symbolically) with the beginning of the world ("In the beginning"). It takes us step by step through the history and events associated with the people of Palestine who we know today as the Jews. The OT is full of history(amongst other things)" there are names, dates, places and events recorded, even the names of foreign rulers.
The NT continues that history" more names, places, dates and events, albeit covering a very short period of time, just a few generations. The events surrounding the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord are recorded in the NT in the context of secular history. These events, therefore, are not divorced from history, they are part of history. We can, and do, debate the accuracy of some of these things, these dates and places, but in general they hold up to close scrutiny. And as the gospels in particular are spiritual texts first and foremost, rather than historical texts or biography (in the sense of being history or biography as we use those terms today), they serve their purpose well.
Of course, the LCC reminds us of the many layers that are present within the sacred text, history and parable being only two of them, and the Wisdom Teaching of the Ages helps us to unveil them in greater detail.
The Incarnation
What the OT and NT writings are showing us, according to their authors, is that God is very much involved in their history, and continues to be involved in the lives of every human being, community and nation " past, present and future. And if we accept this statement, then the events detailed in the gospels are particularly significant to us as Christians. They show, and very dramatically, the involvement of the Creator in his creation in a particular way: God became man. The mystery of the Incarnation points to the mystery of the relationship between the Creator and his creation, between heaven and earth, between matters spiritual and matters physical, the mystery of all levels, layers and worlds of existence and their interconnectedness, and especially their link with the Source of All, God. The Incarnation also points to "the way of return", to "unitas", and the LCC has a lot to say about this journey.
When we look up to the heavens, when we read of the latest discoveries such as new galaxies, new forms of matter, new concepts of time and space, we feel overawed and very insignificant. We come to believe that our personal existence is of no significance at all. We may also conclude that the existence of humanity on this speck of a planet is totally insignificant, that this is all pure chance and that we certainly do not have any influence on the rest of the cosmos!
But if we believe there is a Creator, then we are significant. If we believe in a Creator, then history does have some significance, and our own involvement in history also has some relevance, but in a way that is not necessarily related directly to what is happening "out there" in the next galaxy. If we continue this line of thought, then it is inevitable that we will come to the conclusion that there is meaning and purpose behind personal existence, and that there is more to life than this physical body of ours, living out our lives as we do on this planet called Earth.
I have gone on for a little while with these lines of thought because they help us in establishing the purpose and mission of the Church, as they are predicated on the matters I have raised and our responses to them. I have suggested that there is much in what we believe and what we do that is common to other Catholic and Sacramental Churches. However, when we look at the whole range of beliefs and teachings, perspectives and insights of the LCC, we can say that the combination of these features is unique to this Church, even though elements of them may be found in some other denominations.
The Mission
I would like to quote from an article written recently by a Roman Catholic archbishop who has been reflecting on this same issue "the mission of the Church, and their beliefs and practices as a Catholic and Sacramental faith community. He writes: "We believe the Incarnation was a real historical event. And we believe that event changed everything. It's the centre and meaning of history. We believe Jesus Christ will come again in glory to usher in a kingdom that will have no end. We anticipate that kingdom in every Eucharist, when He comes to us in bread and wine. We live in joyful hope for the coming of the "end" of history "when time no longer shall be," as the Book of Revelation says. "Until that day (he continues), we live in an era of the Church. In a mystical unity with Christ, we make up a family of God and the Kingdom of God. And the Church we see on earth is united inseparably to the Church we can't see in Heaven - the Communion of Saints. (He asks) "What's the Church for?" (He answers) To continue Christ's mission on earth, the mission of His Incarnation. The mission of love. We're here to proclaim God's love and the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. We're here to make disciples of all nations. (He continues) "in all this we have Christ's promise that He will be with us until the end of the age. And He is, through the Holy Spirit that guards the truth of what the Church teaches. Through the Eucharist and sacraments that sustain and sanctify us on our journey in this world.
He goes on in his article to say "A lot of people don't get these connections between the divine and the human, the spiritual and the material. And that leads to a lot of problems. We hear people all the time saying they're upset with the Church. Or that the Church has let them down. Or that the Church has distorted Christ's message and needs to be reformed. "I agree with these people (he says). I'm not satisfied with the Church either. I want the Church to be more holy, I want the Church to be fearless in love, courageous in confronting evil, and eloquent in bearing witness to the Gospel in a culture of greed and despair. The demands of holiness and radical discipleship apply to everyone of us. No excuses. No exceptions.
"The Church is always going to look messy if you look at the human element. Parliament looks messy. Corporate boardrooms look messy. But remember, unlike those human institutions, the Church is also supernatural and divine. "The whole edifice of the Church" (he writes), "her structure, her teachings, her devotions and sacraments exist to bring us into contact (with God), to transform us into the people that God has created us to be. This is no ordinary human institution."
("Reclaiming our Mission by Archbishop Chaput, KAIROS Catholic Journal, 22 July 4 August 2007.)
I think the LCC would agree with that general outline, although it would perhaps express it a little differently. I have quoted from this article as I feel that we should keep ourselves up to date in regard to what other leaders are thinking, particularly in those areas that we have in common.
And so, what is the mission of the Liberal Catholic Church?
It would certainly include the following:
To bring the Good News of the Gospel to all;
To serve Christ and His Church;
To feed His flock with spiritual food - the sacraments;
To be co-workers with God-in-Christ in His healing of the world and its people;
To help to "divinise" the whole of creation, to make the planet sacred once again.
I appreciate that you would make up your own list very easily. As a Liberal Catholic Church we strive to demonstrate the spiritual principles of: diversity of thought, inclusivity of all people, and hospitality to all.
We also have a Vision as follows:
With reliance on God-in-Christ, and guidance from the Catholic and Sacramental tradition of the Christian Church, The Liberal Catholic Church promotes the spiritual, intellectual and moral development of its members. Within the limits of its resources, it also offers spiritual support and ministry to the wider community.
However, I do see this vision as a work in progress. (For example, I also feel that we should include our vision of others becoming aware that they are spiritual beings, that they too are expressions or outpourings of the Eternal God in this world.) Of course, the implementation of the mission of the Church is more complex and will always be in need of review and re-presentation. Also, each of us will have a different opinion as to what is to be put into effect; each of us will have a different emphasis or focus. When we consider the very brief outline given in this Mission and Vision, I believe that there are elements there that are unique to us, and that the combination of these features remains special to the Liberal Catholic Church.
Our mission includes what Religion is all about "healing and connectedness. This is also central to our mission: to heal the world and its peoples, and to help others make "connections" with God, with others and within themselves. Traditionally, religious institutions give answers and often impose them. These days, people want a
place/organisation where they can put questions and where they are not told what to believe. Our Church is such a place, a place that encourages people to seek and question, a community that also offers some answers.
[Courtesy The Liberal Catholic Church - Theosophia Synod]
by The Very Rev. Frederick A. Shade, Vicar, St. John The Beloved, Melbourne, Australia
Before entering into what we may consider to be the mission of the Church, I think I should first give a brief outline of what the Church claims to be and what it does. What is the purpose of the Church? The often quoted answer to this question comes from the Church's official document a "Statement of Principles". In the Introduction paragraph it begins with these words: "The Liberal Catholic Church exists to forward Christ's work in the world" (p.5) It continues later in the paragraph "It aims at combining Catholic forms of worship, stately ritual, deep mysticism and witness to the reality of sacramental grace with the widest measure of intellectual liberty and
respect for the individual conscience.
And in order to do this, the Church has a building, a team of clergy and servers for the conduct of services and the sacraments, and a congregation that worships regularly and forms the faith-community. We also claim to be part of what is described as "the mystical body of Christ." We say that the essential Teachings and Doctrine of the Liberal Catholic Church are expressed in the official Liturgy of the Church. This is as it should be.
Now in regard to its Principles, Teaching, Doctrine and Practice, these help us to determine what the mission of the Church may be. So far, we appear to be little different, in general terms, to other Christian denominations of the Catholic and Sacramental tradition in regard to belief and practice. But it is the superstructure that we build on these foundations that makes us different, that makes us a distinctive faith community with something special to offer the world.
In the LCC we offer a particular form of worship and a freedom of personal belief in regard to doctrine and scripture. This is still a radical policy. We also offer a perspective of the 2000-year history of the Christian Church, its festivals and teachings that is very hard to find in other denominations. Much of the knowledge of the Christian Church and its spiritual experiences we have retained, and much of it has also been further developed, refined or changed to reflect the new knowledge and insights of the modern person in the 20th and 21st century. Of course, some will argue that too much has been changed and others will say (as they do) that not enough has been changed!
History and Sacred Text
As we are an historical church, i.e. a church that is connected to the whole Christian Church and its history, we are directly connected to our Lord Jesus Christ who appeared on earth 2,000 years ago and ushered in the New Dispensation. He founded the Church, the ecclesia and we, as individuals and as a faith community, are an integral part of it. Also, the Sacred Text we use, the Holy Bible, is an historical document. It links us (symbolically) with the beginning of the world ("In the beginning"). It takes us step by step through the history and events associated with the people of Palestine who we know today as the Jews. The OT is full of history(amongst other things)" there are names, dates, places and events recorded, even the names of foreign rulers.
The NT continues that history" more names, places, dates and events, albeit covering a very short period of time, just a few generations. The events surrounding the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Lord are recorded in the NT in the context of secular history. These events, therefore, are not divorced from history, they are part of history. We can, and do, debate the accuracy of some of these things, these dates and places, but in general they hold up to close scrutiny. And as the gospels in particular are spiritual texts first and foremost, rather than historical texts or biography (in the sense of being history or biography as we use those terms today), they serve their purpose well.
Of course, the LCC reminds us of the many layers that are present within the sacred text, history and parable being only two of them, and the Wisdom Teaching of the Ages helps us to unveil them in greater detail.
The Incarnation
What the OT and NT writings are showing us, according to their authors, is that God is very much involved in their history, and continues to be involved in the lives of every human being, community and nation " past, present and future. And if we accept this statement, then the events detailed in the gospels are particularly significant to us as Christians. They show, and very dramatically, the involvement of the Creator in his creation in a particular way: God became man. The mystery of the Incarnation points to the mystery of the relationship between the Creator and his creation, between heaven and earth, between matters spiritual and matters physical, the mystery of all levels, layers and worlds of existence and their interconnectedness, and especially their link with the Source of All, God. The Incarnation also points to "the way of return", to "unitas", and the LCC has a lot to say about this journey.
When we look up to the heavens, when we read of the latest discoveries such as new galaxies, new forms of matter, new concepts of time and space, we feel overawed and very insignificant. We come to believe that our personal existence is of no significance at all. We may also conclude that the existence of humanity on this speck of a planet is totally insignificant, that this is all pure chance and that we certainly do not have any influence on the rest of the cosmos!
But if we believe there is a Creator, then we are significant. If we believe in a Creator, then history does have some significance, and our own involvement in history also has some relevance, but in a way that is not necessarily related directly to what is happening "out there" in the next galaxy. If we continue this line of thought, then it is inevitable that we will come to the conclusion that there is meaning and purpose behind personal existence, and that there is more to life than this physical body of ours, living out our lives as we do on this planet called Earth.
I have gone on for a little while with these lines of thought because they help us in establishing the purpose and mission of the Church, as they are predicated on the matters I have raised and our responses to them. I have suggested that there is much in what we believe and what we do that is common to other Catholic and Sacramental Churches. However, when we look at the whole range of beliefs and teachings, perspectives and insights of the LCC, we can say that the combination of these features is unique to this Church, even though elements of them may be found in some other denominations.
The Mission
I would like to quote from an article written recently by a Roman Catholic archbishop who has been reflecting on this same issue "the mission of the Church, and their beliefs and practices as a Catholic and Sacramental faith community. He writes: "We believe the Incarnation was a real historical event. And we believe that event changed everything. It's the centre and meaning of history. We believe Jesus Christ will come again in glory to usher in a kingdom that will have no end. We anticipate that kingdom in every Eucharist, when He comes to us in bread and wine. We live in joyful hope for the coming of the "end" of history "when time no longer shall be," as the Book of Revelation says. "Until that day (he continues), we live in an era of the Church. In a mystical unity with Christ, we make up a family of God and the Kingdom of God. And the Church we see on earth is united inseparably to the Church we can't see in Heaven - the Communion of Saints. (He asks) "What's the Church for?" (He answers) To continue Christ's mission on earth, the mission of His Incarnation. The mission of love. We're here to proclaim God's love and the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. We're here to make disciples of all nations. (He continues) "in all this we have Christ's promise that He will be with us until the end of the age. And He is, through the Holy Spirit that guards the truth of what the Church teaches. Through the Eucharist and sacraments that sustain and sanctify us on our journey in this world.
He goes on in his article to say "A lot of people don't get these connections between the divine and the human, the spiritual and the material. And that leads to a lot of problems. We hear people all the time saying they're upset with the Church. Or that the Church has let them down. Or that the Church has distorted Christ's message and needs to be reformed. "I agree with these people (he says). I'm not satisfied with the Church either. I want the Church to be more holy, I want the Church to be fearless in love, courageous in confronting evil, and eloquent in bearing witness to the Gospel in a culture of greed and despair. The demands of holiness and radical discipleship apply to everyone of us. No excuses. No exceptions.
"The Church is always going to look messy if you look at the human element. Parliament looks messy. Corporate boardrooms look messy. But remember, unlike those human institutions, the Church is also supernatural and divine. "The whole edifice of the Church" (he writes), "her structure, her teachings, her devotions and sacraments exist to bring us into contact (with God), to transform us into the people that God has created us to be. This is no ordinary human institution."
("Reclaiming our Mission by Archbishop Chaput, KAIROS Catholic Journal, 22 July 4 August 2007.)
I think the LCC would agree with that general outline, although it would perhaps express it a little differently. I have quoted from this article as I feel that we should keep ourselves up to date in regard to what other leaders are thinking, particularly in those areas that we have in common.
And so, what is the mission of the Liberal Catholic Church?
It would certainly include the following:
To bring the Good News of the Gospel to all;
To serve Christ and His Church;
To feed His flock with spiritual food - the sacraments;
To be co-workers with God-in-Christ in His healing of the world and its people;
To help to "divinise" the whole of creation, to make the planet sacred once again.
I appreciate that you would make up your own list very easily. As a Liberal Catholic Church we strive to demonstrate the spiritual principles of: diversity of thought, inclusivity of all people, and hospitality to all.
We also have a Vision as follows:
With reliance on God-in-Christ, and guidance from the Catholic and Sacramental tradition of the Christian Church, The Liberal Catholic Church promotes the spiritual, intellectual and moral development of its members. Within the limits of its resources, it also offers spiritual support and ministry to the wider community.
However, I do see this vision as a work in progress. (For example, I also feel that we should include our vision of others becoming aware that they are spiritual beings, that they too are expressions or outpourings of the Eternal God in this world.) Of course, the implementation of the mission of the Church is more complex and will always be in need of review and re-presentation. Also, each of us will have a different opinion as to what is to be put into effect; each of us will have a different emphasis or focus. When we consider the very brief outline given in this Mission and Vision, I believe that there are elements there that are unique to us, and that the combination of these features remains special to the Liberal Catholic Church.
Our mission includes what Religion is all about "healing and connectedness. This is also central to our mission: to heal the world and its peoples, and to help others make "connections" with God, with others and within themselves. Traditionally, religious institutions give answers and often impose them. These days, people want a
place/organisation where they can put questions and where they are not told what to believe. Our Church is such a place, a place that encourages people to seek and question, a community that also offers some answers.
[Courtesy The Liberal Catholic Church - Theosophia Synod]
Thursday, 24 April 2008
New book publication from the Mathew Center
Two Works by Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams, Second Archbishop of The Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain: A Summary of the History, Faith, Discipline, and Aims of The Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain (1924); A Pastoral Letter for Advent, 1920
New edition edited and with a preface by John Kersey
Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams was the successor to Archbishop Arnold Harris Mathew in the Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain and established the strongly traditionalist and conservative pattern still followed by that church's successors. These works speak of his conception of the ORCCGB as a Uniate Rite conforming to the Roman Catholic Church in most respects, but differing in the admission of a married priesthood and a vernacular liturgy.
Unavailable for many years, this edition has a Preface by John Kersey and is available as a free-to-download e-book as well as in hardcover. 47 pages.
To download or purchase a copy, please visit the University Press page here.
Monday, 21 April 2008
New source publication online
The Minutes of the Joint Clerical and Episcopal Synod of Great Britain and of the Clerical Synod of England and Wales of the LIBERAL CATHOLIC CHURCH (OLD CATHOLIC) Edited by the Rt. Rev. E.J. Burton, M.A. Part II - 1915-20
Now online for the first time at the Mathew Center, part 2 of this key account of the beginnings of the Liberal Catholic Church and an explanation of where that movement stands with respect to the Old Catholic Church of Great Britain.
We are grateful to S. David Sandercock for the donation of a copy of this valuable work for digitisation.
View at http://www.thedegree.org/burton.html
Now online for the first time at the Mathew Center, part 2 of this key account of the beginnings of the Liberal Catholic Church and an explanation of where that movement stands with respect to the Old Catholic Church of Great Britain.
We are grateful to S. David Sandercock for the donation of a copy of this valuable work for digitisation.
View at http://www.thedegree.org/burton.html
Sunday, 20 April 2008
New monographs from +Bertil Persson now online
The Mathew Center is pleased to announce that a series of monographs by Archbishop Professor Bertil Persson, Emeritus Primate of the Apostolic Episcopal Church, has now been placed online.
Included are outlines of the lives of such bishops as Arthur Wolfort Brooks (Mar John Emmanuel), William Albert Nichols (Mar Ignatius), Antoine Joseph Aneed, Sophronios Bishara and a three-part study of Joseph Rene Vilatte (Mar Timotheos). There is a further account of contemporary bishop Joseph John Skureth and a paper delivered to the Liberal Catholic Church on the legitimate successor of Jesus.
Reflecting Dr Persson's work as an international ambassador for peace, we are also delighted to present his materials designed to contribute to the Middle Eastern peace process from a Christian perspective.
We are most grateful to Dr Persson for his assistance and support, and send him our warm good wishes for his continued work.
John Kersey
Director, Mathew Center for the Study of the ISM
Included are outlines of the lives of such bishops as Arthur Wolfort Brooks (Mar John Emmanuel), William Albert Nichols (Mar Ignatius), Antoine Joseph Aneed, Sophronios Bishara and a three-part study of Joseph Rene Vilatte (Mar Timotheos). There is a further account of contemporary bishop Joseph John Skureth and a paper delivered to the Liberal Catholic Church on the legitimate successor of Jesus.
Reflecting Dr Persson's work as an international ambassador for peace, we are also delighted to present his materials designed to contribute to the Middle Eastern peace process from a Christian perspective.
We are most grateful to Dr Persson for his assistance and support, and send him our warm good wishes for his continued work.
John Kersey
Director, Mathew Center for the Study of the ISM
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Death of Bishop George Boyer
We have been informed that Bishop George Boyer passed over in St George's Hospital, London, on 17 March. He was in his 86th year and had been suffering from a chest infection.
Bishop Boyer was the successor of Richard, Duc de Palatine, in the Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church.
He is survived by his wife, Bishop Leila Boyer.
A beautiful and spiritually rich memorial service for Bishop George was held at Lambeth Cemetery on 2 April.
Bishop Boyer was the successor of Richard, Duc de Palatine, in the Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church.
He is survived by his wife, Bishop Leila Boyer.
A beautiful and spiritually rich memorial service for Bishop George was held at Lambeth Cemetery on 2 April.
Wednesday, 9 January 2008
More on the origins of the LCC
In an earlier post, I commented on the account by LCC Presiding Bishop (Ernest) James Burton of the first years of the LCC in his The Official Records of Synod.
Thanks to the good offices of David Sandercock, we now have a copy of his account of the years 1910-15 - the years of +A.H. Mathew's Old Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain - and it is possible to read his account of the minutes of meetings and other documents that he had examined at first hand in the LCC archives. There are significant differences in some dates between +Burton's account and other sources, and these could only be reconciled through examination of the original source documents themselves - the whereabouts of which, as I have explained, are presently not clear.
This document, which is not available via copyright libraries such as the British Library, has been transcribed and is available for download at http://www.thedegree.org/burton.html
Thanks to the good offices of David Sandercock, we now have a copy of his account of the years 1910-15 - the years of +A.H. Mathew's Old Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain - and it is possible to read his account of the minutes of meetings and other documents that he had examined at first hand in the LCC archives. There are significant differences in some dates between +Burton's account and other sources, and these could only be reconciled through examination of the original source documents themselves - the whereabouts of which, as I have explained, are presently not clear.
This document, which is not available via copyright libraries such as the British Library, has been transcribed and is available for download at http://www.thedegree.org/burton.html
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
+Alan Maxwell Bain (1933-2006)
A video of Bishop Alan Maxwell Bain has been posted to YouTube at the following URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9p9-sWViik
This consists of around ten minutes of footage from the consecration of Bishop C. Ramon Allee on 28 May 1988.
Alan Bain was a noted figure among Theosophists in the United Kingdom. Beginning in the late 1950s he had founded a study and exploration group that was Kabbalistic in orientation and that formed, in time, a close-knit community of up to 30 people. The group met in an inexpensive London restaurant and the bonds between its members were to become profound and long-lasting. This was the basis for Alan Bain's concepts of brotherhood and group work; as he said "without doing this, the entire study was pointless."
Entering the independent movement, he was consecrated for the Independent Catholic Church Federation (England) on 16 June 1982 by Bishop Bernard Dawe, who was the first Primate of the Independent Catholic Church International (a community deriving from the Liberal Catholic Church in Canada) and who had united all the significant Liberal Catholic lines of Apostolic Succession.
On 28 May 1983, Bain exchanged consecrations with Archbishop Bertil Persson of the Apostolic Episcopal Church. He went on to assist +Charles David Luther (together with +Peter Paul Brennan) in the consecration of Bishops Richard Ingram and James Mondok for the Western Orthodox Church in America in June 1984.
With Persson and Gary Ward he went on to publish several directories of independent bishops which have become standard works of reference in the area and, since all are now out of print, continue to change hands in used bookstores for significant sums of money. In the introductory material to his "Bishops Irregular", his doubts about the independent movement were voiced in a manner that was both self-abasing and also (wrongly) apologetic for the work that was to follow. Yet he was proud of (and used) the D.D. that was awarded to him by Persson's St Ephrem's Institute in Sweden in recognition of this book, and of the book's success.
The collaboration between the authors of "Independent Bishops: An International Directory" ended acrimoniously (with Bain claiming that the last edition had been published under his name while he had actually never seen a copy; others asserted different versions of events, including accusations of plagiarism) and he broke off relations with most in the independent movement.
In consequence, through the 1990s, Bain set aside the exercise of his Holy Orders and the performance of all ecclesiastical functions. He maintained a substantial website on which aspects of Theosophy, Freemasonry and the occult were discussed, and for a time was an active contributor to Usenet and email lists. He was an expert on the Kabbalah and published several books on that subject. Some of his work is still available on the internet, although as yet there is no source for the several privately printed publications that he distributed himself.
Postscript: A. Trevor Synge Perrin writes:
"+Alan Maxwell Bain was increasingly anti-Theosophist throughout the nineties. He stayed a member of the society because he rented rooms in their premises. He saw the Society as a dinosaur which had outlived any work it might have done since its founding.
His Christian Faith became ever more simple and basic as he became reclusive. He ordained me, Trevor Synge Perrin, in the early years of this century, or at the end of the last. Occasionally he celebrated Mass privately. I am the best authority on Alan Maxwell Bain since I was a close associate since the early 1980s and moved to Cornwall with him in 1996."
This consists of around ten minutes of footage from the consecration of Bishop C. Ramon Allee on 28 May 1988.
Alan Bain was a noted figure among Theosophists in the United Kingdom. Beginning in the late 1950s he had founded a study and exploration group that was Kabbalistic in orientation and that formed, in time, a close-knit community of up to 30 people. The group met in an inexpensive London restaurant and the bonds between its members were to become profound and long-lasting. This was the basis for Alan Bain's concepts of brotherhood and group work; as he said "without doing this, the entire study was pointless."
Entering the independent movement, he was consecrated for the Independent Catholic Church Federation (England) on 16 June 1982 by Bishop Bernard Dawe, who was the first Primate of the Independent Catholic Church International (a community deriving from the Liberal Catholic Church in Canada) and who had united all the significant Liberal Catholic lines of Apostolic Succession.
On 28 May 1983, Bain exchanged consecrations with Archbishop Bertil Persson of the Apostolic Episcopal Church. He went on to assist +Charles David Luther (together with +Peter Paul Brennan) in the consecration of Bishops Richard Ingram and James Mondok for the Western Orthodox Church in America in June 1984.
With Persson and Gary Ward he went on to publish several directories of independent bishops which have become standard works of reference in the area and, since all are now out of print, continue to change hands in used bookstores for significant sums of money. In the introductory material to his "Bishops Irregular", his doubts about the independent movement were voiced in a manner that was both self-abasing and also (wrongly) apologetic for the work that was to follow. Yet he was proud of (and used) the D.D. that was awarded to him by Persson's St Ephrem's Institute in Sweden in recognition of this book, and of the book's success.
The collaboration between the authors of "Independent Bishops: An International Directory" ended acrimoniously (with Bain claiming that the last edition had been published under his name while he had actually never seen a copy; others asserted different versions of events, including accusations of plagiarism) and he broke off relations with most in the independent movement.
In consequence, through the 1990s, Bain set aside the exercise of his Holy Orders and the performance of all ecclesiastical functions. He maintained a substantial website on which aspects of Theosophy, Freemasonry and the occult were discussed, and for a time was an active contributor to Usenet and email lists. He was an expert on the Kabbalah and published several books on that subject. Some of his work is still available on the internet, although as yet there is no source for the several privately printed publications that he distributed himself.
Postscript: A. Trevor Synge Perrin writes:
"+Alan Maxwell Bain was increasingly anti-Theosophist throughout the nineties. He stayed a member of the society because he rented rooms in their premises. He saw the Society as a dinosaur which had outlived any work it might have done since its founding.
His Christian Faith became ever more simple and basic as he became reclusive. He ordained me, Trevor Synge Perrin, in the early years of this century, or at the end of the last. Occasionally he celebrated Mass privately. I am the best authority on Alan Maxwell Bain since I was a close associate since the early 1980s and moved to Cornwall with him in 1996."
Sunday, 23 December 2007
R.I.P. Archbishop Aelred Peter Distin (1938-2007)
The Mathew Center has recently been informed that the death of Archbishop Aelred Peter Distin occurred on 30 August 2007. He was 68 years old.
Terence Coghlan Distin (he would later take the names Aelred Peter Benedict in religion) was born on 31 October 1938 in Luton, the son of an engineer's clerk. Throughout his life he sought to pursue a Benedictine monastic vocation in keeping with his strongly traditional understanding of the Roman Catholic faith.
+Distin was initially ordained by Bishop Donald William Garner of the Reformed Catholic Church, and then consecrated by him on 21 April 1968 at St Benedict's Church, Brighton.
He was further consecrated sub conditione on the third Sunday of August 1968 (not 15 December as often incorrectly cited) at the Priory Chapel of St William, Richmond, by Dr. Nicholas Patrick Collins, Titular Bishop of Faversham in the English (Old) Catholic Church, assisted by +Garner and using the ordinal of the Liberal Catholic Church. +Collins had been consecrated in France by Archbishop Jean Pierre Danyel, later canonized by his church as St Tugdual.
On 11 December, 1968, he was admitted to the offices of Subdeacon and Deacon in the English Old Catholic Church sub conditione by +Collins, and was further conditionally advanced by him to the priesthood on 14 December, using the Roman Pontifical. [Sources: Copies of original documents.]
During 1968, the three bishops, Collins, Garner and Distin, joined together to form the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain as an episcopal union of traditionally-focussed Old Catholics based on the 1910 Constitution of Archbishop Joseph Rene Vilatte. +Collins was later to commit suicide in tragic circumstances, leaving no successor in the English Catholic Church. +Garner, who was a clerk in secular life, died of cancer in 1981 aged 66, whereupon the Reformed Catholic Church continued under Archbishop Richard Kenneth Hurgon (Mar Benignus) and after his death Archbishop Ian Kirk-Stewart.
These circumstances meant that +Distin eventually became the sole archbishop of the OCCGB, as Titular Bishop of Lindsey, and remained in this position until his retirement in 2004.
In 1990, +Distin's OCCGB was one of the denominations that came together to form what was initially - confusingly - also known as the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain, and later renamed as the Independent Catholic Church of Great Britain. This large and active denomination was led by the infamous Archbishop John Simmons until his death in 2003. +Distin was subconditionally consecrated by +Simmons on 30 May 1994 at +Simmons' private chapel in Singleton, Kent. In 1998, as an act of protest, +Distin and another bishop returned their instruments of consecration to +Simmons, inscribing them as "null and void".
Thereafter the OCCGB and ICCGB pursued separate paths. By 2003, +Distin had been incardinated into Christ Catholic Church International, under Archbishop Donald Mullen, and was administering their Province of Great Britain, but this affiliation did not endure.
In 1993, +Distin established the Benedictine Order of St Romuald as a dispersed order with eight brothers and one sister. The Order was disbanded in 2004 as a result of lack of support. It was re-founded in 2007 by +Distin's successor. Meanwhile, in 2006, +Distin planned to establish an Order of St Gilbert of Sempringham (elsewhere referred to as the Order of St Gregory) on an ecumenical and Augustinian basis, but this had not happened by the time of his death.
In 2004, +Distin consecrated Dom Phillip Robert Kemp as Titular Bishop of Elmham in the OCCGB, appointing him as his co-adjutor cum jure successionis, and on 13 September that year retired in favour of +Kemp, who thereby succeeded as Archbishop of the OCCGB (which was later renamed the Independent Catholic Alliance, and is now the Independent Catholic Orthodox Alliance; see also their archive of documents). Sadly, relations between +Distin and the OCCGB deteriorated to the point where he was excommunicated latae sententiae from the denomination on 15 August, 2006. He subsequently sought to incardinate with the US-based Reformed Catholic Church (unrelated to the church of the same name mentioned earlier), but this came to nothing.
+Distin perceived no difference between his status as a bishop in the independent movement and that of a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He attended Mass at Westminster Cathedral wearing his Benedictine habit, and described himself as a Roman Catholic. Whatever divisions existed between him and Holy Mother Church were of a logistical and bureaucratic nature in his understanding, and were not of the esse of the faith.
+Distin's latter years were troubled by ill-health. A lifetime of physical restlessness, which saw him living at various points in East Anglia, Hertfordshire and finally in Hackney, east London, was matched by the spiritual quest that saw him pass through the denominations and orders listed above, and the preference for the use of different religious names at different times of his life (perhaps reflecting particular emphases on the saints concerned). Undoubtedly these factors, together with a tendency to push people away once they had shown that they cared about him, made personal relations sometimes difficult. To those of his friends who were able to endure against the odds, he was held in great affection.
Many of us who stand in the British heritage of the Old Catholic movement derive the Apostolic heritage of our Holy Orders from him, and thus have good cause to remember him with gratitude and thanksgiving for his life.
Requiescat in pace!
+John Kersey
Director, Arnold Harris Mathew Center
Terence Coghlan Distin (he would later take the names Aelred Peter Benedict in religion) was born on 31 October 1938 in Luton, the son of an engineer's clerk. Throughout his life he sought to pursue a Benedictine monastic vocation in keeping with his strongly traditional understanding of the Roman Catholic faith.
+Distin was initially ordained by Bishop Donald William Garner of the Reformed Catholic Church, and then consecrated by him on 21 April 1968 at St Benedict's Church, Brighton.
He was further consecrated sub conditione on the third Sunday of August 1968 (not 15 December as often incorrectly cited) at the Priory Chapel of St William, Richmond, by Dr. Nicholas Patrick Collins, Titular Bishop of Faversham in the English (Old) Catholic Church, assisted by +Garner and using the ordinal of the Liberal Catholic Church. +Collins had been consecrated in France by Archbishop Jean Pierre Danyel, later canonized by his church as St Tugdual.
On 11 December, 1968, he was admitted to the offices of Subdeacon and Deacon in the English Old Catholic Church sub conditione by +Collins, and was further conditionally advanced by him to the priesthood on 14 December, using the Roman Pontifical. [Sources: Copies of original documents.]
During 1968, the three bishops, Collins, Garner and Distin, joined together to form the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain as an episcopal union of traditionally-focussed Old Catholics based on the 1910 Constitution of Archbishop Joseph Rene Vilatte. +Collins was later to commit suicide in tragic circumstances, leaving no successor in the English Catholic Church. +Garner, who was a clerk in secular life, died of cancer in 1981 aged 66, whereupon the Reformed Catholic Church continued under Archbishop Richard Kenneth Hurgon (Mar Benignus) and after his death Archbishop Ian Kirk-Stewart.
These circumstances meant that +Distin eventually became the sole archbishop of the OCCGB, as Titular Bishop of Lindsey, and remained in this position until his retirement in 2004.
In 1990, +Distin's OCCGB was one of the denominations that came together to form what was initially - confusingly - also known as the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain, and later renamed as the Independent Catholic Church of Great Britain. This large and active denomination was led by the infamous Archbishop John Simmons until his death in 2003. +Distin was subconditionally consecrated by +Simmons on 30 May 1994 at +Simmons' private chapel in Singleton, Kent. In 1998, as an act of protest, +Distin and another bishop returned their instruments of consecration to +Simmons, inscribing them as "null and void".
Thereafter the OCCGB and ICCGB pursued separate paths. By 2003, +Distin had been incardinated into Christ Catholic Church International, under Archbishop Donald Mullen, and was administering their Province of Great Britain, but this affiliation did not endure.
In 1993, +Distin established the Benedictine Order of St Romuald as a dispersed order with eight brothers and one sister. The Order was disbanded in 2004 as a result of lack of support. It was re-founded in 2007 by +Distin's successor. Meanwhile, in 2006, +Distin planned to establish an Order of St Gilbert of Sempringham (elsewhere referred to as the Order of St Gregory) on an ecumenical and Augustinian basis, but this had not happened by the time of his death.
In 2004, +Distin consecrated Dom Phillip Robert Kemp as Titular Bishop of Elmham in the OCCGB, appointing him as his co-adjutor cum jure successionis, and on 13 September that year retired in favour of +Kemp, who thereby succeeded as Archbishop of the OCCGB (which was later renamed the Independent Catholic Alliance, and is now the Independent Catholic Orthodox Alliance; see also their archive of documents). Sadly, relations between +Distin and the OCCGB deteriorated to the point where he was excommunicated latae sententiae from the denomination on 15 August, 2006. He subsequently sought to incardinate with the US-based Reformed Catholic Church (unrelated to the church of the same name mentioned earlier), but this came to nothing.
+Distin perceived no difference between his status as a bishop in the independent movement and that of a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He attended Mass at Westminster Cathedral wearing his Benedictine habit, and described himself as a Roman Catholic. Whatever divisions existed between him and Holy Mother Church were of a logistical and bureaucratic nature in his understanding, and were not of the esse of the faith.
+Distin's latter years were troubled by ill-health. A lifetime of physical restlessness, which saw him living at various points in East Anglia, Hertfordshire and finally in Hackney, east London, was matched by the spiritual quest that saw him pass through the denominations and orders listed above, and the preference for the use of different religious names at different times of his life (perhaps reflecting particular emphases on the saints concerned). Undoubtedly these factors, together with a tendency to push people away once they had shown that they cared about him, made personal relations sometimes difficult. To those of his friends who were able to endure against the odds, he was held in great affection.
Many of us who stand in the British heritage of the Old Catholic movement derive the Apostolic heritage of our Holy Orders from him, and thus have good cause to remember him with gratitude and thanksgiving for his life.
Requiescat in pace!
+John Kersey
Director, Arnold Harris Mathew Center
Thursday, 20 December 2007
Mariavites on YouTube
Someone has kindly posted some brief excerpts from Mariavite services in Poland to YouTube. These are at the following URLs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpHskmsyTGo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhADpZEB8L8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-lu1tRB824
The Mariavite Church is a mystic church whose leader, Michael Kowalski, was consecrated by Archbishop Gerardus Gul and other bishops of the Utrecht Old Catholics in 1909. His succession has passed into many churches in the independent movement since. The Mariavite Church was among the first to consecrate women, and a photograph of one of their bishops is displayed in the ISM Archive of the Mathew Center.
Our thanks to Bishop Alistair Bate for the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpHskmsyTGo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhADpZEB8L8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-lu1tRB824
The Mariavite Church is a mystic church whose leader, Michael Kowalski, was consecrated by Archbishop Gerardus Gul and other bishops of the Utrecht Old Catholics in 1909. His succession has passed into many churches in the independent movement since. The Mariavite Church was among the first to consecrate women, and a photograph of one of their bishops is displayed in the ISM Archive of the Mathew Center.
Our thanks to Bishop Alistair Bate for the link.
Monday, 17 December 2007
+A.H. Mathew and the LCC archives
I have been discussing with S. David Sandercock, who was formerly a priest within the Liberal Catholic Church, the exact chronology of the events that led up to +Mathew's expulsion of the Theosophists from the Old Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain.
The version of these events based largely on the research of +Bertil Persson, and citing also +Mar Georgius' published account, is that presently represented in the account at www.thedegree.org/utrecht.html. Yet, could some of these dates be in error?
The late +Ernest Burton, Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church, cites as the date of +Mathew's crucial letter to the Vatican December 14, 1914. However, in other correspondence, he gives this date as December 19. The account of events given by +Burton is being sent to me at present, and once it arrives, I will compare it with the other sources that speak of this matter. It may be that +Burton's work was in error (he was blessed with a colourful imagination), or it may be that we are in a position where the chronology needs substantial revision, and consequently also our understanding of the context of events.
All this, however, is ultimately inconclusive since the deciding factors would be in the letters of +Mathew that +Burton claims to have had access to during his research. These letters were and perhaps still are in the archives of the Liberal Catholic Church (Old Synod group under Presiding Bishop +Graham Wale). This archive has moved around over the years. Initially, the LCC rented an office in the large building belonging to the Quakers on the Euston Road (a building I have been in several times with no idea of its LCC connexion!). When this closed, the archive moved to the new Pro-Cathedral of All Saints in East Putney. During +Richard Palmer's time as bishop for the UK the archive moved to Bournemouth and then back to All Saints, and subsequently on to Letchworth. Apparently the LCC has planned to establish a centre in France, and to house the archives there, but whether this has happened or is due to happen I do not know at present.
+Burton's letter apparently also mentions that the Revd. Alban Cockerham, author of the study of the Apostolic Succession in the Liberal Catholic Church, knew about +Mathew's letter to Rome but chose for whatever reason not to include it in his book.
The LCC Archive certainly did at one time contain the letters that passed between +Mathew and +Willoughby. David tells me that he saw these, and later visited the office with the express purpose of researching them, but was at that time unable to locate them. +Burton also mentions in his correspondence that he intended to undertake a similar investigation. Where are those letters - crucial to our movement's history - now?
An interesting comment has also been passed on from former Presiding Bishop +Sir Hugh Sykes, to the effect that in +Willoughby's last years (he had been accepted into the Roman Catholic Church, with his episcopate recognized as valid though regarded, correctly, as irregular) "he was looked after by some of our people." Could it be that this bishop, who was the "founding father" of the LCC but never a member of it, became involved at the end of his life?
Further updates on these matters will be posted as more becomes known!
+John Kersey
Director, +A.H. Mathew Center
The version of these events based largely on the research of +Bertil Persson, and citing also +Mar Georgius' published account, is that presently represented in the account at www.thedegree.org/utrecht.html. Yet, could some of these dates be in error?
The late +Ernest Burton, Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church, cites as the date of +Mathew's crucial letter to the Vatican December 14, 1914. However, in other correspondence, he gives this date as December 19. The account of events given by +Burton is being sent to me at present, and once it arrives, I will compare it with the other sources that speak of this matter. It may be that +Burton's work was in error (he was blessed with a colourful imagination), or it may be that we are in a position where the chronology needs substantial revision, and consequently also our understanding of the context of events.
All this, however, is ultimately inconclusive since the deciding factors would be in the letters of +Mathew that +Burton claims to have had access to during his research. These letters were and perhaps still are in the archives of the Liberal Catholic Church (Old Synod group under Presiding Bishop +Graham Wale). This archive has moved around over the years. Initially, the LCC rented an office in the large building belonging to the Quakers on the Euston Road (a building I have been in several times with no idea of its LCC connexion!). When this closed, the archive moved to the new Pro-Cathedral of All Saints in East Putney. During +Richard Palmer's time as bishop for the UK the archive moved to Bournemouth and then back to All Saints, and subsequently on to Letchworth. Apparently the LCC has planned to establish a centre in France, and to house the archives there, but whether this has happened or is due to happen I do not know at present.
+Burton's letter apparently also mentions that the Revd. Alban Cockerham, author of the study of the Apostolic Succession in the Liberal Catholic Church, knew about +Mathew's letter to Rome but chose for whatever reason not to include it in his book.
The LCC Archive certainly did at one time contain the letters that passed between +Mathew and +Willoughby. David tells me that he saw these, and later visited the office with the express purpose of researching them, but was at that time unable to locate them. +Burton also mentions in his correspondence that he intended to undertake a similar investigation. Where are those letters - crucial to our movement's history - now?
An interesting comment has also been passed on from former Presiding Bishop +Sir Hugh Sykes, to the effect that in +Willoughby's last years (he had been accepted into the Roman Catholic Church, with his episcopate recognized as valid though regarded, correctly, as irregular) "he was looked after by some of our people." Could it be that this bishop, who was the "founding father" of the LCC but never a member of it, became involved at the end of his life?
Further updates on these matters will be posted as more becomes known!
+John Kersey
Director, +A.H. Mathew Center
Friday, 7 December 2007
Picture from the ASI TNG talk
This picture was taken at the ASI TNG talk and shows John Kersey with members of the audience.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
EAU President and Director of the Mathew Center to address Adam Smith Institute TNG
EAU President and Director of the Mathew Center John Kersey is the invited speaker at tonight's meeting of the Adam Smith Institute The Next Generation. He will speak on issues of Christianity and liberty in the context of Liberal Catholicism.
Past speakers at the TNG meetings have included the Rt Hon. Michael Howard QC MP, the Rt. Hon. David Blunkett, Rt Hon. Michael Portillo MP, Andrew Neil, Boris Johnson MP, Matthew Parris (The Times), Stephen Twigg MP, Ivor Caplin MP, the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP, and Bill Emmott (former Editor of the Economist).
The event runs from 6 until 8pm and is by invitation only. A summary of the talk will be posted on the EAU website.
Past speakers at the TNG meetings have included the Rt Hon. Michael Howard QC MP, the Rt. Hon. David Blunkett, Rt Hon. Michael Portillo MP, Andrew Neil, Boris Johnson MP, Matthew Parris (The Times), Stephen Twigg MP, Ivor Caplin MP, the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP, and Bill Emmott (former Editor of the Economist).
The event runs from 6 until 8pm and is by invitation only. A summary of the talk will be posted on the EAU website.
Saturday, 24 November 2007
+Bertil Persson - The Order of Corporate Reunion
Archbishop Bertil Persson is one of the most prolific scholars of the independent sacramental movement today, but sadly a large number of his works continues only to be available in his native Swedish.
Fortunately, one of his works, on the Order of Corporate Reunion (of which he was the seventh Primate) has now been made digitally available at http://www.haguratelier.com/files/O_C_R_Persson.pdf
The OCR is a subject on which much has been written, notably (and understandably) by Anglicans. Archbishop Persson represents an ecumenical perspective, being Primate Emeritus of the independent Apostolic Episcopal Church, which is in communion with a number of mainstream Orthodox churches.
For this, we have the Eglise Vielle Catholique Romaine Latin de Flandres (under Archbishop Phillippe de Coster) to thank. Their main website at http://www.haguratelier.com/ contains much of interest.
Fortunately, one of his works, on the Order of Corporate Reunion (of which he was the seventh Primate) has now been made digitally available at http://www.haguratelier.com/files/O_C_R_Persson.pdf
The OCR is a subject on which much has been written, notably (and understandably) by Anglicans. Archbishop Persson represents an ecumenical perspective, being Primate Emeritus of the independent Apostolic Episcopal Church, which is in communion with a number of mainstream Orthodox churches.
For this, we have the Eglise Vielle Catholique Romaine Latin de Flandres (under Archbishop Phillippe de Coster) to thank. Their main website at http://www.haguratelier.com/ contains much of interest.
Saturday, 17 November 2007
Sophia Circle Summerschool in Slovenia in July 2008
The idea has been offered to hold the next international gathering of the Sophia Circle as an integral part of a broader programme, set up as a summer school. Apparently several beautiful locations in the Slovenian mountains are available. These will need to be approached and arrangements made. As soon as details are known, these will be made known. The current thinking is an extended weekend programme -say, Wednesday evening to the following Tuesday evening- with workshops, a variety of rituals, meditations, visits to special places, etc.
Sophia Circle Consecration to the Episcopate in Ljubljana during the weekend of 1 - 2 March, 2008
Bishop Elect Aristid Havlicek will be consecrated on Sunday 2 March, in a location still to be made known, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The Sophia Circle is heartily invited to attend and take part in this consecration. Ljubljana has an international airport with good connections to many European cities, also several low-cost companies provide excellent possibilities. Although the exact details still need to be finalised, the date has been set and we ask that those wishing to attend contact B.E. Aristid (Aristid@Lcc.cc ) or +Markus (Markus@Lcc.cc).
Talk by Adrian Worsfold mentions ISM groups
In his recent talk entitled "A Sociology of Progressive Religious Groups: Why Liberal Religious Groups Cannot Get Together", delivered to Sea of Faith Yorkshire in Bradford on 22 September, Dr. Adrian Worsfold featured The Liberal Rite, the I.L.C.F. and the Society for Humanistic Potential among the organisations he discussed. His talk can be read here in pdf format, and here in html. Further posts on his blog have discussed issues relating to the ISM.
New book on independent bishops forthcoming at Apocryphile Press
Bishop Alistair Bate of the Companions of the Cross and Passion (ILCF) is to edit and contribute to a new book to be published by Apocryphile Press, the leading modern-day publisher of material concerning the ISM.
"A Strange Vocation: Independent Bishops Tell Their Stories", will feature the stories of a diverse invited group of ISM bishops, who will talk about their vocations and how they came to their present homes within the ISM.
Bishop John Kersey, director of the Mathew Center, has accepted an invitation to contribute a chapter to the book.
"A Strange Vocation: Independent Bishops Tell Their Stories", will feature the stories of a diverse invited group of ISM bishops, who will talk about their vocations and how they came to their present homes within the ISM.
Bishop John Kersey, director of the Mathew Center, has accepted an invitation to contribute a chapter to the book.
New Directory of Independent Bishops forthcoming
Bishop John Plummer recently alerted readers to his blog Priestcraft of the upcoming new edition of the Directory of Independent Bishops to be edited by +Brian Brown and published by Saint Columba Press.
This Directory - an extremely useful reference work, as well as being a good means of promoting greater unity within the ISM - began under the editorship of +Karl Pruter some years ago. As with so many ISM publications, past editions are highly sought-after.
The homepage of the project is at http://www.autocephalous.net/, and bishops in the ISM can use the online form to add details for inclusion. The deadline for inclusion is 1 January 2008.
This Directory - an extremely useful reference work, as well as being a good means of promoting greater unity within the ISM - began under the editorship of +Karl Pruter some years ago. As with so many ISM publications, past editions are highly sought-after.
The homepage of the project is at http://www.autocephalous.net/, and bishops in the ISM can use the online form to add details for inclusion. The deadline for inclusion is 1 January 2008.
ISM People: +River Sims
The Mathew Center salutes +River Sims, consecrated recently in the ISM, and his unique ministry.
Reading about +River's ministry is at once an empowering and humbling experience. His street ministry reaches those at the margins of society; those who society prefers to forget, but in forgetting, only denies its common humanity. +River's ministry is practical and based on living the example of Jesus Christ, who, as Monica Hellweg has said, was "one who entered into immediate, shockingly unconventional relationships with people, not evading the human encounter by the choreography of the socio-cultural role definitions." +River's Journals show the tension, the pain and the nobility of spirit that is at the heart of this extraordinary life.
Discover Temenos Catholic Worker for yourself at http://www.temenos.org. Donations, both financial and of needed goods, are warmly welcomed.
Reading about +River's ministry is at once an empowering and humbling experience. His street ministry reaches those at the margins of society; those who society prefers to forget, but in forgetting, only denies its common humanity. +River's ministry is practical and based on living the example of Jesus Christ, who, as Monica Hellweg has said, was "one who entered into immediate, shockingly unconventional relationships with people, not evading the human encounter by the choreography of the socio-cultural role definitions." +River's Journals show the tension, the pain and the nobility of spirit that is at the heart of this extraordinary life.
Discover Temenos Catholic Worker for yourself at http://www.temenos.org. Donations, both financial and of needed goods, are warmly welcomed.
Monday, 8 October 2007
Resources relating to Liberal Catholicism, the Wisdom Tradition and the independent sacramental movement
Book Publication: The Apostolic Succession in The Liberal Rite, by John Kersey
European-American University Press in association with the Arnold Harris Mathew Center for the Study of the Independent Sacramental Movement at European-American University and The Liberal Rite is pleased to announce the publication by European-American University Press of "The Apostolic Succession in The Liberal Rite" by Bishop John Kersey.
Description:
This book, first published in 2006, gives an account of the different lines of Apostolic Succession in The Liberal Rite. Tracing the heritage of this community from diverse Eastern and Western sources back to the Apostles themselves, it is one of the most complete accounts of the Apostolic Succession in print today.
This book, first published in 2006, gives an account of the different lines of Apostolic Succession in The Liberal Rite. Tracing the heritage of this community from diverse Eastern and Western sources back to the Apostles themselves, it is one of the most complete accounts of the Apostolic Succession in print today.
Product Details:
Printed: 272 pages, 6" x 9", jacket-hardcover binding, black and white interior ink
Publisher: The Liberal Rite/European-American University Press
Copyright: © 2007 John Kersey
Language: English
Liberal Catholicism - a faith for today
by John Kersey
We live in exciting times for Liberal Catholics, and that excitement brings both welcome developments and challenges. Now a decade away from the centenary of the foundation of the Liberal Catholic Church, the movement that is today's Liberal Catholicism has taken some interesting twists and turns in the intervening years.
One interesting aspect to these developments is that to some extent they have mirrored the classic positions within the Church of England of high, low and broad churches respectively, except that none of those positions truly negates the broad church view at least as far as externals are concerned. The most substantial distinction is between the fundamental position of compulsoriness in Theosophy, vegetarianism and articles of belief, and the position of free choice in all these matters.
The foundation of the Liberal Catholic Church was based on the most free expression of conscience within a Christian context. Here was a church which, in the witty phrase of one of its descendant communities, had no "you haftas" in respect of its faith. Where for some that liberation meant the realisation of a slightly anarchic utopia for the spiritual seeker, for others its lack of defined limits represented a threat - how could they "be church" without looking and behaving like the church models of their time? An answer to this might well be that Liberal Catholicism was in fact an idea well ahead of its time, and one which actually owed as much to both the independent movement that gave it birth and the contemporary Christian Unitarian movement that was coming to the same conclusions from within a non-Apostolic setting. Those conclusions were of church as both a community embracing profound differences of faith, yet not losing its identity as being constituted precisely in that diversity, and of individual relationships with God as the arbiters of faith. There could be no greater challenge to the established ecclesial order, nor a greater opportunity to reach out beyond the boundaries to a real and lived faith experience in personal conviction and exploration.
Read more
We live in exciting times for Liberal Catholics, and that excitement brings both welcome developments and challenges. Now a decade away from the centenary of the foundation of the Liberal Catholic Church, the movement that is today's Liberal Catholicism has taken some interesting twists and turns in the intervening years.
One interesting aspect to these developments is that to some extent they have mirrored the classic positions within the Church of England of high, low and broad churches respectively, except that none of those positions truly negates the broad church view at least as far as externals are concerned. The most substantial distinction is between the fundamental position of compulsoriness in Theosophy, vegetarianism and articles of belief, and the position of free choice in all these matters.
The foundation of the Liberal Catholic Church was based on the most free expression of conscience within a Christian context. Here was a church which, in the witty phrase of one of its descendant communities, had no "you haftas" in respect of its faith. Where for some that liberation meant the realisation of a slightly anarchic utopia for the spiritual seeker, for others its lack of defined limits represented a threat - how could they "be church" without looking and behaving like the church models of their time? An answer to this might well be that Liberal Catholicism was in fact an idea well ahead of its time, and one which actually owed as much to both the independent movement that gave it birth and the contemporary Christian Unitarian movement that was coming to the same conclusions from within a non-Apostolic setting. Those conclusions were of church as both a community embracing profound differences of faith, yet not losing its identity as being constituted precisely in that diversity, and of individual relationships with God as the arbiters of faith. There could be no greater challenge to the established ecclesial order, nor a greater opportunity to reach out beyond the boundaries to a real and lived faith experience in personal conviction and exploration.
Read more
Book Publication: New edition of "The Science of the Sacraments" by C.W. Leadbeater
European-American University Press in association with the Arnold Harris Mathew Center for the Study of the Independent Sacramental Movement at European-American University is pleased to announce the publication of a new edition of "The Science of the Sacraments" by Bishop Charles Webster Leadbeater.
Description:
"The Science of the Sacraments" remains one of Bishop Charles Webster Leadbeater's most significant major works. This new edition by Bishop John Kersey of The Liberal Rite and the Independent Liberal Catholic Fellowship is based on Leadbeater's own revisions of 1929 and includes a new Preface and updated annotations.
"The Science of the Sacraments" remains one of Bishop Charles Webster Leadbeater's most significant major works. This new edition by Bishop John Kersey of The Liberal Rite and the Independent Liberal Catholic Fellowship is based on Leadbeater's own revisions of 1929 and includes a new Preface and updated annotations.
Product Details:
Free download: 1 document, 9801 KB
Printed: 495 pages, 6" x 9", jacket-hardcover binding, black and white interior ink
Publisher: European-American University Press
Copyright: © 2007 European-American University Press
Language: English
Liberal Catholicism - a brief organizational history
Liberal Catholicism is a distinct Christian movement, separate from both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. It has as its basis a non-dogmatic approach to the Christian faith while preserving the traditional sacraments. It allows its followers freedom of faith and conscience, and is open to esoteric knowledge and that gained from other religious movements and philosophies. Although its founders were Theosophists, the movement is divided today as to whether Theosophy and its allied tenets of reincarnation and karma should be compulsory or voluntary, along with such adjuncts as vegetarianism and women clergy.
There are several organisations today that profess various forms of Liberal Catholicism. Together, we consider them to constitute what is best described as a worldwide Liberal Catholic movement, and we also consider that movement to include a number of esoteric and Gnostic Independent Catholic churches whose orders derive from the Liberal Catholics. This survey is an attempt to explain how the various organisations that have to do with Liberal Catholicism have come into being.
Read more
There are several organisations today that profess various forms of Liberal Catholicism. Together, we consider them to constitute what is best described as a worldwide Liberal Catholic movement, and we also consider that movement to include a number of esoteric and Gnostic Independent Catholic churches whose orders derive from the Liberal Catholics. This survey is an attempt to explain how the various organisations that have to do with Liberal Catholicism have come into being.
Read more
Book Publication: New edition of "An Outline of Theosophy" by C.W. Leadbeater
European-American University Press in association with the Arnold Harris Mathew Center for the Study of the Independent Sacramental Movement at European-American University is pleased to announce the publication of a new edition of "An Outline of Theosophy" by Bishop Charles Webster Leadbeater.
Description:
This accessible short book remains an excellent introduction to the main ideas and concepts of Theosophy. Written by C.W. Leadbeater, a leading Theosophist and later Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church, it was first published in 1902. This new edition has a preface by John Kersey, Presiding Bishop of The Liberal Rite.
Product Details:
Free download: 1 document, 449 KB
Printed: 59 pages, 6" x 9", jacket-hardcover binding, black and white interior ink
Publisher: European-American University Press
Copyright: © 2007 European-American University Press
Language: English
To purchase or to download as a free e-book, visit the University Press
Description:
This accessible short book remains an excellent introduction to the main ideas and concepts of Theosophy. Written by C.W. Leadbeater, a leading Theosophist and later Presiding Bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church, it was first published in 1902. This new edition has a preface by John Kersey, Presiding Bishop of The Liberal Rite.
Product Details:
Free download: 1 document, 449 KB
Printed: 59 pages, 6" x 9", jacket-hardcover binding, black and white interior ink
Publisher: European-American University Press
Copyright: © 2007 European-American University Press
Language: English
To purchase or to download as a free e-book, visit the University Press
A path to creative faith
by John Kersey
Rabbi Zusya said, “In the world to come I will not be asked, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I will be asked, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” The problem is how to be the person we were meant to be.
When we consider creativity we are considering the most elemental and innermost and deeply spiritual aspects of our beings. The great mystic Meister Eckhart asks: “What is it that remains?” And his answer is: “That which is inborn in me remains.” That which we give birth to from our depths is that which lives on after us. That which is inborn in us constitutes our most intimate moments—intimate with self, intimate with God the Creative Spirit and intimate with others. To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy. It is also to speak of our connecting to the Divine in us and of our bringing the Divine back to the community.
Revd. Dr. Matthew Fox, from "Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet".
Faith in itself defies description, yet we know it when we have encountered it, and sometimes recognise it in hindsight, when we reframe events in the light of their successors to establish threads and paths of understanding. The contemporary Benedictine mystic Bro. David Steindl-Rast has said "What catapults our awareness to a higher level is our capacity for surprise." If we recognise God in the essence of surprise, we must be eternally thankful to Him for allowing us that surprise as a constant and abiding feature of faith.
Read more
Rabbi Zusya said, “In the world to come I will not be asked, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I will be asked, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” The problem is how to be the person we were meant to be.
When we consider creativity we are considering the most elemental and innermost and deeply spiritual aspects of our beings. The great mystic Meister Eckhart asks: “What is it that remains?” And his answer is: “That which is inborn in me remains.” That which we give birth to from our depths is that which lives on after us. That which is inborn in us constitutes our most intimate moments—intimate with self, intimate with God the Creative Spirit and intimate with others. To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy. It is also to speak of our connecting to the Divine in us and of our bringing the Divine back to the community.
Revd. Dr. Matthew Fox, from "Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet".
Faith in itself defies description, yet we know it when we have encountered it, and sometimes recognise it in hindsight, when we reframe events in the light of their successors to establish threads and paths of understanding. The contemporary Benedictine mystic Bro. David Steindl-Rast has said "What catapults our awareness to a higher level is our capacity for surprise." If we recognise God in the essence of surprise, we must be eternally thankful to Him for allowing us that surprise as a constant and abiding feature of faith.
Read more
The Barnet Tithe Barn Church and the ministry of Archbishop John Sebastian Marlow Ward
New Barnet's Tithe Barn Church, pictured above, dates from the thirteenth-century. Its Old Catholic history starts with the pioneering Archbishop John Sebastian Marlow Ward (1885-1949), Archbishop of Olivet and Primate of the Orthodox Catholic Church in England. ++Ward was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and taught in England and Burma. His father was an Anglican clergyman. In 1929, in response to divine visions experienced both by himself and his wife, a deaconess, ++Ward formed a monastic community of men and women that was philosophically influenced by Freemasonry, Gnosticism and other esoteric Eastern and Western teachings, called the Confraternity of the Kingdom of Christ. They were guided by the Holy Spirit to find the historic tithe barn in Birchington, Kent, and at their expense removed and rebuilt it in New Barnet, where it was renamed as the Abbey of Christ the King.
Read more
Read more
The ministry of Bishop Francis Glenn
"...there are groups that exercise genuine pastoral ministries, often among poor and marginalised groups. Bishop Francis Glenn's ministry in Battersea in the 1950s was of this kind."
"Oversight, but no see", Revd. Dr. Kenneth Leech, Church Times.
Bishop Francis Everden Glenn, O.S.C., was consecrated by Bishop Victor Schoonbroodt in 1957 and then sub conditione by Mar Georgius (de Willmott Newman), Catholicos of the West in 1959. He was a remarkable pastoral priest of strongly traditionalist views. His church was known by various names over the years, with its predominant title being the Catholic Episcopal Church, and specialised in ministry to those society had rejected and marginalised. Many will remember his Church of Christ the King on Battersea Rise, which he restored and where he built up a loyal following for Christ. Youth groups in the inner city, ministry to offenders and ex-offenders, drug addicts and alcoholics were all at the heart of outreach. Soon, the prison and probation services were sending people to Father Francis, as he said "not because we are a 'soft touch', but because we believe that human life is a sacred gift of God." In addition, he set up a publishing-house, "Mathew Publications", which issued professionally-produced books and booklets on history, teaching and apologetics.
Read more
"Oversight, but no see", Revd. Dr. Kenneth Leech, Church Times.
Bishop Francis Everden Glenn, O.S.C., was consecrated by Bishop Victor Schoonbroodt in 1957 and then sub conditione by Mar Georgius (de Willmott Newman), Catholicos of the West in 1959. He was a remarkable pastoral priest of strongly traditionalist views. His church was known by various names over the years, with its predominant title being the Catholic Episcopal Church, and specialised in ministry to those society had rejected and marginalised. Many will remember his Church of Christ the King on Battersea Rise, which he restored and where he built up a loyal following for Christ. Youth groups in the inner city, ministry to offenders and ex-offenders, drug addicts and alcoholics were all at the heart of outreach. Soon, the prison and probation services were sending people to Father Francis, as he said "not because we are a 'soft touch', but because we believe that human life is a sacred gift of God." In addition, he set up a publishing-house, "Mathew Publications", which issued professionally-produced books and booklets on history, teaching and apologetics.
Read more
Roman Catholic views on Holy Orders in the Old Catholic and independent sacramental movements
Validity of orders in the eyes of Rome has a great importance for many Independent Catholics whose position is traditionalist or who see their communities as being in a position of reaction to the errors of Rome. For others, it is a matter of interest and value, but has no direct bearing on the life of their community or their perception of its validity. It must be stressed that the Roman Catholic Church is not some kind of universal arbiter on independent movement churches. Many such communities would strongly reject any such suggestion just as they reject the authority of Rome in order to assert their independence. Their freedom means that they do not have to do what Rome tells them, and that they can accept or reject aspects of their Roman heritage as they see fit.
Read more
Read more
About ordination and consecration per saltum
Ordination and consecration per saltum (literally by a leap) is a practice that occurs on a number of occasions in the Old Catholic movement in the twentieth-century. Although it is usual to bestow the orders of deacon, priest and bishop separately so that there is a gradual and distinct progression from one to the next, in per saltum ordinations one or sometimes two orders are effectively conferred simultaneously, the higher of course being considered to include the lower, so that a layman may be directly ordained priest or bishop, or a deacon ordained directly to the episcopate.This practice, though not current in the Roman Catholic Church today, has significant historical precedent within it. Dr Claude Beaufort Moss, writing in The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Dogmatic Theology (London, S.P.C.K., 1943, part II, chapter 63, II:5, available online at katapi.org.uk) acknowledges that this practice is perfectly valid...
Read more
Read more
About the Apostolic Succession and independent bishops
About the Apostolic Succession
"Have you an Apostolic Succession? Unfold the line of your Bishops."
Tertullian, 3rd century A.D.
“If Catholic doctrine is true, every priest validly ordained derives his orders in an unbroken line of laying of hands, through the bishop who ordains him, back to the twelve Apostles.”
Sir Anthony Kenny, A Path From Rome: An Autobiography, Oxford University Press, 1985.
Thomas C. O'Reilly, writing in the Catholic Encyclopedia, makes the following comments on Apostolic Succession:
"Apostolicity is the mark by which the Church of today is recognized as identical with the Church founded by Jesus Christ upon the Apostles. It is of great importance because it is the surest indication of the true Church of Christ, it is most easily examined, and it virtually contains the other three marks, namely, Unity, Sanctity, and Catholicity. Either the word "Christian" or "Apostolic", might be used to express the identity between the Church of today and the primitive Church. The term "Apostolic" is preferred because it indicates a correlation between Christ and the Apostles, showing the relation of the Church both to Christ, the founder, and to the Apostles, upon whom He founded it. "Apostle" is one sent, sent by authority of Jesus Christ to continue His Mission upon earth, especially a member of the original band of teachers known as the Twelve Apostles. Therefore the Church is called Apostolic, because it was founded by Jesus Christ upon the Apostles."
Read more
History of the independent Celtic churches in the modern era
The ancient Celtic tradition provided the inspiration for a distinct and particular movement within twentieth-century Old Catholicism that sought to reconnect with pre-Augustinian belief and practice. Although we consider this movement in some detail below, we should not forget that a number of Old Catholics who have seen themselves as Celtic in tradition or who have been influenced by Celtic spirituality originate from other branches of the succession, both before and contemporaneous with the people whose work is described below. Ultimately they are all the spiritual successors of Mar Pelagius (Richard William Morgan) who had sought to revive the Ancient British Church in the 1870s.
Read more
Read more
Arnold Harris Mathew and the Utrecht Succession
The Old Catholics of Utrecht
St. Willibrord was consecrated to the Episcopacy by Pope Sergius I in 696 at Rome. Upon his return to the Netherlands, he established his See at Utrecht. In addition, he established the dioceses at Deventer and Haarlem. The Church of Utrecht also provided a worthy occupant for the Papal See in 1552 in the person of Pope Hadrian VI, while two of the most able exponents of the spiritual life, Geert Groote, who founded the Brothers of the Common Life, and Thomas a Kempis, who is credited with writing The Imitation of Christ, were both from the Dutch Church.
Granting the petition made by the Holy Roman Emperor, Conrad II and Bishop Heribert of Utrecht, Blessed Pope Eugene III, in the year 1145, granted the See of Utrecht the right to elect successors to the See in times of vacancy. This privilege was affirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The autonomous nature of this See was further demonstrated when a second papal grant by Pope Leo X, Debitum Pastoralis, conceded to Philip of Burgundy, the 57th Bishop of Utrecht, that neither he nor any of his successors, or any of their clergy or laity, should ever be tried by a tribunal of the Roman Catholic Church, and that if any such tribunals where called against them, those tribunals would be, ipso facto, null and void. This papal concession, in 1520, was of the greatest importance in the defense of the rights of the Church of Utrecht. During the Reformation the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands remained under attack and the dioceses north of the Rhine and Waal eventually were dissolved and suspended by the Holy See. Protestants had occupied most church buildings, and those left were confiscated by the government of the Dutch Republic of Seven Provinces which favored Calvinist Protestantism.
Read more
Historic documents and photographs relating to the Independent Sacramental Movement
Several pages of rare photographs and documents of people, places and events in the ISM have been placed online, including a number that have not previously been made available.
Historic documents and photographs relating to the Independent Sacramental Movement
Historic documents and photographs relating to the Independent Sacramental Movement
History of the Independent Catholic Movement
"Since we are an independent Catholic church, we are not subject to the Vatican’s jurisdiction and man-made rules. We have therefore returned to many of the practices of the early church which have been abandoned by Rome. One is optional celibacy. Priests and bishops are free to marry. Another is the participation of the laity and clergy in the selection of their own bishops. Like the early church, we celebrate the Eucharist in the home. In fact, the majority of our churches are home churches. And even when there is a church building, it is owned by the local parish who paid for it, not by the bishop. We have attempted to divorce the hierarchy (who don’t get paid) from money and power, and return them to being the servants of the people, as Jesus intended. Like the early church, we ordain women to all levels of the clergy. We have also embraced the pacifist tradition of the first three centuries. We preach (and hopefully practice) nonviolence.
Most importantly, we differ from Rome in philosophy or attitude. We are attempting to recover the joy of the early church. We hope that "These Christians, how they love one another" applies to us. Essential to this quest is breaking free of legalism, racism, sexism, autocracy, dogmatism, and judgmentalism.
We leave decisions on birth control to the husband and wife. We embrace the divorced and remarried. (Yes, divorce usually involves sin ... but it is not an unforgiveable sin! We emphatically reject a hypocritical requirement for annulments.) We accept those whose sexual orientation differs from our own. And we don’t impose mandatory celibacy on them any more than we do our priests. We spend more time attempting to root out social injustice than we do worrying about someone’s concept of impurity. We base our social conscience on Amos and Isaiah rather than on Leviticus and Deuteronomy. In other words, we choose to follow Jesus, not the Pharisees."
[Source: "A Call to Decision", a sermon by Archbishop Robert Bowman of the United Catholic Church. Full text available here.]
One of the best short introductions to Independent Catholicism is in Meet the Ultrajectines: A Brief Introduction to Old Catholic Thought by the Most Revd. Raphael J. Adams of the Old Roman Catholic Church of North America. In a follow-up article, Bishop Adams deals comprehensively with some issues that have marred the relationship between Independent Catholics and their Roman Catholic brethren. If yours is a Roman Catholic or, indeed, conservative Anglican perspective, you may find The Last Word, also known as He's Mad as Hell and He's NOT Taking it Anymore! illuminating. Independent Catholics are in every respect Catholic although not accepting papal jurisdiction. So we are not Roman Catholics. We understand Catholicism in the terms of the Vincentian Canon of 434 A.D.
Read more
About Independent Catholic Churches
What is Catholicism?
The One Holy Catholic Church embraces all followers of Jesus Christ, and a liberal perspective would go further to extend its membership to mankind in its entirety. For our purposes in discussion, Catholics are those with faith in God through Jesus Christ and sacramental validity through the Apostolic Succession, an unbroken line of bishops tracing descent through the laying on of hands from the Apostles themselves. Catholics are distinct from Protestant Christians who do not generally stand within the Apostolic Succession. Catholic does not purely mean "Roman Catholic", as will be explained below, although all Catholics have a common heritage with the Roman Catholic Church through the Apostolic Succession, with many tracing that line through the Papacy.
What is a denomination?
A denomination is an organisation of Christian believers with a common vision and administration. Christianity is divided into many denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Churches and many more, some of which will probably be unfamiliar to the general reader. Whatever the differences between denominations, and they can be considerable, they share in common a faith in God and in Jesus Christ.
Are there many Catholic denominations?
Yes, there are. The larger denominations include the Roman Catholic and Polish National Catholic Churches, while there are many smaller denominations, known variously as Independent, Old, Traditional and Reformed Catholic churches. The Old Catholic denomination seceded from the Roman Catholic Church in 1724 and has since divided into many smaller denominations. These include the large Utrecht Union, which embraces most continental European Old Catholics and which is now in union with Protestant churches, and other independent Catholic churches including the Old Catholic Church of America, the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch, the Old Catholic Church in Europe, the Old Catholic Church of Canada, Heartland Old Catholic Church and The Liberal Rite, to name just a few of many.
Read more
The One Holy Catholic Church embraces all followers of Jesus Christ, and a liberal perspective would go further to extend its membership to mankind in its entirety. For our purposes in discussion, Catholics are those with faith in God through Jesus Christ and sacramental validity through the Apostolic Succession, an unbroken line of bishops tracing descent through the laying on of hands from the Apostles themselves. Catholics are distinct from Protestant Christians who do not generally stand within the Apostolic Succession. Catholic does not purely mean "Roman Catholic", as will be explained below, although all Catholics have a common heritage with the Roman Catholic Church through the Apostolic Succession, with many tracing that line through the Papacy.
What is a denomination?
A denomination is an organisation of Christian believers with a common vision and administration. Christianity is divided into many denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Churches and many more, some of which will probably be unfamiliar to the general reader. Whatever the differences between denominations, and they can be considerable, they share in common a faith in God and in Jesus Christ.
Are there many Catholic denominations?
Yes, there are. The larger denominations include the Roman Catholic and Polish National Catholic Churches, while there are many smaller denominations, known variously as Independent, Old, Traditional and Reformed Catholic churches. The Old Catholic denomination seceded from the Roman Catholic Church in 1724 and has since divided into many smaller denominations. These include the large Utrecht Union, which embraces most continental European Old Catholics and which is now in union with Protestant churches, and other independent Catholic churches including the Old Catholic Church of America, the Catholic Apostolic Church of Antioch, the Old Catholic Church in Europe, the Old Catholic Church of Canada, Heartland Old Catholic Church and The Liberal Rite, to name just a few of many.
Read more
Launch of CSISM blog
In preparation for the launch of the main European-American University website, which will also house the Arnold Harris Mathew Center for the Study of the Independent Sacramental Movement (CSISM), we extend a warm welcome to the official blog of the CSISM. EAU has three official blogs in all - the general University conduit for news, views and information, and two specialist newsblogs for the Amos Bronson Alcott Center for Educational Research and the Arnold Harris Mathew Center for the Study of the Independent Sacramental Movement.
CSISM is the first university center anywhere in the world to be specifically devoted to the study of the independent sacramental movement that developed from mostly Roman Catholic and Orthodox routes during the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. This movement has been significant in a number of aspects, chiefly in providing models for church and community structure and in progressive and experimental theology. Although to an outsider it often appears bewilderingly complex and constantly changing, this complexity and change is in fact the very point of the movement itself as it brings about a unique flexibility and adaptability that is impossible in more rigidly hierarchical communities.
The ISM is diverse to the point of encompassing most shades of Christian belief and praxis, and indeed contains much that to the conventional viewpoint would not seem to belong in orthodox or mainstream Christianity at all. Here are syncretic, Gnostic and Theosophical communities, some even going so far as to encompass modern alchemy and Crowleyan beliefs, while others follow an ultra-Orthodox or reactionary path that regards the mainstream denominations as in error and their community as defenders of the true faith. This diversity explains in large part why, although the ISM can certainly be observed as a holistic phenomenon, it remains fiercely divided, with many communities actively hostile to each other on issues that, while they may seem of minor importance to outsiders, are seen as crucial to the determination of identity and faith.
Scholarship in the ISM has been relatively plentiful from within the communities themselves, but has rarely impinged upon the mainstream. Its output takes the form of tracts, pamphlets, devotional literature and an increasing number of books that examine the ISM in a historical context as well as tracing the beliefs and nature of communities past and present. The CSISM aims to publish new scholarship as well as republishing work of the past, and making available to the public rare resources such as pictures, photographs and document copies which have not previously been accessible via any standard route.
CSISM has published a number of historical and discursive articles that treat both the ISM as a whole and Liberal Catholicism as a specific strand within it. It has also produced several books which are published in hardback via European-American University Press. These include Bishop John Kersey's "The Apostolic Succession in The Liberal Rite", which is one of the most complete historical surveys of the Apostolic Succession in modern times, as well as new editions of key works in Theosophy and Liberal Catholicism.
This blog will provide links to each of the books and articles published or republished by the CSISM, with the intention of providing a snapshot of its public activities.
CSISM is the first university center anywhere in the world to be specifically devoted to the study of the independent sacramental movement that developed from mostly Roman Catholic and Orthodox routes during the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. This movement has been significant in a number of aspects, chiefly in providing models for church and community structure and in progressive and experimental theology. Although to an outsider it often appears bewilderingly complex and constantly changing, this complexity and change is in fact the very point of the movement itself as it brings about a unique flexibility and adaptability that is impossible in more rigidly hierarchical communities.
The ISM is diverse to the point of encompassing most shades of Christian belief and praxis, and indeed contains much that to the conventional viewpoint would not seem to belong in orthodox or mainstream Christianity at all. Here are syncretic, Gnostic and Theosophical communities, some even going so far as to encompass modern alchemy and Crowleyan beliefs, while others follow an ultra-Orthodox or reactionary path that regards the mainstream denominations as in error and their community as defenders of the true faith. This diversity explains in large part why, although the ISM can certainly be observed as a holistic phenomenon, it remains fiercely divided, with many communities actively hostile to each other on issues that, while they may seem of minor importance to outsiders, are seen as crucial to the determination of identity and faith.
Scholarship in the ISM has been relatively plentiful from within the communities themselves, but has rarely impinged upon the mainstream. Its output takes the form of tracts, pamphlets, devotional literature and an increasing number of books that examine the ISM in a historical context as well as tracing the beliefs and nature of communities past and present. The CSISM aims to publish new scholarship as well as republishing work of the past, and making available to the public rare resources such as pictures, photographs and document copies which have not previously been accessible via any standard route.
CSISM has published a number of historical and discursive articles that treat both the ISM as a whole and Liberal Catholicism as a specific strand within it. It has also produced several books which are published in hardback via European-American University Press. These include Bishop John Kersey's "The Apostolic Succession in The Liberal Rite", which is one of the most complete historical surveys of the Apostolic Succession in modern times, as well as new editions of key works in Theosophy and Liberal Catholicism.
This blog will provide links to each of the books and articles published or republished by the CSISM, with the intention of providing a snapshot of its public activities.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
