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... you can't have it both ways. One cannot label, as vagante, all Churches claiming apostolic succession from Arnold Harris Mathew and then grant an exception in favor of the "Old Roman Catholics" because of "their theological and liturgical conservatism and the modicum of ecclesiastical order that they have tried to maintain". Mathew himself had his episcopal orders from Archbishop Gerardus Gul, a man whose own orders are generally not deemed in question, and Prince de Landas Berges and Carmel Henry Carfora, his successors in according orders to the Old Roman Catholics are unquestionably generally perceived as spiritual men who adhered to traditional Catholic belief as they saw it. But, who are their legitimate non-vagante descendents and by what measure are other descendent bodies from Mathew's laying-on-of-hands to be labeled vagante or not?

"Old Roman Catholics" itself is ill-defined. It was the original styling of Mathew's mission effort directed to the US, but to which body is it now being applied - The Old Roman Catholic Church in North America (ORCCNA) (Archbishop Facione) only or equally to the other ecclesiae which evolved subsequent to the repose of Archbishop Carfora?

These were initially 5 in number, but formation of The Council of Old Roman Catholic Bishops in North America purports to have brought them together in some sort of common structure that could eventually lead to reunion. Understanding what stage they are at in the process is muddied by the Council's description of itself as being comprised of 3 dioceses. Yet, 2 of the 3, ORCCNA and The North American Old Roman Catholic Church (NAORCC)(Archbishop Ford), appear to be more than dioceses, having a distinct ecclesial identity and presiding hierarch. And what of The Old Catholic Church of America (OCCA)(Archbishop Bostwick) and The North American Old Roman Catholic Church (Utrecht Succession) (NAORC) (Archbishop Vellone)?

The Liberal Catholic Church, in all of its variant incarnations claim succession from (again) Mathew (who, as a progenitor, you early on disclaimed) through Willoughby, Wedgewood, and Leadbeatter. None - none - of these can seriously be said to adhere to any stringency in transmission of apostolic succession. A review of their ritual books offers no prospect of any of their "sacraments" retaining validity or licity. Keep in mind also, that it was from this base that Spruit's Church (and its myriad daughters) derive in one fashion or another.

As to Anthony Aneed, he had no episcopal orders to impart. He was likely afforded the honorific dignity of exarch by a Melkite hierarch to whom he was related and who made a pastoral visit to the US early in the 20th century. Aneed, in his own mind, translated the honorific to an office and set out to establish his own Church. One supposes that it was a good thing that he decided to go to the West coast to do so, rather than to corral any of the existing Melkite parishes and missions into his fold.

Aftimios Ofiesh presents all manner of issues. He was, without question, a legitimately ordained bishop , albeit once he broke with his Church, by the Orthodox view he no longer was able to exercise episcopal authority. The question has never been quite so clear-cut when looked at from the Catholic perspective, given the long-standing adherence to an Augustinian theory of apostolic succession versus the Cyprianic theory of the Orthodox. On the Catholic side, recent attitudes toward episcopal ordinations by renegade hierarchs within the Catholic Church suggest that there is a considerably more conservative approach being taken - or at least considered. Are many of Ofiesh's ecclesial offspring vagante? Without question, but vagante ecclesiae and their attendant vagante episcopi do not, in themselves, translate into a lack of apostolic succession.

The vast majority - if not all - episcopal ordinations by Thuc are unlikely to be deemed valid or licit, as his state of mind in the last decade of his life is itself in question and leaves open the question of his ability to form the proper intent. The resultant ecclesiae, in this instance, are almost assuredly both vagante and without claim to apostolic succession.

As to the Mariavites, they may not fit the mold typically associated with vagante, but their apostolic succession, barring what they might have garnered through Utrecht, is very much in question.

Many years,

Neil

I would agree that, at the time of Carfora's death, the Old Roman Catholics were a respectable Church, "part of the family". It is the situation after Carfora that greatly muddled everything, which is why I DIDN'T say that the Old Roman Catholics of today are definitely worthy of being removed from the "vagante" list; I merely said that perhaps the current ORCCNA claimants could be re-evaluated.



Glad to be corrected then. I swear I've read some old Catholic reference works that referred to the Liberal Catholics as jealously guarding the apostolic succession.


Perhaps, but the history of Ofieshite jurisdictions is so muddled and riddled with contradictory accounts that I do not see any possibility of Ofieshite clergy being accepted into either canonical Orthodoxy or Catholicism without any conditional ordinations, at the very least.


I wouldn't be so hasty. While Thuc had a very bizarre career, the fact that a theologian of Guerard des Laurier's stature and learning -- a master of scholastic hairsplitting if ever there was one -- would seek episcopal consecration from him, still gives me pause. The sedevacantists, in my opinion, are guilty of excessive rigor, not laxity, when it comes to judging the validity of the sacraments (see for example the writings of Anthony Cekada). That alone is enough for me not to immediately discount the validity of Thucite ordinations / consecrations. These are simply not the kind of people who'll take episcopal consecration from anybody.

Marcel Lefebvre accepted at least one Thuc-ordained priest into the SSPX without conditional ordination of any sort.

As for the argument from dementia, I find it unconvincing. The fact that the Holy See excommunicated him by name twice (after learning of the 1976 and 1981 consecrations respectively) tells me that the Holy See considered him to have been sufficiently in possession of his faculties to deserve the harshest possible penalty.



It is my understanding that the Catholic Church still treats Mariavite orders as valid. Yes, they did get their orders from Utrecht.

Pilgrim,

In re-reading your posts and my own I think the issue is something that hit me near the end of my last own - I alluded to it, but didn't go into depth.

The discussion is mixing apostolic succession and vagantism. Having apostolic succession does not, in and of itself, take a church (or a hierarch) out of the realm of being vagante; conversely, being unquestionably vagante does not preclude a church (or its hierarchs) having apostolic succession.

Labeling (correctly) a church or hierarch as vagante invariably leads to derisive commentary about synods that are larger in number than the entire body of faithful, about cathedrals in recreation rooms or garages, about cathedra recliners covered with the afghan that was inherited from grandma, about vesture that most resembles parlor drapes and episcopal staffs that were previously the rod for those same drapes, about congregations consisting of the bishop's spouse - a neighbor who wishes he had as nice a cope and mitre - and two passerby who wandered in to see whether there was a yard sale underway. Now, most of the time, there will be no vestige of apostolic succession lurking about in these circumstances, but ... the scary thing is that there can indeed be. Without tracing the episcopal genealogy of an individual to the point where there is a clear break, the question remains open - at least under the Augustinian theory, not so under the Cyprianic theory.

On the obverse side, one can build or purchase an impressive church ediface, gather a substantial congregation, erect religious orders, and create sufficient other functional parishes that it is not realistic to apply the classic definition of a vagante to the body. It doesn't, however, guarantee apostolic succession; it means that someone has formed a Church (or denomination or sect, whatever one chooses to call it) that has as much right to label itself such as any Protestant or non-Christian group. It might also mean that the folks involved with it truly believe that they are doing God's work and that they may succeed in leading some otherwise unchurched folks to God.

The Old Roman Catholics whom you referenced and those whom I added to the discussion are not vagante by any realistic application of that term. Whether they, all or some, can claim apostolic succession is a more open question that requires some detailed review.

Ofiesh's descendents are a mixed bag as to apostolic succession - but only to Catholics - to the Orthodox, barring application of economia, they are without apostolic succession. As regards the question of being vagante, they are an equally mixed bag - although the majority fit the mold.

Vilatte's descendents, those of Thuc, some of Duarte's who strayed afield in later years, some descendents of Mathew who broke from the ORCs, also present those same questions on both counts. Aneed's are all without succession and most are vagante, although there may be a non-apostolic church or two out there.

There are also another dozen or so lesser known "lines", (Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Syriac, Assyrian and others) that present the same questions.

Btw, a great list of things to look out for in deciding whether a "Church" is vagante appears on the site of an Orthodox (EP, I believe) parish in the Philippines. I can't find the link right this minute, but it's worth a read.

Many years,

Neil

The Philippines has an awful problem with vagantism that probably rivals the extent of the problem in the USA. In fact, just today I got a query from a friend who had run into the "Nicean Catholic Church." There are literally hundreds of vagante Churches, mostly "Western Orthodox" wannabes with married episcopates, obvious frauds that claim to trace their consecration to St. John of Shanghai, or to Mar Dinkha IV, etc.

My own interest in "vagante" Churches comes from the fact that there are so many such "churches" in the Philippines and even the Catholic hierarchy here has great difficulty in distinguishing between Churches that have valid apostolic succession (and which, therefore, should be shown some respect) and those that are mere vagante fakeries (and "priets" judged to be mere fakes can get jailed in this country!). What makes it worse is that the spirit of false ecumenism sometimes leads some overworked Filipino Roman Catholic priests to refer their flock to the ministries of "independent Catholic" priests who, they think, have apostolic succession anyway. (Chances are, these independents don't!).

The EP's Philippine Exarchate's interest in distinguishing vagante churches comes from the following:

1) The Philippine media -- which doesn't know any better -- sometimes features vagante Churches as "Orthodox".

2) Last year, Metropolitan Paul Saliba of Australia and New Zealand hastily received a large number of vagante priests and small-time Protestant ministers into the Antiochian Orthodox Patriarchate, thus establishing an Antiochian presence in the Philippines. Mass ordinations into the priesthood and mass chrismations followed. Problem is, the new Antiochian jurisdiction in the Philippines uses the Novus Ordo (ad populum) with all the typical Filipino liturgical abuses, which is the same modus operandi as that of the vagante "Orthodox" in this country -- aside from the fact that it makes the Antiochenes indistingushable from the Roman Catholic Church! The Patriarchate of Constantinople has made its displeasure very clear, and to my knowledge has refused to recognize the Antiochene faithful in the Philippines as Orthodox (mainly due to the uncanonical "chrismations")

I will elaborate more on the situation in Latin America.

The one you mentioned as "Former Exarchate of the Patriarchate of alexandria" is actually a vagante group that traces its origin in Aftimios Ofiesh, Christopher Conteogeorge, Joachim Souris. They're related to a a body formerly led by Timotheos Athanasiou called "Synod of Hellas and the Diaspora Patrou" (also known as Genuine Orthodox Christians, Hellenic Traditional Church). They even present themselves as Old Calendarists but have nothing to do with the real Old Calendarists of Europe. The different "bishops" (ioannis de Santa catarina, Kyrillos do Ceará, Metropolitan Osios) separated and formed their own groups existing mainly on the Internet (they're really vagante and do not have a good reputation).

In Colombia, there are actually several different groups claiming to be Orthodox:

- One of them led by Odon Abad (who got his "orders" from the Duarte Costa "Brazilian Church") and part of Michael Champion of the USA Sobornopravna Church.
- A Church affiliated with Moisey's Church that formed around a former Catholic nun who's regarded as phony by most Orthodox there. The bishop is a former Old Catholic with Brazilian orders.
- A mission of the AUOCA under Archbishop Chrysostomos whose Diocese (in spite of not being canonical) is very serious and not vagante.
- A group led by a former EP priest affiliated with the totally vagante American Orthodox Church.
- Another group that uses the Western Rite (Anglican version) formerly Old catholic and in communion with a vagante American jurisdiction Russian Orthodox Church in America (however, much more serious than the American Orthodox Church).

In Mexico, you can find, in addition to the Antiochian, EP, MP and OCA churches, a Ukrainian Church affiliated with Moisey, led by Bishop Daniel (who seems to be quite Orthodox in his practice and teachings and I don't understand why he would want to remain part of Moisey's sect).

You can also find real vagantes who ordain gays and women, and those "Churches" registered in the government by people who pose as Roman priests and do business offering marriages and baptisms.

I'd like to know if there is any truth to their story that they used to be affiliated with Alexandria under the late Patriarch Nicholas VI


Michael Champion is with the UAOC of Metropolitan Mefodiy. I think he's a former Roman Catholic.



Moisey's Church is the "Sobornopravna" one. I checked their website recently and Moisey's Church seems to have Latin America as its main base of support. The Colombians under him seem to be a very active lot.



The AUOCA broke away from Moisey, who himself broke away from UAOC. However, the AUOCA broke away from Moisey precisely because they wanted to be more observant of the Orthodox canons. I wonder why the AUOCA doesn't want to reconcile either with the UAOC or with the UOCOFUSA of the EP.




-- I guess you are referring to former members of Moisey's group who broke away last year along with Moisey's "Metropolia of France", and joined the AOC. The AOC is vagante but the Metropolia of France strikes me as being somewhat more serious.


Ofieshites! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!


We have them in the Philippines too!

One bit of lore I've picked up online about these groups is those in Carfora's tradition (like Facione's little church) are more likely to be real churches with trained clergy whilst those in Vilatte's tend to be the ones that give vagantes a bad name: people with no training and no real ministry who are wannabe clergy.

I know an independent bishop (in one of the Thuc lines FWIW) and two priests in his church. They're much like Episcopalians: credally orthodox, good liturgical taste, liberal on social issues. The bishop essentially is a pastor of a small congregation. He's honest and has no delusions of grandeur (and is very smart: master's from Harvard and knows Hebrew): his is a niche ministry that doesn't compete with the big churches.

Hello

Regarding the Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, it is my understanding that in the 1930's some clergy in the US attempted to associate with the Alexandrian Patriarchate. However, it's not clear to me if the Exarchate ever reached canonical recognition. The claim that the Alexandrian Patriarchate proclaimed the autocephaly of the group is not very credible.

Metropolitan Michael Champion's group was accepted because of "apostolic charity" and is tolerated by Mefodiy because it provides visa invitations for Ukrainian priests of the UAOC who sent to the USA. However the UAOC- has sometimes denied that Champion is part of their Church. It was actually Champion (and Petrovich) who consecrated and sent Moisey to Ukraine as a direct rival to Metropolitan Mefodiy. Once Moisey started to cause problems in Ukraine, Champion's group ceased to support him and recognized Mefodiy as head of the Church.

Regarding the Colombian group, it formed around a former RC nun who received some form of revelation and vision from heaven and from the face of Jesus Christ (very bizarre, actually). They wanted to join an Orthodox Church so they asked Archbishop Chrysostomos of Ecuador (AUOCA) to receive them. He tried to make them more Orthodox and to ban weird practices (strange "healing" rituals) but the group became increasingly bizarre and Archbishop Chrysostomos excommunicated them.

After that, they associated again with Moisey's Church and one of their priests was consecrated bishop. The consecrators were Daniel of Mexico (whose "lines of succession" come from the Ukrainian Church) and Iurii (Jorge Rodriguez Villa) of Colombia who's probably not a real bishop (he was head of a sect in Colombia which sometimes presented itself as Old catholic, sometimes as Anglican, etc.). They continue to practice weird healing rituals and non Orthodox liturgical usages:

http://iglesiacatolicaortodoxa.blogspot.com/

In Colombia, there is another group, affiliated with the vagante "American Orthodox Church" which is led by a former priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate who was unfairly removed from the EP. They were not part of Moisey's Church. I don't understand why such an inteligent person as this priest (who taught Greek)could join a group that is so deficient (having married episcopacy, etc.).

Regarding the AUOCA, some bishops are serious and Orthodox in their faith and religious praxis, they have Orthodox lines of succession and wish to reconcile with canonical Orthodoxy. However, other bishops do not come from an Orthodox background and continue to behave like vagantes (mixing Western and Eastern rites, venerating non-Orthodox saints, etc.). This makes things complicated.

Sometimes, good elements are part of these groups because Canonical Orthodoxy did not offer a place for them and was not welcoming toward people who do not come from Orthodox nations. Now, only the OCA Exarchate in Mexico can be called a National Orthodox Church, governed by Mexicans. this is because of the labour of Archbishop Dmitri who was brave enough to receive an independent group as part of the Orthodox Church. The results were very positive. All the other Churches in Latin America continue to be very ethnic.

Where did they get all those nice churches?

Fascinating. Not an imaginary church: a decent-sized following and yes, nice churches. I can see the average Westerner without much knowledge of the Christian East assuming they're Orthodox. They look almost so. But those who know can tell they're not, from the picture of the bishop with the (I'm guessing) uncanonical icon of St Joseph on the iconostasis (IIRC from Fr Serge, according to the rules of iconography this, really a Western Catholic picture, is saying that St Joseph was Jesus' father!), to First Communions (although of course ACROD did that for decades and in the same period Russian Metropolia parishes had 'Solemn First Communions' for the kids) to that nun's прелесть (delusion)-looking and scary-looking vision. High-church charismatic ex-RCs.

I was reading a PDF copy of William Macomber's History of the Chaldean Mass, and it refers to a splinter Assyrian Church in Baghdad that accepts the doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church, but not its liturgy or hierarchical authority.

Could this be a remnant of the Assyrians of Urmia who united with the Russian Orthodox Church in the late 19th century?

Yes. If you do a search here, there are a couple of earlier threads on the subject. Search Bishop John of Urmia.

Many years,

Neil

Perhaps, being in Mexico, you might be able to assit me: we have in the United States a group of religious who maintain a traditionalist stance, but at the same time, are connected by episcopal consecration to a group that I find very little information about in english. It was involved with some controversy about an alleged "miracle" that took place in the "Sanctuario de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe" and the parish priest (Jose Camargo Melo) it seems was excommunicated. He latter got himself involved with "Bishop Eduardo Davila de la Garza" of the Mexican National Catholic Church, which appears to have been the "left over" from the Masonic "Catholic" splinter the Mexican government encouraged, around the time of the Cristero revolt.

I read on the Archdiocese of Mexico (City) that the Sacraments of the Camargo Melo group were not considered valid. no reason is given, which i can't understand. At any rate, I was wondering if this is a "traditional" Church, or just your typical type of "Old Catholic" group? On "You Tube" Camargo Melo appears with many of his "miracles" etc. I would appreciate any help on this. My email is paxetbonum@catholic.org

I would like to correct the following portion of my list:


I was wrong to have listed the Churches of Moldova, Latvia, Estonia and ROCOR as "autonomous". Instead, as I learned from a recent post on the orthodox-rocor list, these four are "self-governing" but not autonomous.

UOC-MP is self-governing but with some (not all) the marks of autonomy.

Only the Orthodox Churches of Japan and China (the latter is nearly non-existent) are properly "autonomous".