Episcopi Vagantes

The phrase 'episcopi vagantes' was sadly developed out of necessity by Anglicans in the nineteenth century to describe the phenomenon of bishops uncanonically consecrated without flocks to serve or parishes to govern: bishops made by bishops whose orders are schismatic. The phrase simply means 'wandering' or 'vagrant' bishops, that is, bishops without jurisdiction or apostolic authority, bishops who do not serve as the officers of any legitimate Church. Vagantes are defined, technically, as bishops who lack communion with any historic see in Christendom or who lack any connection to any authentic catholic Church. They are also defined as bishops whose 'churches' are so small as to seem to exist only for the sake of prelate concerned - many 'continuing church' bodies are vagans, for they have no process for the election and accountability of real bishops in communion with other real bishops. Vagantes' sacramental orders may or may not be valid, depending on the succession involved, but they are all, as Dr CB Moss interestingly describes them, ecclesiastical freaks. They are bishops outside the Church. The most famous examples of vagans bishops are the quasi-Old Catholics AH Matthew and Joseph Rene Villate, from whom sprang countless sects claiming apostolic succession in a vacuum, but having no living communion with any historical catholic body. Today, in North America, all bodies aside from the PNCC describing themselves as 'Old Catholic' are in fact vagans sects, having no origin from or relationship with the Union of Utrecht. Only the Polish National Catholic Church can claim a genuine Utrechtine ancestry.