Anglicanism and Old Catholicism

Based on Three Studies of Old Catholicism by Fathers Owen Groman and Jonathan Trela:

Until recently, relations between the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholic Churches had been most successful. The close connection between Anglicanism and Old Catholicism began at the Old Catholic Congress of Cologne (1872). The prime mover in this matter was Bishop Herzog of the Swiss Old Catholic Church. Unofficially, Anglicans were allowed to receive communion at Swiss altars for some time. In 1879, the Swiss Old Catholic Church formally granted members of the Church of England altar rights. This intercommunion was extended when Bishop Herzog at­tended the 1880 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In America, he not only took part in the Liturgy, but also, in various places, was invited to preach and to confer Confirma­tion. In 1883 the German Old Catholic Church extended the privilege of the altar to Anglicans. The Anglican Communion gave its first formal sanction of intercommunion at the 1888 Lambeth Conference by resolution. Thirty years later the Society of St. Willibrord was formed to improve relations between the Church of England and the Dutch Old Catholic Church.

The Dutch Old Catholic Church steadfastly refused to extend the privilege of the altar to Anglicans until 1894 and that for the good of souls. However, the Dutch Church was not at all willing to accept Anglican Orders as valid since it considered the ritual of Edward VI used for ordinations as insufficient and defective. Archbishop Gerald Gul, the principal consecrator of Prime Bishop Francis Hodur, appointed a commission to decide the question, but the report was indecisive.

Investigation continued, during which there was no intercommunion between the Church of England and the Old Catholic Church of Holland, although intercommunion was operative between the Church of England and the Old Catholic Churches of Germany and Switzerland. This put little strain on the fabric of the union of Old Catholic Churches since it is endemic to the Old Catholic federation that the disciplinary decisions of each separate church bind only in the territory of that church and in good consci­ence the Dutch could not recognize Anglican Orders. On June 2, 1925, after extensive review, the Old Catholic Church of Holland finally recognized the historicity and validity of the orders of the Church of England, a decision ratified by the Old Catholic Bishops' Conference at Berne (1925). Three years previously, the holy Synod of Constantinople had pronounced in favor of the validity of Anglican orders.

By 1930, after extensive discussions between the European Old Catholics and the Church of England, full doctrinal accord had been reached on the essentials of the Faith. Both jurisdictions accepted the teachings of the undivided Church, but with the Old Catholics making a distinction in importance between the first four Councils and the later three. Good feelings had attained such a point that the Old Catholic bishops of Haarlem advised members of his flock emigrating to the United States to go to the Protestant Episcopal Church. This is very curious in the light of the fact that there was in America a fully formed and functioning member of the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht, namely the Polish National Catholic Church. Be that as it may, the way had been paved for the union of the Church of England and the continental Old Catholic Churches.

The joint Anglican/Old Catholic Conference on Union was held at Bonn (July 2,1931). Questions were posed by each side concern­ing the doctrinal beliefs of the other. The immediate concern was for intercommunion with the Church of England and only secon­darily with its daughter churches. This is evident in the fact that each church of the Anglican Communion would have to ratify the Bonn Agreement for itself otherwise it would have no force for that particular church. Prompted by the Dutch concern over validity and historicity of orders, the Old Catholic delegates asked:

Is it universally believed that ordination and consecration can only be given because it is the Church that calls her ministers, and that the holders of office derive their office and their apostolic character only from the will of the Church, so that the apostolic succession cannot be thought of apart from the catholicity of the Church, but has its sole basis therein?

The Anglican delegates replied affirmatively, mentioning the fact that they believed their church to be historically one with the Pre-Reformation Church in England. The Old Catholic delegates then inquired about inter- and intra-communal relations:

Would the Old Catholic Church be committed to intercom­munion with churches already in communion with the Church of England if the Old Catholic Churches had inter­communion with the Church of England?

Dr. Headlam, Bishop of Gloucester, a chairman of the Confer­ence, replied that the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht would not be committed to intercommunion with other churches with which the Church of England was already in union particularly if there were a doctrinal divergence; but rather that the churches of the Old Catholic federation would be free to deal with each in their own way.

Satisfied of the catholicity of the other, the delegates composed the following, called the Bonn Agreement:

(1) Each communion recognises the Catholicity and independence of the other and maintains its own.
(2) Each communion agrees to admit members of the other communion to participate in the sacraments.
(3) Intercommunion does not require from either communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion, or liturgical practice characteristic of the other, but implies that each believes the other to hold the essentials of the Christian faith.

This agreement was based on three principles: dogmatic unity, mutual recognition and independent cooperation. It was felt that a union which was not universally accepted was worthless. Thus, it was necessary to distinguish between doctrines which are neces­sary to salvation and teachings (theological positions) which are not. Unity, then, was founded on agreement in essentials. Mutual recognition entailed the acceptance of each communion's beliefs by the other as orthodox and their sacraments as valid. Independent cooperation perhaps the most ephemeral of the three, can only be a continued response achieved by reciprocal love and service, not through domination. Where these three principles are lacking, there can be no union in Faith.

The Bonn Agreement was accepted at once by the European Old Catholic Churches and by the Church of England. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America formally ap­proved this intercommunion agreement at the General Convention of 1934, through the following resolution passed by the House of Bishops:

Resolved: the terms of intercommunion drawn up by the Joint Commission of Anglicans and Old Catholics we hereby ac­cept and ratify them. Furthermore, we agree to the estab­lishment of intercommunion between the Protestant Epis­copal Church and the Old Catholics of the Utrecht Conven­tion on these terms.

However, by an unfortunate oversight, this resolution was not ratified by the House of Deputies. It was again ignored at the 1937 Convention. At the next General Convention (1940), the House of Bishops again passed the resolution with the discriminatory phrase 'in Europe' following the words 'the Old Catholics of the Ut­recht Convention.' This significant phrase directed against the Polish National Catholic Church was removed by the House of Deputies. The original resol­ution then passed and intercommunion was realized with the Old Catholics.

Practically, this resolution and the Bonn Agreement had no immediate effect in the United States. Interrelations between the
Episcopal Church and Polish National Catholic Church had never been healthy due to a particular snobbishness on the part of the Episcopalians toward a body composed of recent immigrants. As early as 1896, the first foundation of Polish Old Catholicism had as its bishop the Right Reverend Anthony Kozlowski, who had been consec­rated in Europe by three Old Catholic Bishops for the American Church. During the ten years of his episcopate, he was able to realise 23 parishes under his Chicago jurisdiction with some 80,000 members. He was on exceedingly good terms with the Episcopal bishop of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the Right Reverend Charles C. Grafton, who for years worked with Bishop Kozlowski for closer cooperation between the Episcopal and Polish Old Catholic Churches.

However, when, in 1900, Reginald H. Weller was to be consecrated Coadjutor to Bishop Grafton and that same bishop proposed to have Bishop Kozlowski as co-consecrator, one of the Episcopal co-consecrators refused to have any part in the service if the Polish bishop were included. Bishop Kozlowski did not par­ticipate and thus an early attempt at Anglican/Old Catholic inter­communion on the American scene was vitiated.

Writing to the General Convention (1901), Bishop Kozlowski petitioned for in­tercommunion on the terms of the Lambeth Quadrilateral (1888). These terms called for the belief that the essentials for unity were the acceptance of (1) the Holy Scriptures as containing all things necessary to salvation, (2) the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Faith, (3) the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist as instituted by Christ himself, and (4) the 'historic episcopate' locally adapted to the needs of various regions and peoples. Bishop Kozlowski's petition, based on the avowed terms of the Anglican Communion itself was referred to a committee of three bishops who, it seems, never filed a report. For the next ten years, this request would always be killed in committee and no action taken. In 1910 Bishop Grafton again presented a petition for intercommunion to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church. This petition was signed by Bishop Francis Hodur who had been successful in reorganising and including the various Polish Old Catholic foundations into the Polish National Catholic Church, and who represented a fresh succession from Utrecht. Once more the matter was side-tracked into committee. This delaying maneuver on the part of the Episcopal Church is very difficult to understand unless one accepts the fact that the Episcopalians viewed the European Dutch, German and Swiss Old Catholics as socially acceptable compatriots, but considered the Poles as beneath Episcopal notice. Certainly, although the Episcopal Church may have considered itself the Catholic jurisdiction of the U.S.A., there was no attempt to include Polish Catholicism within its English Catholic ranks.

The statement that the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Episcopal Church was wary of any group which had declared its indepen­dence from Rome and thus opposed any intercourse seems not to be true since, in 1915, the Prince-Bishop De Landes Berghes et de Rache, a prelate of the vagrant Mathew Old Catholic line, partici­pated in the consecration of the Right Reverend Hiram R. Hulse, the second Protestant Episcopal bishop of Cuba. De Landas had been consecrated in 1913 by Archbishop Arnold H. Mathew whose erratic behaviour merited ejection from the Old Catholic Union of Utrecht that same year. As an Austrian citizen, the Prince (he was related to almost every royal house in Europe) fled England in order to avoid internment during WWI as an enemy alien. Unwilling to wait out the war, the Prince-Bishop entered the American ecclesiastical arena by erecting the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, an obscure body which survives today in few parishes. Shortly thereafter, De Landas left the Old Catholics, made submission to the Roman See and died as an Augustinian novice. In short, it seems as if any bishop was acceptable, providing his credentials were socially acceptable. In this light, one can easily understand the discriminatory point of the phrase 'in Europe' as directed against the PNCC.

By passing the intercommunion resolution, the 1940 General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church had declared itself ready for intercommunion with the Polish National Catholic Church, but now understandably the PNCC was reticent. The 1910 PNC petition for intercommunion, twenty-one years in advance of the Bonn Agreement, had been shelved. The Bonn Agreement itself had been primarily directed toward European intercommun­ion. Further, for the extension of the intercommunion accord, it was necessary for the local churches to ratify it. The 1931 Synod VI of the PNCC met one month too soon to consider approving a not yet drawn up Bonn Agreement. The Special Synod, meeting in 1935, turned the matter over to committee, reserving the right to articulate its own intercommunion agreement with the Protestant Episcopal Church. Rebuffed in 1934, the PNCC watched as it was ignored in 1937. With the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe, the ecclesiastical climate had changed. Both Epis­copalians and National Catholics were aware of what a 'union' of the jurisdictions would signify. An alliance of communions might lead to an alliance of nations. In order to insure closer ties with England and exert an indirect pressure the PNCC would continue to seek closer relations with the Protestant Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion. Bishop Hodur was such an ardent patriot that he, with the backing of the PNCC jurisdiction, was willing to continue ignoring the slights handed to the PNCC and press for intercommunion now not only for the good of souls, not only for the just position of the PNCC as a member of the Old Catholic federation, but also for the material well-being of his European countrymen. Intercommunion would be realised, but too late for the war effort.

Synod VII of the PNCC approved intercommunion with the Episcopal Church on October 18, 1946. It was a separate agree­ment, but identical to that of Bonn fifteen years earlier. Doctrinal accord had been achieved once the PNCC was sure that the beliefs of the Episcopal Church were Catholic. For thirty years, the agreement worked amicably enough. People of one communion could participate in the sacraments of the other. PNC bishops served as co-consecrators to Episcopal bishops, infusing into Ang­lican Orders a line of valid apostolic succession with which the Roman Church could not contend. However at its 1976 General Convention the Episcopal Church departed from Catholic belief and Tradition by altering its understanding of the sacraments in order to allow the ordination of women to the presbyterate. Promptly, the Prime Bishop of the PNCC, the Most Reverend Thaddeus Zielinski, suspended the inter­communion accord on the grounds that, by its action, the Protes­tant Episcopal Church had vitiated the 1946 agreement. This sus­pension was approved by the 1977 General Clergy Conference of the PNCC and ratified by the Supreme Council. On October 4, 1978, final resolution was made by the XV General Synod of the PNCC, meeting in Chicago. At that Synod the intercommunion agreement between the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA), the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC) and the PNCC was terminated on the grounds that these Anglican churches had abused and abandoned the ancient or­thodox Catholic Faith. It is interesting to note that the Philippine Independent Catholic Church, which received its apostolic orders from PECUSA, had already excommunicated PECUSA over the issue of women's ordination, stating that PECUSA had departed from ancient Catholic Faith and Tradition. It seems that, at the time, the Philippine Independent Catholic Church valued its Catholicity and union with the Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht more than its historic ties to the Episcopal Church.

In Europe the Bonn Agreement had worked well. Aside from the use of Old Catholic bishops as co-consecrators and the hob-and-nob of theological meetings, there was little daily contact between members of the Anglican and Old Catholic Communions. 'Good fences make good neighbours.' During WWII the Old Catholic bishops took the continental Church of England parishes under their care with little difficulty. Only recently has there been strain in the overall relationship and that over the departure from Catholic belief and Tradition on the part of various member churches of the Anglican Communion and the Union of Utrecht itself. As a result, the PNCC was forced to leave the Union of Utrecht in November 2003...