Old Catholic Church Succession
THE CONVERSION to Christianity of the Netherlands was chiefly due to the labors of St. Willibrord in the late 7th and early 8th centuries. After his consecration by Pope Sergius in 696, he established his Chair at Utrecht, which was forever after the Primatial See of Holland. Ultimately this authority became a Prince-Bishop of the Holy Roman Empire until 1528.At that time the Prince-Bishop, Henry of Bavaria, ceded the sovereignty to the Emperor Charles V.
As a result of Jesuit intrigue the Roman Catholic Church in Holland (comprising the Archepiscopal See of Utrecht and the Bishoprics of Haarlem and Deventer) became separated from the rest of the Roman Catholic Church in the year 1702. This was largely due to the unjust suspension of the saintly Archbishop Peter Codde.
After his death, Dominique Marie Varlet, Bishop of Babylon restored the apostolic succession, and the Dutch church became known as The Old Roman Catholic Church. This was to distinguish it from those who adhered to a new hierarchy intruded by the Roman Curia.
After the Vatican Council of 1870, certain Roman Catholics in various parts of the world, protested against the dogma of Papal Infallibility decreed by that council, and were known as OLD Catholics to denote that they adhered to the old teaching of Christendom, and not to the new teaching of Rome.
The OLD Catholics obtained their episcopal succession from the Old Roman Catholics of Holland, and the two bodies formed a loose federation of non-papal Catholic Churches under the title of the Union of Utrecht.
An Old Catholic Church was established in Great Britain and Ireland in 1908 when the Earl of Landaff was consecrated its first bishop. In 1910 he severed connection with the Union of Utrecht on account of the growing influence of the Modernist and Anglican heresies in the other churches of the Union, which culminated in inter-communion being established between churches of the Utrecht Union and those of the Anglican Communion in 1932.
In the following table, the succession is traced from Cardinal Antonio Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban Vin who was nominated to the Archepiscopal See of Rheims by King Louis XIV of France, recognized by the Pope, and the record of whose entry and enthronement at Rheims is preserved in Fisquot's LA FRANCE PONTIFICALE, and so:
· Antonio Cardinal Barberini, on November 12, 1668, consecrated:
· Due Charles Maurice Le Tellier, as his perpetual Coadjutor cum jure successionis, who on September 21, 1670, consecrated:
· Jacques Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Mequx, who in 1671 consecrated:
· Jacques Goyon De Matignon, Bishop of Condom, who on February 19. 1719, consecrated:
· Dominique Marie Varlet, Bishop of Babylon, who on October 18,1739,consecrated:
· Peter Johann Meindaerts, Archbishop of Utrecht, who on July 11, 1745, consecrated:
· Johann Van Stiphout, Bishop of Haarlem, who on February 7, 1768, consecrated:
· Walter Van Nieuwenhuisen, Archbishop of Utrecht, who on June 21,1778, consecrated:
· Adrian Broekman, Bishop of Haarlem, who on July 5, 1797, consecrated:
· John James Van Rhyn, Archbishop of Utrecht, who on November 7, 1805, consecrated:
· Gisbert De Jong, Bishop of Deventer, who on April 24, 1814, consecrated:
· Willibrord Van Os, Archbishop of Utrecht, who on April 25, 1819, consecrated:
· John Bon, Seventh Bishop of Haarlem, who on November 13, 1825, consecrated:
· John Van Santen, Archbishop of Utrecht, who in July of 1854 consecrated:
· Herman Heykamp, Bishop of Deventer, who on August 11, 1873, consecrated:
· Gaspard John Rinkel, Bishop of Haarlem, who on May 11, 1892, consecrated:
· Gerardus Gul, Archbishop of Utrecht, who on October 9, 1909, consecrated:
· Arnold Harris Mathew, 4th Earl of Landaff, Regionary Old Catholic Bishop for Great Britain and Ireland, afterward Archbishop of London, who on June 29, 1913, consecrated:
Rudolphe Francois Edouard de Gramant Hamilton de Brabant, His Serene Highness, Prince de Landas Berghes et de Rache et Due de St. Winnock, Archbishop of the Old Roman Catholic church, who on October 4, 1916 consecrated:
· Carmel Henry Carfora, Archbishop and Primate of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, who on June 17, 1945, consecrated:
· Earl Anglin Lawrence James of Toronto, Canada, who on October 17, 1970, consecrated:
· William Vincent Paul Hains-Howard, who on May 3, 1971, consecrated: Peter Wayne Goodrich, Archbishop and Primate of the Liberal Catholic Church International, who on March 16, 1980, consecrated:
· Robert Vincent Bernard Dawe, who on October 18, 1981, consecrated:
· Francis Thorne-Coley, who on August 20, 1998, consecrated:
· Lee Allen Petersen, who on April 26, 2009 consecrated:
· Mansell Christian Gilmore, who on January 30, 2001 consecrated:
· Bryan Dennis Ouellette, Ph.D., in ecclesia, Nicholas III, Patriarch, by acclamation and fiat, Holy Nicholean Church, Patriarch, by election and acclamation, Holy Imperial Russian Orthodox Church in exile.
