RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
O'Kelly
Old Catholics
service. A board of clerics and laymen has been made an organ of church direction, with the bishop as president and a layman as vice-president. The synod is the representative body, constituted of the bishop, president ex officio, the board just named, and the priests and deputies of the congregation; its powers are legislative, judicial, disciplinary, and administrative. Pastors and assistant pastors are chosen by the congregations (since 1878), with episcopal approval, except in the case of benefices. Trial for lighter offenses is before the bishop or bishop and board, for more serious cases of offense before a synodal court, with procedure based upon the German code. For parish purposes a church board exists, composed of the pastor and a body of councilors chosen for three years by the congregation. Candidates are ordained by the bishop after examination, which is preceded by the regular course in the universities. Various funds exist for supporting the work of the church.
II. In Other European Countries: The priests who in Switzerland refused the Vatican decrees adopted a constitution for " The Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland " similar to that of the Old Catholics of Germany. The first synod was held at Olten in June1, 1875, and Eduard Herzog (q.v.), professor of Catholic theology at Bern, was elected bishop in June, 1876. The general course of development was similar to that in Germany; communion in both kinds was made optional, and regulations for the festivals and observances were adopted. In Austria earlier efforts to organize Old Catholics were opposed by the upper house of parliament and the government. In 1875 governmental opposition was withdrawn, and in 1876 a meeting of delegates was held at Vienna, and legal recognition was given to the Old Catholic Church Oct. 18, 1877. At a provisional synod at Vienna in July, 1879, the reforms of the church in Germany and Switzerland were accepted. The first regular synod was held in June, 1880, when five priests and a number of laymen attended. At the twentieth synod in Vienna in 1900 sixty members were present, and there were reported 16,885 members, and other details of a remarkable growth were presented. In Italy the movement showed less vigor than in the other countries named above, and it was not till 1875 that delegates from a number of congregations met at Naples and elected Luigi Proto Giurlo bishop of the National Catholic Church. In France an active interest was taken by Charles Jean Marie Augustin Hyacinth Loyson (q.v.) and the Abbe Michaud, and a congregation was formed in Paris in 1878 to which the ministrations of bishops of Holland, Switzerland, and England were given at various times. A temporary bishop was chosen in 1888 in the person of Henry Lascelles Jenner. In Russia several communities of Bohemians attached themselves to the Old Catholic movement, obtained recognition, and also support from the State for three priests. In 1880 permission was gained for a conference to frame a constitution for permanent organization. A number of prelates of the Orthodox Church have shown sympathy with the movement and have attended the international congresses. The organization of the Old Catholic
Church in England was not perfected till 1908, when A. N. Mathew was elected bishop, secured the recognition of the Old Catholic Church of Holland, and was consecrated at Utrecht Apr. 28, 1908, having in his diocese seventeen priests.
III. In the United States: The discontent over the Vatican decrees in the United States was somewhat slower in taking organized form. Joseph Rene Villatte (q.v.), a young priest of French ancestry, who had sustained various relations in coni. The In- nection with various Protestant sociedependent ties for mission work among foreign (Polish) populations in Wisconsin, had received Catholic ordination from Bishop Herzog of the Church. Swiss Christian Catholic Church (ut sup.) and also received episcopal consecration in 1892 from Archbishop Alvarez of India, Ceylon, and Goa. But the right of Alvarez to perform episcopal acts was under question, and the consecration of Villatte was not recognized by the Old Catholic bishops of Europe or by the Protestant Episcopalian bishops in the United States. Hence the attempts made by Villatte to found an Old Catholic Church in the United States had no permanent result. More successful has been the work among the Polish immigrants to this country, people of this nationality coming here with a lively dissatisfaction with the course of the Roman Catholic Church in their own land. Many of them had no ecclesiastical relations at all, and a movement was begun by Anthony Koslowski (d. Jan. 14, 1907), a Pole of Italian education, who became rector of a Polish congregation in Chicago in 1893. The next year he withdrew from the Roman Catholic communion and became a leader in the reform movement, was elected a bishop, and received consecration from the Old Catholic bishop of Switzerland at Bern, Switzerland, in 1897, founding the Independent (Polish) Catholic Church. The growth of the organization was remarkable; congregations were established in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Buffalo, Jersey City, Fall River, Mass., and Wilkesbarre, Pa.; and in 1902 it reported 22 priests, 10 sisters, 26 congregations, 80,000 adherents, 26 schools with 3,000 attendants, 26 Sunday-schools, and 31 buildings. It had, besides, an educational institution with grammar and high school and industrial departments in Chicago, and connected with it a hospital and dispensary and a home for the aged. Overtures were made in 1902 to the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States for recognition and intercommunion on the basis of the Lambeth " Quadrilateral " (see Lambeth Articles; Lambeth Conference), but beyond referring the matter to a committee no definite action has been taken. In the overtures the object of the organization was stated as the wish to serve those who can not intelligently take part in worship conducted in the English tongue, and allegiance was pledged to the Old Catholic Synod of Europe until such time as the church shall be received by the Protestant Episcopal Church as an affiliated body.
The disposition to separate from the Roman Catholic Church illustrated by the formation of the Polish organization just described manifested itself
Old Catholics Olearius