OBERLIN THEOLOGY: The name given to the theological views of A. Mahan, C. G. Finney, and J. H. Fairchild (qq.v.) between the years 1833 and 1902. The basis for this theology is found in the New England theology (q.v.), with which it is in general agreement on the doctrine of the Scriptures, the Trinity, the atonement, means of grace, and eschatology. Its distinctive features are, (1) its notion of the ground of obligation, which is defined as the good of being in general, or of sentient being (cf. J. H. Fairchild, Moral Philosophy, New York, 1869); (2) its theory of “ the simplicity of moral action ’’—the will, self-determining, is at each moment either wholly virtuous or wholly sinful; (3) the idea of sanctification as that of a process which, beginning in an act of will, is characterized
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Nestorius Orthodox Catholic Church
either by alternating states of holiness and sin, which finally issue in the supremacy of holiness, or by uninterrupted and increasing holiness. Perfection is possible in this life. This theology as a whole is presented by Finney with acute logical force and lucidity, and by Fairchild with ethical emphasis and practical common sense. C. A. Brcxwiru.
ORTHODOX CATHOLIC CHURCH IN AMERICA.
Rise of the Old Catholic Church (§ 1).
Orthodox Catholic Church and its Statement of
Faith (§ 2).
Aims of the Orthodox Catholic Church (§ 8).
Pastoral of Vilatte, Kaminski, and Miraglia (§ 4).
The Utrecht Declaration (§ 5).
The Orthodox ‘Catholic Church of America is a branch of the Orthodox Church of the Latin Rite in the Western patriarchate, which, in addition to its primitive historic divisions of Europe and Africa, includes also, since the discovery of the Western continent, the whole of America. This distinction of rite is both necessary and desirable, because there are now throughout the nations of the Western world Orthodox Catholic churches of the Greek Rite, some of them in communion with each other, and all with their parent national churches in the several Eastern patriarchates.
The gradual growth of the comparatively late order of Jesuits, compelled, as they were, by the trend of the times and by the inevitable antagonism of the established monastic orders of the Latin Church to become the special self-constituted clerical supporters and political defenders of the papal power, introduced into that church anew theological tendency, whose ecclesiastical influence within the Roman Church, weakened as it was by the final loss of Germany, England, and Scandinavia, was to cause later
many unforeseen and momentous con-
1. Rise of sequences. Thearbitrary act, in 1653, the Old of Innocent X. in denouncing as hereti- Catholic cal the Augustinian doctrines taught Church. by Jansen (see JANSEN, CORNELIUS,
JANSENISM), with the renewal of the controversy early in the eighteenth century by the repeated condemnation, in 1713, of the alleged Jansenist errors of Pasquier Quesnel (q.v.), in the bull Unigenitus (q.v.) of Clement XI., resulted in the consecration by the French bishop Maria Varlet, titular of Babylon, without awaiting papal confirmation, first of Cornelis Steenoven as archbishop of Utrecht, then of his two successors, and again of a fourth archbishop, Pieter Jan Meindaerts, who, to prevent the future loss of this newly transmitted Latin episcopal succession in the Catholic Church of Holiand, established the two suffragan sees of Haarlem and Deventer (see, further, JANSENIST CuurcH IN Houtuanp). The consistently orthodox course of their successors in the episcopate was proved convincingly when they protested solemnly against the pronouncement of Pius IX. on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (q.v.) of the Virgin Mary, which was only the prelude to the dogmatic declarations of the Vatican Council of 1870 (see VATICAN CounciIL) on the constitution of the Catholic Church and the primacy and the infallibility of the bishop of Rome. Here again the bish-
ops of the Church of Holland reaffirmed their agreement with the orthodox doctrine of the undivided Catholic Church, East and West, by rejecting solemnly these Vatican decrees. And when, soon after, the excommunicated priests in Germany, faithful to their theological leader, Johann Josef Ignaz von Déllinger (q.v.), were compelled, by the repressive measures of the Roman prelates, to organize separate congregations, the bishops of Holland not only approved this inevitable consequence of their opposition to these ultramontane doctrines of the Roman Church by administering the sacrament of confirmation to their catechumens, but later transferred in turn to them their Latin episcopal succession by consecrating Joseph Hubert Reinkens (q.v.) of Bonn. The union conference of 1874 in Bonn, summoned by Dollinger and attended by Old Catholic prelates, priests, and theologians, by theological representatives from both the Greek and the Russian churches, and by participating members from the Anglican churches of England and America, is historically the first free assembly of both Greek and Latin ecclesiastics since the unsuccessful Roman Council of Ferrara-Florence in 1438. This synod, after free and full discussion of the fundamentals of the orthodox faith of the undivided Catholic Church, East and West, accepted fourteen theses which are the first irenic formulation of those debated dogmas which divide the several reformed communions from each other and from their common ecclesiastical mother, the Latin Church of the West, also from the entire Greek Church of the East (see, further, OLD CaTHOLICcs). The extension of the Old Catholic movement from Europe to America through the missionary activity of its pioneer priest, Joseph Réné 2. Ortho- Vilatte (q.v.), of Wisconsin, and his dox Catho- subsequently authorized consecration,
_ lic Church by the Syrian patriarch of Antioch, as
andits archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Statement the Latin Rite in America, has resulted of Faith. not only in the introduction of the Syrian succession into the Catholic hierarchy of the Western patriarchate, but it is also aiding, slowly and silently, the other ecclesiastical influences which are assisting, year by year, the movement for Catholic reform and Christian union on the basis of the fundamental faith of the undivided Church, through this new ecclesiastical connection with the primitive national orthodox churches of all the East. The Orthodox Catholic church, orthodox because it accepts the universally admitted dogmatic decrees of the seven ecumenical councils of the undivided church, East and West, and Catholic because it possesses a validly consecrated hierarchy in the apostolic Syrian succession, exercising its duly designated canonical authority in the archdiocese of America, and being in communion with the several divisions of the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, summarizes its teaching in the following short statement of faith.
I. The only historical and consistent bond of church unity is that of the “faith once for all delivered to the saints,’’ as taught by the united Catholic Church, East and West, during the period of the seven general councils. Or-
thodox Catholics join in faith, hope, and love with all churches possessing and exercising the apostolic ministry,
Orthodox Catholic Church Psychotherapy