Joseph-Rene Vilatte (1854-1929)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Joseph-Rene Vilatte (1854-1929) Some aspects of his life, work and succession JOHN KERSEY The WESTERN ORTHODOX UNIVERSITY http://www.thedegree.org COMMONWEALTH OF DOMINICA MMX ANNO DOMINI 2 The Western Orthodox University The Western Orthodox University, founded in 1945 under Mar Georgius of Glastonbury and since 1977 a constituent part of the Apostolic Episcopal Church, has an ongoing mission to promote research into the smaller Apostolic communions. The University is accredited by the Pontificia Accademia Tiberina, Rome. Website: http://www.thedegree.org 3 This book is respectfully dedicated to: Archbishop Professor Bertil Persson, without whose pioneering research it would not have been possible and Archbishop Francis Spataro, who through the Vilatte Guild has done so much to keep the legacy of Vilatte alive. A.M.D.G. First published in 2011 by European-American University Press Third edition, second impression, published by Lulu Enterprises, 2017. The Western Orthodox University Press, 8, Copthall, Roseau Valley, Commonwealth of Dominica 00152. 4 COPYRIGHT NOTICE This work has been prepared solely for nonprofit educational purposes. This work may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of educational, religious, historical and social issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in United States Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this work is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml If you wish to use copyrighted material from this work for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. So far as is possible, this work is released under the terms of a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. For details, see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 5 JOSEPH-RENE VILATTE: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS LIFE, WORK AND SUCCESSION CONTENTS Introduction 7 Joseph-René Vilatte – The Church Planter 33 John Sebastian Marlow Ward and the Orthodox 187 Catholic Church (variously of England, Cyprus and Australia) Further Developments of the Second English 198 Vilatte Succession The Ancient Christian Fellowship 228 The Council of London and Issues Regarding the 250 Validity of the Vilatte Succession The Missions Founded by Mar Timotheos 291 Organisational Summary of the Vilatte-Descended 350 Churches Illustrations 356 Bibliography 392 6 JOSEPH-RENE VILATTE: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS LIFE, WORK AND SUCCESSION INTRODUCTION This work attempts to provide a compact and accessible scholarly re-evaluation of the life and work of Joseph- René Vilatte (Mar Timotheos), a towering figure in the Free Catholic movement. Vilatte was a pioneer in the work of church-planting for immigrant and other settler communities in the United States and beyond, seeing in his adherence to the Old Catholic faith a means of ministering to those who found the Protestant nature of the available alternatives unpalatable and the Roman Catholic Church unwilling to see their community worship in a manner indigenous to its traditions (particularly through the use of its native language). Like the missionary bishops of the early church, he established parishes for the communities he served, setting up church buildings and providing valid sacraments through the priests he ordained and appointed. Those parishes, as might be expected, waxed and waned in the complex and often hostile conditions of the time; not least among the hostile parties were the Anglicans and Roman Catholics. But nevertheless, some survived to develop into church movements that survive and thrive to this day, and in the case of the African Orthodox Church, that played a key role in the development of religion among America’s black communities. The present work attempts to provide a general biographical study of Vilatte from a perspective that attempts to be even-handed in its treatment of the sometimes complex matters integral to an understanding of his work, and then to discuss some 7 JOSEPH-RENE VILATTE: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS LIFE, WORK AND SUCCESSION particular aspects of his succession, including the posthumous attacks on him. It is hoped that such a work will be of use to seminarians, to clergy wishing to understand better the nature of the Vilatte succession, and to the general reader from outside the Free Catholic movement who is perhaps curious as to why an intelligent and well-intentioned clergyman whose work brought comfort and hope to several hundred folk at the least has been so extensively vilified by those he once worked alongside. This is a companion volume to our earlier study of Arnold Harris Mathew and his movement (European-American University Press, 2010) and a number of general observations from the Introduction to that work that may be helpful to the reader seeking an overview of this area will be repeated here. Our choice of the designation “Free Catholic” – the preferred term of the late Mar Georgius of Glastonbury – is deliberate. Those external commentators unaware of the precise distinctions of this movement often refer to “the Old Catholics”; but in fact Old Catholicism is a very precise term that applies to a specific set of origins and theological approaches, both within and beyond the Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches, its largest and most visible manifestation. Free Catholicism takes into account not only Old Catholics of various kinds but those who are descendant communities of the Roman Catholic Church (most often through the succession via Carlos Duarte Costa), of various now- autocephalous Orthodox missions to England and the United States, of attempts to create alternative Protestant and evangelical communities, and of churches in the esoteric, Theosophical and New Age 8 JOSEPH-RENE VILATTE: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS LIFE, WORK AND SUCCESSION traditions, as well as those which represent an œcumenical fusion of all of the above strands. It is an imperfect term: those who assert that they are Orthodox or indeed traditionalist Old Catholics in particular will often not happily accept any alternative designation, and likewise object to being yoked with those whom they perceive as the most heretical of unbelievers. Yet any taxonomy has its limits, and the limits of Free Catholicism as constituted above are not intended to be iniquitous to any of the parties involved, still less to imply that because they share common historical origins they are necessarily organisationally connected in other ways. The movement descended from the work of Joseph- René Vilatte is highly diverse both structurally and theologically. Further, mergers between the Vilatte succession and other successions within the Free Catholic and autocephalous Orthodox movements have brought other streams of tradition and theological influence into play. Whilst the majority of bishops in the Free Catholic movement can claim a Vilatte apostolic descent, it will not necessarily be the major heritage that they look to in defining their community’s position. For some, however, the reverse is most certainly the case, and their community is asserted, with varying degrees of support, to be the lineal successor of one or more of the churches planted by Vilatte. In a number of cases, such claims are conflicting, with groups at odds as to the nature and consequences of a particular schism or separation. This work does not seek to take sides in such issues other than where the facts are unambiguous. Nor does it involve itself with the all-too-frequent arguments concerning the validity of this or that consecration. The 9 JOSEPH-RENE VILATTE: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS LIFE, WORK AND SUCCESSION assumption, in line with the position articulated in My Understanding of the Eastern Position on Ordination by Mar John Emmanuel (Arthur W. Brooks) is that, absent any glaring irregularity, in a consecration where no person has raised an audible objection, the invocation of the Holy Ghost must be effective and, ex opere operatus, that any default will thus be made up by such an invocation. Structurally, we see the Free Catholic movement as a decentralised church that manifests as a series of small groups, most of which take on an autocephalous and autonomous identity based on their ultimate origins within the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic or Old Catholic churches. This leads variously to groups which are proto-Uniate in character, seeing their mission as closely aligned to Rome (the predominant Old Roman Catholic perspective); to groups which assert their identity as Eastern Orthodox missions in partibus infidelitum (though generally separated today from the major Eastern Orthodox denominations from which they descend) as well as groups that express a wider ecumenical identity. In the case of the Vilatte succession there is also a notable Neo-Gnostic descent through the French Eglise Gnostique, an indigenously African- American Orthodoxy as expressed in the African Orthodox Church and a wider esotericism embracing Theosophy and New Age ideas as expressed in some branches of the American Catholic Church. The disparity between the small size and relative poverty of these communities and their sometimes highly ambitious plans for structure and expansion is notable and occasionally strains credibility; however, inasmuch 10 JOSEPH-RENE VILATTE: SOME ASPECTS OF HIS LIFE, WORK AND SUCCESSION as the Free Catholic movement has no doubt from time to time been the refuge of the vainglorious and ambitious, we must remark on how much more so have been the larger churches, particularly with their ties to state patronage in the form of the Vatican City or indeed the British government.