The Liberal Catholic Apostolic Church
An independent Catholic church in the liberal tradition

Much has been written concerning Mar Georgius and his church, from varying perspectives and viewpoints. In this brief sketch, we will try to give an outline of his achievement and of the church which he was responsible for founding. In this, the principle sources we draw upon in order to ensure as great an objectivity as possible are those writings authored or authorised by Mar Georgius himself, as well as the reminiscences of a member of our own church who had close contact with him on occasions during the 1950s and 1960s.

To understand something of Mar Georgius as a man, let us first record that, more than any of his numerous contemporaries, he was concerned with leaving behind a permanent record of scholarship concerning the independent churches and his own movement. His works, principally mimeographed, form a highly informative, opinionated and entertaining account of that world and also provide ample evidence of his gifts as a writer. As well as the records of church affairs and monographs on theological, liturgical and historical matters, we find editions of otherwise-unavailable works by earlier bishops (particularly the journals of +Ulric Vernon Herford), meditations on Jacobitism, to which cause he was an adherent, and a thorough, scholarly rebuttal of Fr. Henry Brandreth's work on the wandering bishops.

Early years

The future Mar Georgius, then Hugh George Newman, was born in Forest Gate on 17 January 1905 and baptised in the Catholic Apostolic Church (sometimes called the "Irvingites" or The Universal Church) at Mare Street, Hackney (from 1966 the Greek Orthodox Church of St John the Theologian). His grandfather was a deacon in the CAC and his father a Subdeacon, and aged seven, Newman was himself admitted as an Acolyte. He was educated at the Crawford School, Camberwell, and later under a private tutor.

He recalled of those days, "As an acolyte I was on duty each Lord's Day at the Forenoon Service at 10am, followed by the Holy Eucharist; Vespers at 5pm; and on weekdays: Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Matins at 6am and Vespers at 5pm on Saturday. On the first Sunday in each month I was at the Afternoon Service at 2pm, followed by the Administration of the Holy Communion from the Reserved Sacrament. Vivid in my memory is the glorious Sunday Eucharist and, in my mind's eye I can still picture the entrance of the deacons, robed in white linen dalmatics, with white stoles upon their left shoulders, followed by the assistant priests, usually four in number, clad in white linen albs with girdles, their white stoles crossed over their breasts. These all proceeded down the northern side aisle to the lower choir and advanced to their places in the chancel. Then, last of all, taking the short way in, past the throne, and advancing to the entrance to the altar, the Angel in his golden chasuble, with the two priests, who acted as deacon and subdeacon respectively, in golden dalmatics; and, as they bowed low towards the altar, they opened with the words of the Invocation...After the underdeacons had been communicated, we acolytes would then go to receive. Often, as I passed the priests' stalls in the chancel, I would hear the Priest-Prophet Eli Baldwin give out a prophetic utterance and would observe, in a special stall reserved for him behind the Table of Prothesis, the purple-clad figure of James Walter James, Angel-Evangelist for Ireland and Greece, scrutinising each communicant as he passed before him."

Newman took employment in solicitors' firms and at the age of 21 was promoted to Managing Clerk. At this time, he was politically active, and participated in attempts to restore Archduke Otto von Habsburg to his rightful position as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and Bohemia. In recognition of this, the Archduke Otto, then under the Regency of his mother, the Empress Zita, granted a number of senior titles of nobility to Newman, which are discussed in detail elsewhere. In recognition of this, Newman changed his surname by deed poll to "de Willmott Newman", the added title reflecting his mother's maiden name. At this time, he was an active Conservative and Chairman of the Bowes Park and New Southgate Conservative and Unionist Association. He resigned from the Conservative Party in 1936 at the time of the Abdication Crisis.

In 1929, having left his employment in the solicitors' firm, Mar Georgius took up the post of Legal Consultant to "The Christian Herald" and at the same time, having qualified under the Institute of Commerce (of which he was later a Fellow), took up private practice as a Commercial Consultant. He was also actively engaged in charitable work with the London poor. This busy period culminated in his marriage in 1937 to Miss Lola Ina del Carpio Barnardo at the Catholic Apostolic Church, Maida Hill. Mar Georgius' wife was a great-niece of Dr. Thomas John Barnardo, founder of the eponymous childrens' homes. Just prior to this, Mar Georgius had left his employment to become General Manager and Secretary of The National Association of Cycle Traders, an employers' trade union, which position he was to hold until 1943. All this time, he was serving as Acolyte and later Scribe at the Catholic Apostolic Church "Horn Congregation", Wood Green (since the 1960s, St Barnabas Greek Orthodox Church). We are told that in these early days he was known as "The Man with the Medieval Mind", reflecting his marked traditionalism, and that he assembled a personal library that ran eventually to 7,000 volumes.

Mar Georgius makes contact with the independent movement and discerns his vocation

During the 1920s and 1930s, Mar Georgius met or corresponded with many of those bishops who at the time headed independent churches deriving from the Catholic or Orthodox communions. "Sympathising with these Bishops and their Churches on account of acts of persecution, or semi-persecution, which many of them had sustained at the hands of the Anglicans, and being attracted to oecumenical ideals (which were, of course, also inculcated in the Catholic Apostolic Church), he saw, in what he himself calls "non-Ultramontane Catholicism", a potential instrument for assisting the process of Christian Unity by the provision of a "bridge" between Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and even Protestantism of the Anglican and Lutheran types. Eventually, he arrived at the view that the various lines of Apostolic Succession must have been permitted to overflow their normal boundaries, and to have been preserved, sometimes merely by a thread, for the furtherance of the Divine Plan."

Although Mar Georgius had felt a vocation to the priesthood, the Catholic Apostolic Church, being a chiliastic movement and having since 1901 entered the "Time of Silence", had decided not to ordain new clergy. However, as was explained by Mar Georgius in his "A Personal Statement" (1971), the Work of the Restored Twelve of the CAC (fulfilling the complement of the twenty-four Apostles according to Revelation 4:4) would surely be succeeded by the Work of the Seventy apostolikoi, who would receive their doctrine from the Restored Twelve. Mar Georgius felt that his personal mission was in connection with the Work of the Seventy. He became aware of the close connexion between the dogmatic theology of the Restored Apostles of the CAC and that of the Holy Orthodox Churches of the East.

 It was therefore to the independent churches that he turned, "I suppose that I am one of the very few who entered the movement after very mature consideration, and well knowing the isolation, frustration, and ignominy, not to mention persecution, which such a step would entail. But I did so feeling sic Deus vult." He was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop James Columba McFall of the +Mathew succession at a private oratory in Harrow on 23 October 1938, and was soon adopted as priest of the group calling themselves The Old Catholic Orthodox Church (independently of the group of the same name headed by Patriarch James Bartholomew Banks; this group had seceded from the oversight of Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams over the issue of Papal infallibility in 1925).  As Mar Georgius explained, "In doctrine those of the Churches of this Movement seemed to avoid the heresies and lawlessness of Anglicanism, and also the un-Scriptural excesses of Romanism; and indeed were often not far removed from the theology of the Catholic Apostolic Church. It was not at all unknown for a CAC lay member, who felt so called, to enter the Anglican ministry, and this in no way offended CAC principles, inasmuch as they regarded the whole of the baptised as constituted the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church."

Bishop McFall, who was resident in Ireland, showed no wish to exercise episcopal oversight concerning Mar Georgius, who had meantime moved to Northampton in 1940, and so the then Fr. de Willmott-Newman approached Archbishop Arthur Wolfort Brooks (Mar John Emmanuel) of the Apostolic Episcopal Church. On 8 October 1941, Mar John Emmanuel accepted the office of Presiding Bishop of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church. On 26 October he constituted Mar Georgius as Abbot Nullius of St Albans in the Order of Corporate Reunion, and on 30 October appointed him Archpriest and Vicar General.

In 1943, Mar Georgius returned to London and established his residence at Forest Road, Enfield Lock. From 1945, he returned to his private practice as a commercial consultant and was engaged in various business interests.

Enthronement as Sixth British Patriarch

In 1943, Mar Georgius had represented Mar John Emmanuel at the Council of London headed by the 5th British Patriarch, +Herbert Monzani Heard (Mar Jacobus II). At this Council, the Syrian-Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Mar Ignatius Ephrem II, was declared by the assembled body to be deposed for schism, and William Bernard Crow (Mar Basilius Abdullah III), Bishop of St. Sophia, was elected Patriarch of Antioch to replace him. Mar John Emmanuel at this time suggested that Mar Georgius seek election to the episcopate as Archbishop and Metropolitan of Glastonbury, and a mandate was then sent to Mar Basilius Abdullah III (who was himself a Theosophist and syncretist) authorising him to perform the consecration.

Mar Jacobus II had made arrangements on 23 March 1944 to unite the bodies known as the Ancient British Church, the Old Catholic Orthodox Church, the British Orthodox Catholic Church and the Independent Catholic Church into a single organisation, to be called The Catholicate of the West. At a meeting of  the Governing Synod of the new church on 28 March, under the presidency of Mar Jacobus II, Mar Georgius was elected Catholicos of the West. He was consecrated and enthroned by Mar Basilius Abdullah III on 10 April 1944, in the Cathedral Church of St Andrew, Stonebridge Road, Tottenham (since demolished) and immediately established intercommunion between his jurisdiction and the Apostolic Episcopal Church under Mar John Emmanuel. On 29 January 1945, Mar Basilius Abdullah III resigned the office of British Patriarch to Mar Georgius, who thus became the sixth head of the "oldest of all non-Ultramontane Catholic movements, for it was erected as long ago as 1866". Mar Georgius now received subconditional consecration at the hands of many bishops, with the aim (eventually realised) of unifying all the extant lines of Apostolic Succession in his person. It has been said that these successions were examined in 1954 by a panel of Catholic scholars chaired by Yves, later Cardinal Congar, and that it was announced in consequence that the orders transmitted were valid and that the Apostolic Succession had been sustained. An account of this process and of the co-operation in it by Mar Joannes I (Nicholson) may be found in Bishop Lewis Keizer's "The Wandering Bishops", page 31.

The succession and continuation from the Catholic Apostolic Church

Mar Georgius' Holy Governing Synod of the Catholicate of the West passed Act no. 3 at Christmas 1944, stating that, "It hath now come to regard the work of the Catholic Apostolic Church as a model or pattern of a greater and more extensive work yet to be brought into manifestation among the peoples of the world, and accordingly hath been moved to bring the Ministry, Organisation, Usages and Worship of the Catholicate into general conformity with this pattern." As a direct result, the title "The Catholic Apostolic Church (Catholicate of the West)" was adopted, with the subtitle "The Western Orthodox Catholic Church", and the CAC Liturgy was adopted with a Supplement, together constituting the Glastonbury Rite. In this account, we will refer to Mar Georgius' body as the Catholicate of the West from this point onwards so as to avoid confusion.

Mar Georgius at this point adopted the idea of twelve apostolikoi, chosen from among his fellow independent bishops and the men whom he himself had consecrated. However, in a development which he attributed to his incorrect emphasis on the Twelve rather than the Seventy, all of these men were within a short time to leave his jurisdiction. He also affiliated the churches associated with the Twelve as autocephalous tropoi of the Catholicate, but these were to secede from his oversight within a short time, or in some cases, to act in such a way as in his view to merit expulsion. Mention was made in particular of attempts to infiltrate the church by Spiritualists. Having incorporated the Catholicate of the West along with the Western Orthodox University and the International College of Arms and Noblesse under the Indian Societies Act in 1950, Mar Georgius felt obliged to surrender this charter only a few years later in an act of dissolution of the bodies concerned. However, in 1959, he was to readopt the title of Catholicate of the West for his reconstituted church body.

The pamphlet "The Catholic Apostolic Church Catholicate of the West" issued in 1947 makes quite clear the nature and outlook of this church, "There is nothing cold, sanctimonious, unctuous, condemnatory, or "puritanical" in our midst; the most spiritual people are usually the most natural. We hold that natural pleasures were given us by God to enjoy, and the people are encouraged not only to have fellowship together in public worship and works of mercy and love, but as members of the same Family of God to enjoy their social pleasures together also. We do not teach total abstinence from the good things of life, and our people are free to go to theatres, cinemas, dances, and so forth, and to take liquor and to smoke, just as they desire; although we do inculcate moderation in all things. The "killjoy" attitude is emphatically condemned by us, for it is really Manicheeism, an ancient heresy against which the early Church strenuously contended."

In 1947, Mar Georgius was to receive a key Apostolic Succession stemming from the CAC itself. At the consecration of Mar Timotheos (Aloysius Stumpfl), the Metropolitan of Aquileia, in 1924, Johann Brugger, Angel of the CAC, had laid on hands as co-consecrator. This succession was passed to Mar Georgius by Mar Leofric (Charles Leslie Saul), Archbishop of Suthronia, who consecrated him as an Angel and Bishop in the succession of the Restored Apostles sub conditione, 112 years to the day after the separation of the Restored Twelve. In the instrument of consecration, Mar Georgius was declared to possess the rank of Archangel by virtue of his office. In 1951, most unexpectedly, Mar Georgius was offered the Apostolic Ring of the last of the Restored Apostles, Francis Woodhouse, who had died fifty years previously. Mar Georgius took this event as a sign that he was indeed to take up the work of the CAC.

However, there is significant evidence that Mar Georgius had misconstrued his charge. Indeed, he had received the CAC succession from +Stumpfl via +Saul, but the future of the German CAC representing +Brugger's successors was instead following a different route entirely. At the time of the ordination of the last CAC priest there, a group of High Churchmen determined to preserve the apostolic succession of the CAC. They were part of a small secret group founded by the prophet Heinrich Geyer in the 1860s called "Die Urkirche". The bishops who were members of this group, all now dead, included Mar Justinos (Joseph Maria Thiesen), +Friedrich Wiechert, +Thomas Tollenaar and +Viktor Schoonbroodt. At his death, Archbishop Schoonbroodt, the last surviving of these, left all his papers to Archbishop Bertil Persson of the Apostolic Episcopal Church, along with a letter of authority bequeathing him the representation of the CAC and of Die Urkirche.

In Sweden, Archbishop Persson had been accepted by the surviving CAC community (now all long dead) and had celebrated the Apostles' Liturgy for them after their last subdeacon had grown too old to continue (a practice with precedent in the CAC in Belgium, where the Apostles' Liturgy had been celebrated for that community by Philip Moore+ of the Anglican Chaplaincy in Brussels). Archbishop Persson also had valuable contact with the trustees of the Central Church at Gordon Square, London, and through the late Revd. Norman Priddle executed an agreement of intercommunion between the Catholic Apostolic Church at Gordon Square and the Apostolic Episcopal Church. It was the AEC, alone among other denominations, which was permitted to hold a Service of Consecration at Gordon Square, when in 1992, Archbishop Persson consecrated Archbishop Francis Spataro, his successor in the AEC.

By contrast, when Mar Georgius, accompanied by a sympathetic Anglican priest, obtained an interview with Colonel Basil Seton, Angel in charge of the Central Church, Gordon Square, in early 1945, Colonel Seton (who died in February of that year) expressed no enthusiasm or support for Mar Georgius's proposals that his priests should celebrate the Apostles' Liturgy for the benefit of scattered members of the CAC. His response was rather that "what is proposed would be in effect an attempt to bolster up the Lord's work. This we must on no account attempt to do."

Other episcopal acts of Mar Georgius

It must be noted that Mar Georgius did not merely confer Holy Orders for his own community, but was prepared to charter other churches on the basis that they would be fully independent of his own. Such independent consecrations of bishops for new bodies included those of John van Ryswyk (Mar Joannes) for the Apostolic Church of St Peter in 1949, Harold Percival Nicholson (also Mar Joannes) for the Ancient Catholic Church in 1950 and Richard, Duc de Palatine (Ronald Powell) for the Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church in 1953. Mar Georgius also exercised his Patriarchal powers to charter Universities, Academies and religious and chivalric Orders, as well as bestowing titles of nobility in select cases. For example, he bestowed upon Mar Joannes (van Ryswyk) the title of Duke de Richelieu-Ryswyk in the Order of the Spiritual Christian Nation, and on the same occasion raised another person present to the Knighthood of St Gregory and Sarkis.

Mar Georgius supported the work of Divine Healing, and he spoke and gave a blessing at the 1948 Congress of Healing organised by Fr. John Beswarwick, one of his priests, at the Kingsway Hall in London, when 1,750 people were present. Mar Georgius revived the Guild of the Parabolani (the original having been founded by Emperor Theodosius II in 416 AD). This threefold guild comprised clerical healers, charismatic healers and professional healers, the latter including practitioners of alternative medicine such as naturopaths and osteopaths. All were enjoined from charging any fee in connection with their work.

Mar Georgius was the successor to important heritages within Freemasonry. He had been passed the succession of the Ancient Universal Pansophic Rite of Masonry from Patriarch Heard, who had received it from John Yarker himself, and proceeded to pass this succession on in turn to Richard, Duc de Palatine, in 1953. On 14 November 1953, Mar Georgius issued a charter in favour of Richard, Duc de Palatine, as Archon of the Order of Fratres Lucis, commonly called the Brotherhood of the Illuminati. In due course this Order together with the Masonic heritages passed to Richard, Duc de Palatine's successor the late Bishop-Count George Boyer and thereby to Bishop Lewis Keizer of the Home Temple in the United States. More information on these matters is here.

Developments of the later 1960s

By the time of the Centenary Celebrations of the Catholicate of the West in 1966, Mar Georgius' clergy was not composed of those who were strictly orthodox in matters of faith, but included a number of men whose theological interpretations were of a more liberal nature. In a major schism during 1967, most of the liberal elements of Mar Georgius's CAC seceded to join another church, and he was left with a body of clergy that was predominately "canonically" and "mainstream" orthodox.

At the Second Council of London in 1967, the following Resolution was passed, "That this Council, recognising that His Sacred Beatitude the Patriarch-Catholicos Maran Mar Georgius I, has been called by the Holy Spirit to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ, commissioned to the work of the Restoration of Orthodox Apostolic Catholicism and the Theocratic Way of Life, by way of preparation for the Coming of Christ the King, re-affirms its loyalty, obedience, and support for him in the fulfilment of his Special Mission within the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church". This term "Apostle" was, as Mar Georgius subsequently explained, to be understood in the context of an apostolikos and not as one of the Restored Twelve.

The later 1960s saw Mar Georgius and his church drawing closer to mainstream Orthodoxy and thence making substantial changes in the nature of the Catholicate of the West. On 30 December 1967, Mar Georgius proclaimed a complete repudiation of the "Free Catholic Movement" and repealed the 1960 Constitution, replacing it with government by decree so as to re-organise his church. This reorganisation was explained by Mar Georgius thus, "the somewhat Roman ethos which pervaded it should be abolished in favour of a greater conformity with that of the early Church, and that to effect this the simplest way would be to adopt the Eastern Orthodox ethos, which had remained the same throughout the ages, subject, however, to the Gallican traditions, which were as much part of Orthodoxy as the Byzantine." In accordance with this, the liturgy was substantially revised in 1968.

Approaches to mainstream Orthodoxy

Mar Georgius writes, "In January 1969, it was urged on me by certain of my advisers that our Church would have no future unless it secured communion with and recognition by what they described as a "canonical Orthodox Church", and that, to achieve this, certain further reforms were necessary, including the abolition of the Patriarchate and of "open communion". At that time I was not prepared to discuss with them that which I knew to be my real mission, and I felt that to abolish the Patriarchate was an abandonment of a sacred trust. So far as obtaining the "recognition" of any other Orthodox body was concerned, though I would have welcomed this, a quarter of a century's experience had taught me that anything tangible in the way of results was most unlikely. I was placed in a real dilemma. On the one hand, I felt that my own reactions to the demands was the right one. On the other hand, I knew that my advisers sincerely held the opinion that unless I acceded to them, their lack of confidence in our Church's future would cause them, eventually, if not immediately, to secede to one or other of the "canonical Orthodox Churches" represented in this country. My first inclination was to reject the proposals, and, if necessary, to "go it alone", awaiting further intimation from the Lord as to His will. But, I reflected, this would mean that I would do so with a clergy (such as remained with me) who would have no knowledge or understanding of my mission. By this time, all my clergy were thoroughly orthodox and dependable, and I did not feel that our Church as a whole could survive another split...I saw no way of bringing my advisers round to my way of thinking...accordingly, I decided to let them have their way, agreed to the abolition of the Patriarchate, and other items, and to make an approach to Bishop Jean Kovalevsky, Primate of the Catholic Orthodox Church of France."

The approach to Bishop Kovalevsky during 1969 came to nothing despite his sympathy for the cause of the Catholicate and full acceptance of the validity of its orders. At his suggestion, the title of the church was changed to "The Orthodox Church of the British Isles".

Events in the Catholic Apostolic Church and Mar Georgius's response

By now, the Angels of the Catholic Apostolic Church were long since dead, and there were only two CAC priests left in the world. One was in Australia and was to die shortly afterwards, and the other was Dr. Wilfred Maynard Davson, who was in charge of the church at Maida Hill where the CAC Eucharist was offered for the last time ever in this world on Christmas Day, 1970, before his death on 16 February 1971. The last deacon, Charles William Leacock, an Australian, passed to his eternal reward shortly afterwards on 25 July 1972. Both he and Dr. Davson had reached the age of ninety-five. After this, the only continuation of the CAC proper has been through regular services led by underdeacons, with admittance granted only to the faithful.

Mar Georgius resolved to hold a Service of Humiliation in which he confessed the sins of Christendom, and this took place in the context of the Extraordinary General Assembly at Crofton Park on 11-12 October 1969. It cannot have passed anyone's notice that this was an exact analogue of the Services of Humiliation conducted within the Catholic Apostolic Church during July 1902, after the death of the last Apostle. After the 1969 Assembly, a short service was held for the purpose of commissioning Mar Georgius's clergy into the four-fold ministry laid down by the Catholic Apostolic Church, defining their borders as Elders, Prophets, Evangelists and Pastors. Mar Georgius wrote "...at last we had implemented Act no. 3 of 1945 in this respect. During this ceremony, spiritual power came upon me, and I was inspired to give personal exhortations to all concerned."

Mar Georgius further felt that it was the Lord's will that his church should institute the rite of Holy Sealing, that rite of the Catholic Apostolic Church that could only be performed by an Apostle. This rite was instituted so as to set apart the 144,000 (Rev. 7:2-8 and 14:1-5) who are sealed with the Holy Ghost. Mar Georgius therefore proceeded with the institution of this rite within his own church body.

Mar Georgius wrote in 1971, "The Work of the LXX is now to commence,as foretold in prophetic utterances over all these years. But the work of preparation of those who are to participate therein demands one preliminary, and that is THEY MUST FIRST ACKNOWLEDGE THE RESTORED APOSTOLATE AS HAVING BEEN INDEED RAISED UP AND COMMISSIONED BY GOD.

As one whose personal experiences enables him to give a sure and certain Testimony, I testify that the Work of the Restored XII was truly of God, though rejected by Christendom at large in their ignorance and sin."

Mar Georgius the man

So much for Mar Georgius' mission; what of the man himself? His recreations were in liturgical and historical research, and in heraldry. He was a keen supporter of animal welfare. He enjoyed plainsong above other music, but also had a fondness for the lighter Romantics and Gilbert and Sullivan. He enjoyed the romances of the nineteenth-century but also more contemporary crime fiction. He smoked avidly, ideally cigars, but otherwise American cigarettes. He viewed as abominations the modern industrial system, jazz, feminism, democracy, multiculturalism and the United Nations, and regarded television and radio with a very critical eye. He was an ardent monarchist and Jacobite, although not disloyal to our present Queen.

On a personal level, although his taste for controversy and highly dogmatic style did not always make for easy relationships, he was down-to-earth, unstuffy, readily communicative and a welcome visitor in many circles. For example, although he was theologically divergent from Mar Joannes I (Harold Nicholson) of the Ancient Catholic Church, he continued to visit with him often, enjoyed a good personal relationship, and conducted services of consecration at Mar Joannes' cathedral and with his participation. Likewise, on agreeing to consecrate Charles Dennis Boltwood in 1956, whose theology was Protestant and Spiritualist, Mar Georgius agreed arrangements whereby +Boltwood's pro-cathedral in Tottenham would be made available to him on an unlimited basis for the ensuing four years. In later years, he was affectionately known as "The M.G."

It was only towards the later sixties, by which time Mar Joannes was terminally ill and +Boltwood had agreed the sale of his cathedral to an evangelical group - and indeed, most of Mar Georgius's more liberal clergy had departed from his jurisdiction in the 1967 schism - that he acceded to demands from his remaining clergy that he adopt a stricter Orthodox polity, cease open communion and - in a particularly unfortunate act - repudiate the very movement to which he owed his Holy Orders along with the men whom he himself had consecrated and their successors. Perhaps Mar Georgius felt that these bishops had wrongly rejected his authority; certainly, many had done so, but he had shown on many occasions throughout his career that his ecumenical understanding, humanity and considerable personal gifts could transcend mere differences of doctrine and practice. This was a lesson that was to be less noticeably in effect during the final ten years of his life, as he became frail and passed administrative duties to others.

Mar Georgius met with significant hostility from the mainstream churches and the press towards his church, some of which material continues to be repeated even after his death. His response was to bring successful actions in law against the perpetrators of libels against him. In 1947 he won an apology and damages from the publishers of "Crockford's Clerical Directory", and was also successful in a libel action against a Spiritualist newspaper.

Mar Georgius's tendency to regard his church as the logical focus of the independent movement, and himself as its unquestioned head, had a rather unfortunate corollary in that he occasionally laid claim to the theological property of others. He believed wrongly that he had inherited Nazarene College (1890) from Mar Jacobus II, and, not realising that it was in fact the property of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church under Dr. Hall, proceeded to bestow what was actually an entirely new institution by the same name upon Richard, Duc de Palatine in 1953. It was likewise inconceivable to him that, having been raised in the Catholic Apostolic Church and having done so much to further its work, he would not be chosen to minister to its communities and another bishop selected in his place. When Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams of the Old Roman Catholic Church died in 1952, his movement having split into three separate jurisdictions, Mar Georgius naturally set out his well-reasoned claim to the succession, only to find that none of the surviving clergy of the ORCC were prepared to take his assertion in any way seriously and had assembled under their own bishops. Mar Georgius even went so far as to claim the primacy of the Apostolic Episcopal Church in succession to Mar David (Maxey), but again was to be disappointed in this effort, as the church proceeded to elect its own successors and rejected his claim outright.

Although having not proceeded to university earlier in life, in later years Mar Georgius was a recipient of many academic degrees. These included the title of Doctor Christianissimus, the Doctorate in Divinity from the International Orthodox Catholic University and the Western Orthodox University, Master of Arts, Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor in Civil Law from the Apostolic Academy of St. Peter at Antioch, Doctor of Laws from the Universite Philotechnique Internationale and Doctor of Letters of the Keltic University. All of these awarding organisations were organised under those churches that were part of the Catholicate of the West or otherwise associated directly with the work of Mar Georgius.

Mar Georgius was also active in chivalry, being Grand Master of the Orders of St Thomas Acon, Saints Gregory and Sarkis, and the Spiritual Christian Nation. He was a Knight Commander of the Imperial Order of Constantine the Great, Chevalier of the Honourable and Chivalric Order of the Crown of Stuart and Prelat-Commandeur of the Order of the Crown of Thorns. It is not clear whether the latter body was the same as the order of that name founded by Archbishop Joseph-Rene Vilatte. He also held the title of Prince de Mardin in the Principality and Patriarchate of Antioch.

The aftermath of the Catholicate of the West

The administration of the Catholicate of the West, now called the Orthodox Church of the British Isles, devolved on others to an increasing degree as Mar Georgius grew frailer. The end came on 28 February 1979, by which time his jurisdiction had become virtually unrecognisable from the loosely constituted church of a dozen years earlier. It was now not merely Orthodox in roots, but increasingly so in practice, and it was the aim of those who controlled the church to prepare it for union with one of the "canonical" Orthodox denominations, despite considerable hostility towards it from the mainstream Orthodox churches. Inasmuch as Mar Georgius had defined his mission in the explicit terms of a continuation of the work of the Catholic Apostolic Church and specifically the Work of the Seventy, this was no longer a recognisable thread within the OCBI, and in 1994 the Glastonbury Rite (which perpetuated the liturgy of the CAC) would be replaced with the Liturgy of St James.

Although the example of the Apostolic Episcopal Church (whose Orthodox apostolic succession was rather more recently acquired than that of the OCBI) was to show that it was eminently possible for an independent church to enter intercommunion with a number of the mainstream Orthodox churches while retaining its own canonical status, this was not the chosen route adopted by the OCBI. The very concept of independence per se was seen as contrary to the essence of Orthodoxy as understood by the OCBI, which demanded that the individual should subject himself to the dogma of the Church and not the other way around. Mar Georgius's successor as Metropolitan of Glastonbury, his second cousin Mar Seraphim (William Henry Newman-Norton), instead sought a full union with an Orthodox church that would effectively establish the OCBI as a Uniate rite of that church.

In 1993, discussions between the OCBI and the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, bore fruit, and in 1994 the Metropolitan Primate of the OCBI and a number of its other members were accepted into union with the Coptic church. The church changed its name once more to the present British Orthodox Church, and has since become an active voice for mainstream (but indigenously British) Orthodoxy in the UK.

Inevitably, this transition was not an easy one, and indeed caused significant splits in the church. Other bishops of the OCBI rejected the union with the Copts and elected a new Metropolitan Primate, Mgr. Mael (Paul-Eduard de Fournier de Brescia) from among their number. They then formed the Eglise Orthodoxe Celtique, which today has clergy and communities in the UK, France and Switzerland, and since 2006 has been in formal association with the French Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of the Gauls. Further clergy were to join the EOC from the OCBI in 1998.

An account of this troubled period from the perspective of the BOC may be read here, while a contrasting view from another bishop consecrated by Mar Georgius may be read here.

The lessons of Mar Georgius's ministry and mission

There are those today who seek to promote versions of Mar Georgius's life and theology that are at variance with the known facts. It can clearly be seen from the primary evidence quoted on this page (to which we could have added considerably) that his perspective throughout the majority of his active ministry (prior to 1967) was not that of "canonical" Orthodoxy but instead represented a far more liberal and inclusive outreach. Nor are the aims that characterised Mar Georgius's ministry worthy merely of the satirical and condescending treatment accorded them by the representatives of larger and wealthier churches who saw his movement as a threat to their positions.

For those whose religious identity is formed by the concept of "belonging" to the mainstream, it is both tempting and perhaps inevitable to decry the alternatives. Yet, to restate Mar Georgius's own convictions, "he saw in "non-Ultramontane Catholicism", a potential instrument for assisting the process of Christian Unity by the provision of a "bridge" between Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and even Protestantism of the Anglican and Lutheran types. Eventually, he arrived at the view that the various lines of Apostolic Succession must have been permitted to overflow their normal boundaries, and to have been preserved, sometimes merely by a thread, for the furtherance of the Divine Plan."

That statement rings as true today as it did seventy years ago, and continues to stand as an important validation of the independent sacramental movement. Certainly, there are ecumenical efforts of considerable value initiated between the mainstream churches. Yet there are also smaller groups, often of diverse, complex and misunderstood heritages, whose histories are those of faithful Christian witness and of effective ministry (often to the marginalised). Their theological boundaries have come to include that which the mainstream has yet to absorb, and their relationship with that mainstream is at best a distant historical memory rather than a present reality of common respect and mutual understanding. These groups need the benefits of ecumenical dialogue as much as any others, and should also have the opportunity to participate in the wider ministry of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church without being required to sacrifice their very identity in order to do so.

Such significant matters as syncretism (especially through Theosophy) and the extension of the fullness of the sacraments to women and to LGBT people owe their twentieth-century impetus to the churches of the independent movement, and in each case that impetus and its wider social manifestations has come to exert a significant influence on a number of the mainstream denominations. It is a peculiarly uncharitable (but sadly not uncommon) view merely to condemn such developments as heresy, for in most cases their effect is to include the excluded, to minister to those otherwise left without ministry, and to promote an enlightened, forward-looking approach to faith that recognises that others may legitimately differ in their interpretations of the Christian truths and their experiences of God.

Mar Georgius sought to promote unity and the merger of small denominations into a single church under his leadership as the "solution" to the diversity of the independent movement. We can now look back on his ministry and reflect, as he himself came to realise, that such an approach has not been successful, nor is it likely to be so in the future. More productive routes are likely, at least in the present period, to be those of dialogue and common understanding between communities with the intention of promoting fellowship and ecumenical relations.

As far as the independent movement is concerned, these are no longer missions undertaken by the church which Mar Georgius himself founded, and therefore these duties must fall to others whose calling is to work towards the furtherance of ecumenism and the exhibition of the unconditional love of God to others.

See also

The Titles of Nobility of Mar Georgius; His Authority as a Fons Honorum

Sources

The following works have provided sources for this section of the website, in addition to personal communications from Archbishop Professor Bertil Persson and others, and references cited in the text above. Other quotations from Mar Georgius are taken from the works below.

Catholic Apostolic Church (Catholicate of the West): Silver Jubilee Souvenir, The Patriarchal Press, 1963

Mar Georgius: A Personal Statement by His Beatitude Mar Georgius I, Metropolitan of Glastonbury, Concerning His Mission, The Metropolitical Press, 1971

Mar Georgius: Encyclical Letter of His Sacred Beatitude Maran Mar Georgius I, Patriarch of Glastonbury to The People of the British Isles, Catholic Apostolic Church, 1966

Marianno Gervase: A Notable Episode in Church History, The Patriarchal Press, 1961

Seraphim Newman-Norton: The Time of Silence, 4th ed., The Albury Society, 2005

A little humour

A member of the church sends this vintage advertisement from the Melody Maker for a "popular beat combo" of the 1970s. Describing themselves as "Medieval Britain's Top Band", they appear to have made a somewhat limited impact upon the scene. One wonders what Mar Georgius, who disliked pop music, would have made of this!