Fr. Dwight Longenecker Logo

Wondering About Wandering About Bishops

wandering bishops

With very mixed emotions I’m finally writing my conversion story-autobiography, and on the chapter on Bob Jones University had the chance to reminisce about Bishop James Parker Dees –the founder of the Anglican Orthodox Church–one of many Episcopalian splinter groups.

It led me on a hunt through my library to find a book I had read years ago on the subject of  episcopi vagantes  aka “wandering bishops.” The definitive history of this most entertaining phenomenon is Peter F. Anson’s  Bishops at Large.  Published in 1963, it could do with a scholarly update. However, I fear that in the intervening fifty seven years there have been so many Anglican splinter groups and wandering bishops that it would require many years of research and several volumes.

The phenomenon of renegade Anglican bishops really kicked in during the Oxford Movement. Many Anglicans were suddenly enamored with the ancient church and wanted to achieve communion with bishops who had proper valid apostolic succession. However, the establishment of the Church of England was, by and large, broach church, Protestant and staunchly anti-Catholic. Reunion with Rome was one option, but not one which was attractive to many Anglicans who considered their own church to be “the Catholic Church in England.” But if they were persuaded by the writings of the early church fathers and thought apostolic succession was necessary they had to find valid orders from a validly ordained bishop.

They discovered valid apostolic succession within the Old Catholic succession of Utrecht in Holland, and the various Eastern churches…so off they went, some of them sincere and naive in their wish to unify Christendom once more in a church they would start, others simply religious adventurers of the most ambitious and outrageous sort. Some of the men came from humble peasant stock, most were from the ecclesiastical grandma’s attic of the English aristocracy. The ones from the upper class often had independent means by which they financed their churchy fantasy life.

They traveled around Europe–indeed around the world, claiming for themselves the most grandiose titles and performing their rites with ever more ornate ceremonial, ritual and elaborate mummery.

In Henry St John’s introduction he writes,

“In all this there is a queer mixture of the irrepressible, the ridiculous and the pathetic; naive goodness and sincere idealism, unconscious vanity and, at times, conscious roguery: its promoters frequently unstable to a degree, eccentric in some cases to the point of craziness, moving in a dream world of unreality. A marked characteristic of this dream world is a folie de grandeur of high sounding titles and more than extravagant pretensions; these generally in inverse ratio to the number of their adherents and the size of the conventicles in which they worship and still worship with elaborate ritual and ceremonial.”

What tickles me in reading about these preposterous poseurs is how seriously they took themselves. No doubt some were well aware that they were charlatans, shysters and sideshow snake oil salesmen, but most it seems really did believe they were doing God’s work and were starting the church that would somehow or other change the world.

Furthermore, as I have written, their numbers have multiplied, because of course, the Protestant problem persisted and that problem is simply put: When two sincere Christians sincerely disagree they are faced with a stark choice: either they agree that their disagreement was not really that important or one of them stomps off to start his own church. This is precisely what happened to the wandering bishops–most of whom started their enterprise with some sort of idea that their church would be the one in which all good Christians would unite. The irony was that they were schismatic and they fostered ever more schismatics until now the number of splinter Anglican groups (not to mention all the other Protestant sect, conventicles, religious orders, denominations and cults) seem to be like the stars in the heavens or the sand on the shore.

Anson’s book is entertaining simply for the astonishingly preposterous adventures of these religious buccaneers. Among the favorites are Joseph Rene Vilatte, Mar Timotheos, Old Catholic Archbishop of North America and First Primate of the American Catholic Church. From his holy hands other bishops were consecrated and from them even more as they obeyed the Lord’s first commandment: be fruitful and multiply. Vilatte was the son of a French butcher who was ordained as a Catholic priest, ended up in Wisconsin as an Anglican, fell out with his bishop and went to Ceylon to be consecrated by Mar Julius I Metropolitan of the Independent Catholic Church of Ceylon, Goa and India. As the Archbishop Vilatte traveled the world trying unsuccessfully to drum up business.

Another competitor for the most crazy was the Englishman Arnold Harris Mathew who ended up with the titles,  Count Poveleri de Vicenza, de jure Earl of Llandaff, Regionary Old Catholic Bishop for England, Archbishop of London and Metropolitan of the English Catholic Church, Western Orthodox Catholic Church in Great Britain and Ireland, Anglo-Catholic Church (Latin and Orthodox United) and Western Catholic Uniate Church.etc.etc.

One of the curiosities this subject makes you think about is how the churches that were considered bona fide solid establishment churches have now becomes just as crazy as the men in Anson’s book. When these bogus bishops were snooping around for apostolic succession they wanted to be accepted by the Church of England and the Old Catholics because they were both considered authentic. Now the Old Catholics (what’s left of them) and the Anglican mainstream are simply one among many mainstream Protestant churches that ordain women bishops, endorse gay sex, abortion and a whole range of weirdness.

I began to wonder further about the bishops who were wandering about it occurred to me that there is really quite a lot of insanity within ecclesiastical circles. Religion can make you weird and freelance religion really  makes you weird. What amuses and troubles me is that in my worst moments I  fear that I may lapse into the same narcissistic vanity of these men. What is there to keep one sane?  What keeps a religious person from veering off into some bizarre byway or backwater? What prevents all of us from going after some apparition or gulping down gullibly the teachings of some charming preacher, a religious huckster or a lunatic conspiracy theorist or apocalyptic prophet?

I think there are a couple of things that can keep the religious person sane. First is to read the Bible every day. There is something solid and concrete and grounded in just reading a chapter of the Bible every day. Second, one should never assume that one has all the answers. It’s okay to be uncertain–especially uncertain of one’s opinions. Thirdly, it is vital to stay with the church and to stay with the Pope. One may not always agree with the pope and we may realize that the pope is ambiguous or mediocre or even immoral and corrupt, but we stay with the official teachings of the pope as they are congruent and consistent with Scripture and the magisterium. Ironically, it is especially when we don’t happen to agree with the pope that it is important to affirm his authority because that keeps us from thinking that we have all the answers and keeps us from going into a cloud cuckoo land of our own imagining.

Finally, one of the things to keep one grounded is to work with the poor. It gets one’s heads out of the clouds to sit and talk to a drug addict, a person who’s life is shattered by ill health or a person who is on the edge of suicide because their whole life is a wreck.

With this in mind, it was interesting that none of the  episcopi vagantes  were known for their work with the poor. They were too busy claiming the latest grandiose title or being fitted for yet another ecclesiastical vestment or attempting to hob nob with the rich and famous.

Their stories are at once hilarious, bizarre and a cautionary tale for those who are tempted to start their own little sect, gather their adoring devotees and set themselves up as some kind of bogus bishop or pathetic pontiff.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

Related posts.

Mission, Ministry and Maintenance

Mission, Ministry and Maintenance

Why the African Church is Different

Why the African Church is Different

The heresy of Size-ism

The heresy of Size-ism

Why Are Young People Drawn to Traditional Catholic Worship?

Why Are Young People Drawn to Traditional Catholic Worship?

Reverence and Relevance

Reverence and Relevance

' src=

This is pathetically hilarious. I’ve never heard of Martin Luther, or any of the others who rebelled against the Church, performing charitable acts.

' src=

Anglicans do seem to have a funny relationship with apostolic succession. Some claim it’s important while others claim isn’t. Some claim it’s not important but that they still have it. Haha!

During my conversion, as I was realizing the importance of apostolic succession, I discussed the last option with a random blogger who claimed to be Anglican. He tried to convince me apostolic succession wasn’t all that important, while simultaneously claiming that Anglicans still had it. I left the conversation thinking, “If it’s not important, why should I believe you still have it? We lose things we don’t care about. We treasure things we do care about. If apostolic succession is important, then I need to join the Church that treasures it.”

Leave A Comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Gnosis Archive | Library | Bookstore | Index | Web Lectures | Ecclesia Gnostica | Gnostic Society

Wandering Bishops: Not All Roads Lead to Rome by Stephan A. Hoeller

   THE OFFICE OF BISHOP is as old as Christianity itself. As early as the 90's C.E., St. Clement of Rome, in a letter addressed to the feuding community of Corinth, reminded his fellow Christians that the apostles had appointed and anointed the bishops as their valid successors, and that it would be against God's will for the people to replace them. In early Christendom, men (and, it would seem, women) called episkopoi received authority from their predecessors by the laying on of hands to exercise the fullness of spiritual power bestowed by Jesus on his apostles. The bishops then delegated special functions, such as teaching, forgiveness of sins, healing, and counseling, to ministers who acted as their helpers. The office of bishop is thus more ancient than that of priest, deacon, or other lesser churchly orders, all of which were established by the second century C.E., considerably later than the apostolic order of bishop.

    The apostles and their successors functioned in two ways: some were permanently attached to a particular city and geographical area where they cared for the spiritual welfare of a community of Christians, while others, inspired by the words of their founder commanding them to teach all peoples and nations, traveled to distant lands spreading the message of their faith. These leaders roamed far from the Mid-Eastern cradle of Christianity, penetrating even such remote countries as India, as did the apostle Thomas. Apostles of Jesus such as Thomas, Bartholomew, and Andrew, who did not remain in fixed residences caring for an established community, may thus be regarded as the first traveling, or "wandering," bishops.

    Later, other categories of wandering bishops came upon the scene. Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the state religion of his realm and proceeded to enforce an artificial unity on the Christian communities. Prior to this time, there was a strong pluralistic orientation of such communities and of their leaders. Acknowledging a common devotion to Christ and his teachings, they differed widely in doctrine and practice. With Constantine conditions changed; "orthodoxy" was declared as binding upon all. Those who did not conform were forced to leave the community and often their places of residence. They became wanderers. Gnostic, Arian, Nestorian, Monophysite, and other non-conforming Christian leaders became wandering bishops. A new trend was created. Those who conformed to emperor and bishop were allowed to remain in office and enjoy the support of the state, while those who dissented were invited to depart and became wanderers. Yet, such wanderers were not without followers, for kindred, dissenting clergy and congregants rallied around wherever they went, often impelling the orthodox authorities to acts of persecution. The rest of the story is a familiar and sorrowful one.

    From early times, transmission of apostolic authority existed outside of the mainstream of the churches of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and others. Many of these transmissions were condemned by their "big brothers" as heretical. Curiously, the validity of their apostolic orders was acknowledged by their critics. Due to an early tradition, articulated but not invented b y St. Augustine, the orthodoxy and validity of apostolic succession were not considered identical. Bishops could be heretics, yet could exercise their office as stewards of the sacraments in a valid manner. This doctrine (known as the Augustinian doctrine of orders) has been held to this day by the Roman Catholic Church. Provided the "wandering ones" held the same intentions when ordaining their successors as those traditionally held by sacramental Christendom over the ages, they could pass on their sacred powers and administer the sacraments in a manner that the popes would recognize as valid. Such is the character and status of the so-called wandering bishops as they exist today.

The Modern Wandering Episcopate

    Wandering bishops existed throughout history. In the Middle Ages, local bishops frequently complained to the pope about traveling prelates moving through the countryside performing functions reserved for bishops, such as confirming young people and ordaining priests and deacons. In modern times, following the Reformation, such activities sometimes became the cause of large communities falling away from the Church of Rome. One such cause célêbre involved the French bishop Varlet, who, while traveling through Holland, began to minister to an isolated group within the Catholic minority remaining in that Calvinist land. Bishop Varlet was finally persuaded to bestow the episcopate on the leader of this group of Dutch Catholics, and in 1724, the Dutch Old Catholic Church was born. This staunch, devoted community retained its identity as a Catholic church separate from Rome, yet was grudgingly recognized as a valid Catholic body by the popes, and still retains this status today. In the records of the latest council of the Roman Catholic Church (known as Vatican II), the tiny Old Catholic Church of Holland is listed at the top of the list of observers, far ahead of such huge Protestant bodies as the Anglican or Presbyterian churches, because of its unquestioned validity.

    Another place where wandering bishops abounded was the ancient Christian missionary territory of southern India, where, according to local tradition, the greatest and most vigorous of all wandering bishops, Apostle Thomas, lies in a tomb not far from the city of Madras. The Christians of St Thomas, originally Brahmins from the Malabar coast, continued for centuries as a fiercely independent series of communities, forever asserting their rights against popes and patriarchs who claimed jurisdiction over them. And so it came to pass that the stubborn Dutch Old Catholics and the factious South Indian Christians became the unpremeditated progenitors of independent, or wandering, bishops, who are now numbered in the thousands and are spread over every continent of the globe. The initiators of this unprecedented proliferation were two priests, one English, the other French-American, who, in the latter part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries received consecration at the hands of representatives of the Dutch and South Indian Catholic bishops. They were Arnold Harris Matthew (1852-1919) and Joseph René Vilatte (1854-1929), respectively. Matthew became the leading prelate of the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain, while Vilatte brought the stream of the originally Syrian succession of the South Indian church to the United States. Not bound by traditional rules and restrictions regarding the consecrations of other bishops, these two free-lance prelates proceeded to lay their anointed hands on a goodly number of men on both sides of the Atlantic, and thus initiated a new era in the history of wandering bishops.

Enter the Occult Connection

    In 1913, the aging, cantankerous leader of the rather unsuccessful English branch of Dutch Old Catholicism, Matthew, received a visitor. The thirty-year-old, handsome, cultured, and enthusiastic man who knocked at the door of Bishop Matthew was James Wedgwood, scion of England's noted Wedgwood china family. He was a theosophist, an avid follower of the neo-gnostic spiritual system publicized since 1875 by the Russian noblewoman and prolific writer, H.P. Blavatsky. Unlike other theosophists (and many of their counterparts in today's New Age), Wedgwood valued the Western spiritual traditions, such as ceremonial magic, esoteric masonry, and the mystery and sacred magic of the Christian sacraments. Wedgwood joined the small Old Catholic movement in England, and after some time and vicissitudes became a bishop in 1916. Many of his fellow theosophists also became attracted to the stately beauty and mysticism of the Mass and the other sacraments administered by Wedgwood and his associates. Among these was the leonine "grand old man" of the Theosophical Society, the noted teacher, writer, and clairvoyant, Charles Webster Leadbeater. Soon Wedgwood and Leadbeater settled down in Australia to a prolonged period of planning and work. The result was a new ecclesiastical body possessing its distinctive liturgy, philosophy, and customs. It came to be called the Liberal Catholic Church, and with it was born a new occult mysticism that was to have influence and consequences far exceeding the numerical strength of the new church or even of its senior ally, the Theosophical Society.

    To say that there could be an occult Catholicism is not as absurd as some might think. History teems with prelates, priests, and nuns of the Catholic Church who were devoted and skilled occultists. Kabbalah, hermeticism, astrology and magic were all patronized by numerous popes and championed by Churchmen. (Depending on the persons involved as well as on the historical period, practitioners of these same disciplines were also at times burnt at the stake by the Inquisition.) Viewed psychologically, the relationship of the Church and occultism appears to resemble the relationship of ego and shadow; in spite of their frequent conflict, they belong together and depend on each other in many ways. The greatest estrangement of Catholicism from its dark esoteric twin came about after the Enlightenment, when rationalistic considerations made inroads into the Church. Even today, one may discover that persons of gnostic-hermetic interests have more in common with traditionalist Catholics than with either modernist Vatican II Catholics or with Protestants. Without articulating these thoughts consciously, the theosophical Catholics of Wedgwood's and Leadbeater's type seem to have intuited these archetypal relationships and compatabilities between essential Catholicism and basic occultism. With these intuitions, they may have become pioneers of an approach to sacramental Christianity that has significant promise for the future of Western religion.

A New Magical View of Sacramental Power

    The champion-in-chief of occult Catholicism was undoubtedly C.W. Leadbeater. A former Anglican priest who had left church, family, and country to follow Madame Blavatsky to India and into the world of theosophy late in the nineteenth century, he remained a mysterious and compelling figure until his death in the late 1930s. Utterly devoted to the teachings of theosophy, Leadbeater was nevertheless aware that the magic of the Christian sacraments was still very much needed by contemporary humanity. As early as April 1917, he wrote in The Theosophist :

When the great World-Teacher was last on earth, He made a special arrangement that what we may think of as a compartment of a reservoir of spiritual power should be available for the use of the new religion that he founded, and that its officials should be empowered, by the use of certain ceremonies, words, and signs of power, to draw upon it for the spiritual benefit of their people.

    Bishop Leadbeater felt that by way of his extrasensory faculties he was able to describe with some accuracy the mechanism whereby the sacraments were able to work effectively. In such works as The Science of the Sacraments , The Inner Side of Christian Festivals , and his recently and posthumously published "The Christian Gnosis," he left an impressive legacy wherein he demonstrated to the satisfaction of many that the Mass and other sacraments of apostolic Christendom are capable of assisting the spiritual welfare and transformative growth of persons in our age as well as in the past. The small, but disciplined, church that Leadbeater and Wedgwood founded is still in existence on five continents, in countries such as Holland, Australia, and New Zealand, and possesses numerous impressive church buildings with large congregations. A serious blow was dealt to the Liberal Catholic Church, however, in the 1930s, when Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was heralded by the leading theosophists as the vehicle of the World-Teacher (Christ), abandoned the cause of his messiahship, and criticized all rites and ceremonies with particular vehemence.

    Leadbeater and his new brand of occult Catholicism have acted as seminal influences for many of the wandering bishops who followed him, and who frequently functioned outside of the formal ecclesiastical body founded by the theosophical bishops. One such churchman was Lowell Paul Wadle, principle representative in the United States of the successions brought to this continent by the French wanderer Vilatte. Bishop Wadle was a theosophist and a popular lecturer in circles of alternative spirituality, particularly in California. A charming and kindly man, his influence upon occult Catholicism was perhaps second only to Leadbeater's. Holding forth in his exquisitely appointed church of St Francis in Laguna Beach, California, he was a man whom churchmen and laity of many denominations sought out for counsel and company.

    It is no exaggeration to say that the occult and theosophical view introduced into sacramental church worship by these pioneers had more far-reaching implications and exerted a greater influence that is discernible on the surface. Numerous creative persons have been deeply impressed by the possibility of an effective separation of the sacraments from the weight of the dogma and outdated moralizing with which the mainstream churches have inevitably tended to combine them. One could now partake of the benefits of sacramental grace without being forced into systems of belief and commandment that might be contrary to one's deeper convictions. More than half a century before, liberal and permissive theological trends made inroads into the main bastions of sacramental Christendom; an opening was thus created for freedom, creativity, and, more importantly, for unconventional kinds of magico-mystical thought within the grace and stately beauty of the time-honored ceremonial of the Church.

Gnostic Bishops Enter the Fray

    The ostensibly Roman Catholic country of France has harbored heretics, schismatics, and wandering bishops for numerous centuries. The gnostics of Lyon annoyed the Church Father Irenaeus so greatly that he devoted volumes of diatribes to combat them. Gnostic groups of various kinds existed in the French provinces throughout history, the best-known and most numerous being the Cathar church in the thirteenth century. It is interesting to note that every time the hold of the Church of Rome weakened on the government of France, gnostic religious bodies emerged from hiding, usually only to be suppressed soon after by another clerical government. Thus, at the time of the French Revolution, the once-suppressed Templar Order was reorganized along vaguely gnostic lines by its grand master, former Roman Catholic priest and esotericist Bernard Fabré-Palaprat, who in the early 1800s was consecrated Patriarch of the Johannite Church of Primitive Christians allied to the Order of Templars. This consecration set a pattern for many subsequent creations of French wandering bishops of gnostic and related persuasion, for the consecrating prelate, Monsignor Mauviel, was a so-called Constitutional bishop, that is, a member of a hierarchy of validly consecrated French Catholic bishops set up by the revolutionary government in opposition to the papacy. Gnostic, Templar, Cathar, and other secret groups usually possessed their own esoteric successions, but from that time on, they found it useful to receive consecration at the hands of valid but irregular Catholic prelates who were not hard to find in the wake of the revolution and its ecclesiastical confusion.

    By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at least one major public gnostic church, the Eglise Gnostique Universalle, was moderately active in France, led by such distinguished esotericists as Jules Doinel, Jean Bricaud, and eventually the leader of the revived Martinist order, know as Papus (Dr. G. Encausse). The revival of a Catholic Gnostic (or Gnostic Catholic) public movement was thus accomplished.

    As in the case of the theosophical occult Catholicism, so here the question suggests itself: Why should occult or gnostic persons aspire to the office of bishop in the Catholic sense, and why should they practice the sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church? The answer is not difficult. Gnostic movements of various kinds that survived secretly in Europe were all originally part of the Roman Catholic Church. Although they differed with their larger relative and were frequently persecuted by her, they still regarded her as the model of ecclesiastical life. They may have considered the content of their religion as quite at variance with the teachings of Rome, but the form of their worship was still the one that ancient and universal Christendom had always practiced. The kind of innovative religious pluralism that evolved in North America was unknown to them, and in all likelihood they would have been repulsed by it had they know it. A gnostic, although a heretic, was still a member of the one, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and had both a right and an obligation to practice the seven historic sacraments in the traditional manner.

    French gnosticism thus established its own ecclesiastical life, following the example of Roman Catholic practice. The movement was never lacking in vicissitudes. As late as March 22, 1944, the head of the major gnostic religious body in France, Monsignor Constant Chevillon (Tau Harmonius) was cruelly executed after the Vichy collaborationist government suppressed the Gnostic Church. Still, the movement spread to Germany, Spain, Portugal, Latin America, and such French-speaking countries as Haiti. There matters rested until years after World War II.

    The gnostic tradition, which originally had its home in France, came to be established in England and later in the United States, initially as a result of the efforts of a bishop of French descent who was raised in Australia. Born Ronald Powell, he took the name Richard Jean Chretien Duc de Palatine. A learned and charismatic man, de Palatine (who received his successions from the well-known British independent prelate Hugh de Wilmott-Newman) may be regarded as the pioneer of sacramental gnosticism in both England and the United States. His tradition survives chiefly in the Ecclesia Gnostica, based in Los Angeles and headed by the present writer, who was consecrated in 1967 by Bishop de Palatine. Other gnostic churches of a very similar orientation have sprung up in recent years in increasing numbers. Today, there are vigorous and stable descendants of the French gnostic movement functioning in New York, Chicago (headed by Monsignor Robert Conikis), and Barbados (headed by Tau Thomas). The first woman bishop in the gnostic tradition in modern times is Bishop Rosamonde Miller, who has founded the Ecclesia Gnostica Mysteriorum in Palo Alto, Calif.

Toward a New Christian Gnosis

    The names and movements mentioned above by no means exhaust the number of wandering bishops and the movements they have founded. The most populous and stable of such organizations are the Independent Church of the Philippines, whose origins reach back to the separation of the Philippines from Spain; and the Brazilian Catholic Church, founded decades ago by a discontented Brazilian Roman Catholic bishop. Both of these churches maintain vaguely defined theories of an orthodox character, although occasional positive interactions between them and the occult-gnostic bodies exist. A potential for a large schismatic Catholic church exists in mainland China, where a non-papal Roman Catholic Church came into existence under orders from Mao Tse-tung. This movement with validly consecrated bishops still functions, and curiously conducts its services without any of the changes introduced by the Vatican II council.

    Only time will tell what the role of the wandering bishops will be within the unfolding structures of sacramental Christendom. Since the second Vatican Council in the 1960s, confusion and overt dissension have appeared even within the Roman Catholic monolith. Liturgical "reforms" combined with laxity and sheer trivial-mindedness have so changed the nature of Roman Catholic church services in many countries that many of the wandering bishops can lay claim to greater traditional authenticity today than can their far wealthier and mover-powerful Roman Catholic counterparts. Also, while women still fight a seemingly hopeless battle for the priesthood with Rome, many of the wandering bishops can justly claim not only to have bestowed holy orders on women, but to have espoused a certain spiritual feminism for a considerable time. The gnostic patriarch, Tau Synesius thus wrote to a religious congress as early as 1908:

There is among our tenets one to which I shall call particular attention: the tenet of feminine salvation. The work of the Father has been accomplished, that of the Son, as well. There remains that of the Spirit, which alone is capable of bringing about the final salvation of humanity on earth and thereby, of laying the way for the reconstitution of the Spirit. Now the Spirit, the Paraclete, corresponds to what the divine partakes of a feminine nature, and our teachings state explicitly that this is the only facet of the godhead that is truly accessible to our mind. What will be in fact the nature of this new and not-too-far-distant Messiah?

    The seeming promise residing in the wandering bishops is obscured and at times negated by the personal eccentricities and unsavory character of a large number of these bishops. Since consecration to the episcopate is often so easily obtained in the subculture of the wandering ones, venal, unstable, and woefully ill-educated persons abound in the ranks of the "independent" episcopate. Quite a large number of these bishops are simply people one would not wish to invite to dinner. The "sleaze factor" is all too evident and ubiquitous, and this factor will probably remain the greatest obstacle to the positive work the wandering bishops could accomplish in this age.

    The unworthiness of the many should not blind one to the potential residing in the few. The mass of wandering bishops is very much like a kind of alchemical prima materia from whence a true stone of the philosophers might yet emerge. Christianity started as a disreputable Jewish heresy, having an executed criminal as its founder. Christian schisms and heresies that are today held in disrepute might lead to great and transformative spiritual developments as well. Cornerstones of the future are frequently made up of stones once rejected by the builders. The strange and paradoxical phenomenon of the wandering bishops may reveal itself as a vital ingredient in the historical-spiritual alchemy of the coming age. Some of us hope that this will be the case, while others sneer or turn away from such concerns. The last word, however, belongs to Powers that transcend both the advocates and the critics. And their word, we may be assured, will be final and to the point.

The article first appeared in Gnosis: A Journal of Western Inner Traditions (Vol. 12, Summer 1989), and is reproduced here by permission of the author.

Skip to main content

  • Life & style
  • Environment
  • Subscriber Services
  • For Authors
  • Publications
  • Archaeology
  • Art & Architecture
  • Bilingual dictionaries
  • Classical studies
  • Encyclopedias
  • English Dictionaries and Thesauri
  • Language reference
  • Linguistics
  • Media studies
  • Medicine and health
  • Names studies
  • Performing arts
  • Science and technology
  • Social sciences
  • Society and culture
  • Overview Pages
  • Subject Reference
  • English Dictionaries
  • Bilingual Dictionaries

Recently viewed (0)

  • Save Search

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church$

Edited by: E. A. Livingstone

  • Find at OUP.com
  • Google Preview
  • Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

More on this Topic

  • Episcopi vagantes in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1 rev ed.)
  • episcopi vagantes in The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages
  • View overview page for this topic

Related Content

Related overviews.

Arnold Harris Mathew (1853—1919)

Joseph René Vilatte (1854—1929)

excommunication

View all related overviews »

  • Publishing Information
  • General Links for this Work
  • Note on the revision of the second edition
  • (A) The most common abbreviations, used throughout the book
  • (B) Biblical books (given in the order of the AV)
  • Next Version

episcopi vagantes  

(Lat., ‘wandering bishops’).The name given to persons who have been consecrated bishop in an irregular or clandestine manner or ...

Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs , and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us .

  • Oxford University Press

PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice ).

date: 11 March 2024

  • Cookie Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Legal Notice
  • Accessibility
  • [66.249.64.20|185.80.149.115]
  • 185.80.149.115

Character limit 500 /500

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

  • We're Hiring!
  • Help Center

paper cover thumbnail

Wandering Clerics and Mixed Rituals in the Early Christian North, c. 1000-–c. 1150

Profile image of Ildar Garipzanov

2012, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

This article questions the traditional perception of early Christianisation in Scandinavia and Northern Rus' as processes separated by established confessional and institutional boundaries. Surviving narrative sources mention a number of clerical peregrinators crossing confessional borders in northern Europe in the post-conversion period, and some contemporaneous baptismal rites from Scandinavia and northern Rus' testify to their ability to influence the basic Christian rituals in both regions. These phenomena suggest that differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were in no way preventing contacts across the early Christian north in the eleventh and the first half of the twelfth century.

Related Papers

Scandinavian Journal of History

Ildar Garipzanov

The cult of St Nicholas spread in Scandinavia and northern Rus' in approximately the same period, namely in the last decades of the 11th and the first decades of the 12th centuries. In spite of such a correspondence, the dissemination of the cult in the two adjacent regions has been treated as two separate phenomena. Consequently, the growing popularity of the cult in Scandinavia has traditionally been dealt with as an immanent part of the transmission of the Catholic tradition, and a similar phenomenon in northern Rus' has been discussed with reference to the establishment of Orthodox Christianity. By contrast, the evidence analysed in this article shows that the establishment of the cult of St Nicholas in the two regions was an intertwined process, in which the difference between Latin Christendom and Greek Orthodoxy played a minor role. The early spread of this particular cult thus suggests that, as far as some aspects of the cult of saints are concerned, the division between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity in Northern Europe was less abrupt in the 11th and 12th centuries than has been traditionally assumed. This was due to the fact that the medieval cult of saints was not limited to the liturgy of saints, but was a wider social phenomenon in which political and dynastic links and cultural and trading contacts across Northern Europe often mattered more than confessional differences. When we leave the liturgy aside and turn to kings, princes, traders and other folk interacting across the early Christian North, then the confessional borders are less useful for our understanding of how some aspects of Christian culture were communicated across Northern Europe in the first two centuries after conversion.

wandering bishops

Asya Bereznyak

The imposition of Christianity on pagan peoples was one of the most formative events in medieval history, and engendered a broad spectrum of responses and a variety of local adaptations and appropriations of the Christian message. My dissertation demonstrates that the outcomes of Christianisation processes depended on a complex interaction between local circumstances and missionary attitudes. In order to elucidate the causal links between the circumstances and outcomes of Christianisation processes in eighth-eleventh centuries, this study approaches Christianisations from a comparative perspective, and proposes a new theoretical framework. The categorisation of Christianisations into empathetic, sympathetic and apathetic processes aims to encapsulate the typological diversity of responses to the imposition of Christianity, and allows a significant reconsideration of the outcomes of Christianisations in terms of the interplay between missionary methods and local circumstances. To this end, this study re-examined the Christianisations of Saxony, Bulgaria, Bohemia and Rus’. These cases were chosen to represent the broad spectrum of possible circumstances of Christianisations. In terms of missionary methods, they represent both Byzantine and West European approaches; in terms of dynastic politics, they exemplify instances in which politics impeded or aided processes of Christianisation; in terms of noble involvement, these cases include both instances in which nobility played a decisive role and cases in which the nobles were not involved in the process. In terms of outcomes, these cases exemplify a spectrum of responses, ranging from full conversion to an apathetic acceptance of a bare minimum of Christian practices. In each case, the study considers the interplay between missionary methods, dynastic politics, the interests of the nobility, levels of coercion, and the relationship with the converting culture. By doing so, the study offers new insights regarding the impact of each factor on the course of Christianisations and examines the manner in which the interaction between all factors engendered a variety of reactions to Christianity. In addition, the comparative approach provides a new perspective on familiar narratives, recorded reactions to Christianity, and even archaeological finds.

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Martin Carver

Deborah Shepherd

Between Paganism and Christianity in the North / Ed. L. P. Słupecki, J. Morawiec. Rzeszów, 2009

Fjodor Uspenskij

Parergon, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 203-205

Carole Cusack

This large edited book consists of thirty-seven chapters and three introductions, and covers a broad range of historical and cultural receptions of pre-Christian Scandinavian myths and legends from the Christian Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. It is an immensely learned and useful resource, though not best suited to being read in toto, but rather to dip into to look for information on specific topics, geographical regions, or eras. More than sixty illustrations magnify the impact of the scholarship considerably. Editor Margaret Clunies Ross’s introduction situates the large-scale research project, initially conceived by Jónas Kristjánsson (1924– 2014), and later led by Bergur Thorgeirsson, which will result in two other sets of published outputs (four volumes of Histories and Structures and two of Sources, textual and archaeological) apart from the two-volume set of which this volume is the first. The reflexive nature of the project is clear. Clunies Ross notes that ‘it is now recognized, more perhaps than it was in former times, that research itself is subject to changes in cultural values and assumptions, and that research is itself a kind of reception, just as artistic creativity is’ (p. xxv).

Henrik Janson

Acta Poloniae Historica

Wojtek Jezierski

This article explores the ways episcopal milieus on the northeastern peripheries of Europe created and renewed their identities and symbols of episcopal authority by domesticating their immigrant saints during the high Middle Ages. By comparing the examples of holy bishops arriving to Poland and Sweden (St Adalbert, St Sigfrid, St Henry), it studies the episcopal mythopoesis, that is, the creation of foundational myths and mythologies as well as their adaptation to specifi c local needs and changing historical circumstances. The article further probes to what extent these mythopoetic efforts were original or imitative in comparison to the Western European episcopal centres and other peripheries. How similarly or differently did the bishops in the "old" and "young" Europe respond to the question: What beginnings do we need today? And what role did the appropriation, commodification, and domestication of holy bishops' images and body parts play in building the institutional identities of bishoprics?

RELATED PAPERS

Diego Orozco Ruiz

Conference, May 14, 2021

Olatunde Taiwo

Russel Cooper

Annals of Emergency Medicine

Charles Graham

Deepa Austin

leda salzedas

Carbohydrate Research

Katsuhiko Suzuki

40Th Cospar Scientific Assembly

Nikolai Pogorelov

Journal of Environmental Monitoring

Andrea Hartwig

Geotechnical Testing Journal

Brendan C . O'Kelly , Jose Manuel Moreno-Maroto

Jurnal Ilmu dan Teknologi Kayu Tropis

Imam Wahyudi

Abbas Mahmud

Journal of Applied Meteorology

Kevin Knupp

Nursing Management

Sarah Shillitoe

Bulcsú Dékány

The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene

NANCY ARROSPIDE VELASCO

Basak Tug , Nazan Haydari

Carlos D. Gómez C.

International Journal of Science and Society

Zainal Rengifurwarin

Pharmacognosy magazine

Journal of Applied Biomechanics

Marianne Gittoes

WAVE: Jurnal Ilmiah Teknologi Maritim

Anggra Fiveriati

Journal of Community Psychology

Lucas Baker

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Coccia Mario

See More Documents Like This

  •   We're Hiring!
  •   Help Center
  • Find new research papers in:
  • Health Sciences
  • Earth Sciences
  • Cognitive Science
  • Mathematics
  • Computer Science
  • Academia ©2024
  • About WordPress
  • Get Involved
  • WordPress.org
  • Documentation
  • Learn WordPress

wandering bishops

Copyright 2020 Alpha Ωmega

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

  • See blocked member's posts
  • Mention this member in posts
  • Invite this member to groups
  • Message this member
  • Add this member as a connection

Please note: This action will also remove this member from your connections and send a report to the site admin. Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity

Raymond van dam.

Ascetics and monks were always ambiguous figures in early Christianity, usually revered for their uncompromising imitation of biblical commands about obedience and poverty but frequently also feared for their use of violence and as rivals to bishops and other churchmen. Daniel Caner now provides an excellent study of the problem of monasticism in the eastern empire during the later fourth and early fifth centuries. His book highlights the issue of ascetic poverty, and in particular of the wandering monks who survived by begging. Their behavior challenged the authority of bishops, who increasingly identified themselves with cities and who expected to be supported through the resources of their congregations. Caner’s meticulously learned discussion focuses first on itinerant monks in Egypt and Syria and then on the tension between monks and bishops at Constantinople.

In his first chapter Caner discusses the phenomenon of ascetic wanderers in Egypt. In some respects the drifting of these “ships on the open sea” was an extension of older traditions about the benefits of voluntary alienation and solitary withdrawal into the desert. These early ascetic pioneers had been living out Jesus’ recommendation in the Sermon on the Mount to prefer the pursuit of God’s kingdom over daily concerns like food and clothing. Then the practical difficulies of surviving in the harsh desert intruded to challenge the feasability of these ideals, and monastic leaders began to stress instead the benefits of manual labor and living in a cell or a community. Stability was the new ideal, certainly by the early fifth century: “manual labor was being specifically prescribed as an antidote for the impulse to wander around in a spiritual malaise” (p. 40). “Communal necessity and material needs recommended a spiritual life of physical stillness supported by manual labor” (p. 47).

The next chapter surveys the background of asceticism in Syria during the third century. Even though wandering ascetics in Syria would acquire a reputation for their extreme behavior as “grazers” who survived on wild plants in the mountains, later historians still classified them as imitators of Egyptian ascetics. Caner argues instead that already in the third century Syrian Christian communities had admired “covenanters”, who adopted celibacy and poverty but who remained engaged with cities. He then associates, and sometimes identifies, these covenanters with itinerant wanderers. The Acts of Thomas and the pseudo-Clementine Letters to Virgins , both texts from third- century Syria, endorsed “the ministries provided by itinerant ascetics to scattered Christian communities” (p. 66). By respecting the proper norms of ascetic conduct in cities, these wanderers could present themselves as the true heirs of the apostles.

But in Syria too ascetics withdrew from cities, and wandering ascetics became suspect. In his third chapter Caner discusses the controversy over so-called Messalians or Euchites. The ideals and behavior of these “People Who Pray” were clearly rooted in the apostolic model of proper Christian asceticism, and they certainly continued to flourish. Various texts from Syria pointedly recommended “that ascetics who devoted themselves to the spiritual work of prayer and edification merited support from other members of the Christian community” (p. 114). But according to Caner, such wanderers were soon the victims of “the Eastern crystallization of a conflict that arose between church officials and ascetic laymen all around the Mediterranean in the late fourth and early fifth centuries” (p. 86). The notorious heresy-hunter Epiphanius criticized “Massalians” for their wandering, their idleness, their rejection of manual labor, and their reliance instead on begging. Church councils then reinforced this image by associating Messalians with heretical doctrines. As a result, Messalians became the prototypical Others, to “be understood as a polemical construction rather than a historical reality” (p. 101).

Alexander the Sleepless, the subject of the next chapter, was one such itinerant ascetic who suffered from this new taxonomy of orthodoxy and heresy. His career is known primarily through a marvelous Life , which Caner translates in an appendix. Alexander and his supporters were so devoted to absolute poverty and nonstop praying (in shifts), that his biographer characterized him as an “apostolic man.” After roaming for decades in the steppes of eastern Syria he moved to Constantinople. In the mid-420s magistrates expelled him for what they considered to be his Messalian leanings. Bishops also condemned him, in part because he was a competitor for the limited resources of their ecclesiastical communities: “rival claims to apostolic identity, privilege, and authority were at stake in this contention over material support” (p. 154).

The fifth chapter discusses the wider issue of wandering, begging monks as “a threat to the reputation of monasticism itself” (p. 159). Churchmen were encouraging people to show their generosity to the crowds of ordinary vagrants and beggars. But because ascetics competed with these “involuntary poor” for alms, at Ancyra Nilus fretted about idle monks as parasites who were abusing their spiritual vocation. At Constantinople John Chrysostom finally confronted monks for what he called their grasping greediness. They in turn supported his deposition from the episcopacy. “Chrysostom’s sermons indicate that the real problem lay in rival claims for the city’s spiritual leadership: who had a legitimate claim to the laity’s support through alms, and for what reason?” (p. 195).

In the final chapter Caner discusses one attempt at resolution. In the decades following John Chrysostom’s exile monks remained so influential at the capital that Dalmatius supported the deposition of bishop Nestorius, and Eutyches was able to line up the patronage of the emperor Theodosius II for the deposition of bishop Flavianus. Flushed with his success, Eutyches was even hailed as “bishop of bishops.” Then his patron Theodosius died in an accident. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451 hundreds of bishops met to define both correct doctrine and a proper ecclesiastical hierarchy. One of their canons specifically put monks under bishops’ control and condemned rogue monks who wandered indiscriminately in cities: “the measures taken at Chalcedon seem to have inaugurated a new era of unity in church and monastic relations in the imperial city” (p. 241).

Caner’s discussion of these developments is sometimes a bit too compact and dense for ready comprehension, but always very sensible and intelligent. One sign of a book’s excellence is its capacity to raise more issues. One concerns wider attitudes toward manual labor and the relationship between begging and wealth. An underdeveloped agrarian economy produced only a comparatively small surplus, and much of that went to the state. Most people were born to a poverty in which only constant labor ensured survival. Wealthy notables, in contrast, had developed a lifestyle of leisured retirement and intellectual pursuits which certainly did not include manual labor. The necessity of manual labor therefore represented not so much the imposition of hard work, as the absence of power, and monks who depended on alms, either through begging or through the regular generosity of patrons, had found a new way of acquiring power. Begging had the same result as great wealth: no need for manual labor. A life of begging was the poor man’s version of a wealthy aristocrat’s life of otiose retirement.

A second issue concerns the obsession with stability. Once bishops exerted their authority, they redefined proper monasticism in terms of enclosure and isolation. At the same time in the later fourth and early fifth centuries the imperial court and its generals were trying to cope with the arrival of new barbarian groups. They too worried about invasions and wanderings, and they too hoped to settle these wandering barbarians in permanent reservations. Movement, whether by itinerant monks or marauding barbarians, was a threat to institutionalized authority, as the emperors struggled to retain their influence and the bishops to enhance theirs. Emperors thought of the Goths as “wild animals who had broken their cages,” while the ascetics who grazed in mountain pastures were seen as “animals, no longer human in the way they thought” (p. 52). The presence of both wandering monks and wandering barbarians forced a redefinition of the exact meaning of civilization.

A final issue is the notion of orthodoxy. As Caner notes, in many respects these itinerant monks were fanatically loyal to Jesus’ command to forget about food, clothing, and family. Their opponents may have cited the apostle Paul’s injunction about the important of manual labor, but this life of wandering could clearly claim equally powerful biblical support. The resolution of this conflict thus represented the confluence of social and cultural concerns and was not simply a consequence of biblical exegesis or spiritual preferences. Caner’s book is a wonderfully effective demonstration that defining orthodox monasticism, like defining orthodox theology, is an aspect not of narrowly focused theological studies, but of more expansive cultural studies.

The Raymond Broshears Files Part 00002: Odd Sects and Wandering Bishops

  • Post author By Gorightly
  • Post date January 1, 2019
  • 2 Comments on The Raymond Broshears Files Part 00002: Odd Sects and Wandering Bishops

Goddess only knows how Garrison first saddled up on this “Odd Sects” hobby horse, but there’s a good chance that one of his key witnesses, Jack Martin , was responsible for planting this curious seed—as well as our own Rev. Raymond Broshears , who also played a part in advancing the “Odd Sects” theory.

On November 25, 1963—two days after JFK’s assassination—an inebriated Jack Martin phoned the New Orleans FBI office to drop a dime on David Ferrie , implicating him as a getaway pilot in the assassination plot. On November 28, the Feds contacted Ferrie to get his side of the story:

“…FERRIE claimed that JACK S. MARTIN was a private detective who he first met in the fall of 1961. He said that since that time MARTIN has attempted to insert himself into his, FERRIE’S personal affairs. He claimed that at the time he first met MARTIN, MARTIN was working for a woman in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, named CATHERINE WILKERSON or WILKINSON or some similar name. He stated that MARTIN was endeavoring to expose various frauds in the Diploma Mills and Ecclesiastical Mills and was particularly interested in CARL J. STANLEY of Louisville, Kentucky who called himself CHRISTOPHER MARIA. He stated that MARTIN was desirous of obtaining some of the phony certificates of ordination and consecration used by STANLEY and to forward them to Washington, D.C. He said that MARTIN asked his assistance in this investigation and that he accompanied MARTIN to Louisville. He stated that he received only part of his fee for the investigation conducted with MARTIN. FERRIE said that he was slow in catching on to MARTIN but determined that MARTIN WAS dealing in phony certificates. He said that he regarded MARTIN as being an unethical and dangerous person. FERRIE claimed that in 1962 MARTIN disappeared from the scene and after several months suddenly re-appeared. He stated that MARTIN began visiting him at the office of attorney G.WRAY GILL and that Mr. GILL did not want MARTIN hanging out around his office. FERRIE claimed that in June of 1963 he put MARTIN out of Mr. GILL’S office in an undiplomatic manner and that since that time MARTIN has bedeviled him in every manner possible. “FERRIE said that he had learned that some time after he put MARTIN out of Mr. GILL’S office MARTIN was moving around to various parts of the United States contacting first one clergyman and then another who were connected with the old Catholic Church trying to get ordained and gave FERRIE’S name as a character reference… FERRIE said he also learned that MARTIN had been a sergeant in the U.S. Army and while in the service had been mixed up in obtaining phony degrees in medicine, chiropractic and naturopathy by finding a college that was not in operation but whose charter was not defunct…”

During his November 27, 1963 FBI interview, Attorney G. Wray Gill stated that “Ferrie and Martin were once close friends until they got involved in an ‘ecclesiastical’ deal.” This “ecclesiastical deal” concerned Ferrie’s membership in the Apostolic Orthodox Old Catholic Church (AOOCC). Although details are scant concerning Ferrie’s involvement with the church, Gill informed the Feds that Martin tried to use Ferrie’s standing in the AOOCC to leverage his way into the clergy, which apparently was one of the factors that led to a dispute between the two men, as Ferrie was unwilling to give Martin an endorsement. Due to these events, Ferrie and Martin had a contentious falling out, partly due to the so-called “ecclesiastical deal.” The FBI’s interview with Ferrie was followed a couple days later with this memo:

Included with the Stanley-FBI memo was the Most Reverend’s rap sheet, a portion of which I’ve included for your possible reading enjoyment. I found it somewhat humorous that a couple of Stanley’s convictions resulted from obscene letters, which—for a man of the cloth—seemed a bit odd… but what part of this story isn’t?

At some point, Garrison wove together his Odd Sects theory like a manic Carrie Mathison in the The Homeland with news clippings, push pins and red strings on the wall, connecting Ferrie to odd ducks like Carl Stanley—and a whole host of other marginal figures—all part of some feverish plot involving rogue men of the cloth moonlighting as CIA hit men.

In Garrison’s “Odd Sects” files you’ll find any number of oddball letters from fringe ministers who wrote in for no other reason, it seems, than to commend Garrison on his investigation and lend their moral support. Each time Garrison or his staff received one of these beauties, into the Odd Sects files it would go!

During Rev. Broshears deposition before Garrison, he identified a number of mail order religions he’d been involved with, such as Kirby Hensley’s Universal Life Church (ULC) in Modesto, California, that in 1967 ordained Rev. Raymond Broshears as a self styled man of the cloth.

The ULC became renowned for ordaining anyone at the drop of a hat—all you had to do was write into headquarters in Modesto, California, to request ministerial credentials and before you knew it your very own embossed certificate was speeding to you in the mail. Discordian Society founder Greg Hill was an ordained ULC minister, and in many ways modeled certain aspects of Discordianism after the ULC, in particular the mantra that anyone could become an ordained minister (or Discordian pope) just by asserting the privilege. The ULC identifies itself “as a non-denominational religious organization founded on a simple doctrine, ‘Do that which is right,’ and states that every person has the natural right (and the responsibility) to peacefully determine what is right.”

The ULC was a nexus for free thinkers, crackpots, draft dodgers, and con men alike. It was through the ULC that Broshears became associated with several of Garrison’s suspects, including Fred Crisman , who was alleged to have been one of the mystery tramps picked up in Dealey Plaza in the aftermath of Kennedy’s assassination.

In his deposition, Broshears was questioned about Crisman and an equally sketchy Crisman associate named Thomas Edward Beckham. Garrison’s investigators showed Broshears a series of photos of suspected conspirators, one of whom was Beckham.

It appears that Broshears was recruited by Garrison as an informant, due to a letter I came across in the GLBT archives dated August 26, 1968, that Broshears sent to the ULC’s Kirby Hensley with the following request:

“…Dr. Hensly[sic], do you have a pic of yourself, Dr. Crisman, Dr. Brister for publication in the next issue of LIGHT? If so, I would sure appreciate them. I already have one of Beckham. I will get one of Brother Douglas this week. This is for a special Universal life section we are preparing…”

“LIGHT” in the letter referred to Broshears’ newsletter, Light and Understanding . It appears Broshears was using this request as a come-on to obtain photos (for Garrison’s investigators) of Hensley, Crisman and other supposed “Odd Sects” suspects. To close his letter, Broshears requested that Dr. Hensley send “minister ordinations” to four members of Garrison’s team: Barbara Reid, Steve Jaffee, James Alcock, and Louis Ivon. This request was most likely a pretext to assist them in infiltrating the ULC, and gather information on other ULC members that Garrison linked to the assassination.

The key evidence that got Garrison hot on Fred Crisman’s trail came in the form of a couple dodgy letters sent from anonymous sources, one of which included the allegation that Crisman was “the first man that Clay [Shaw] called after being told he was in trouble…” However, there’s no evidence that Shaw and Crisman ever actually knew each other.

This link will take you to some of the other phony Crisman docs that ended up in Garrison’s inbox and afterwards provided endless fodder for conspiracy buffs in the years to follow. As you peruse said documents, you will notice that our friends at the FBI or CIA (or some other alphabet soup agency) stamped FABRICATION on several pages to inform future generations of conspiracy sleuths that they were big, fat fakes.

According to researcher Larry Hancock , who has probably taken the deepest dive down this Crisman-Beckham rabbit hole:

“Crisman’s self-promotion was so obsessive and all-encompassing that I strongly suspect he himself wrote the anonymous letters to Garrison, identifying himself as a suspect.”

As for Beckman, his background was even more colorful than Crisman’s—if that’s at all imaginable—and to make some sense of it we need to take a dive into Beckham’s Orleans Parish grand jury testimony .

Beckham—in his mid-twenties at the time of his testimony—described himself as an entertainer, psychologist, criminologist and evangelist. So he was a pretty busy guy. The claim of being a psychologist, it appears, was a title Beckham bestowed upon himself using phony credentials. As for being an evangelist, Beckham received his ordination papers from a shifty character in Toronto named Earl Anglin James , a bishop in the Old Roman Catholic Church.

Garrison claimed that David Ferrie had placed calls to an unlisted number in Toronto supposedly belonging to the aforementioned Earl Anglin James. In a press interview from November 1967, James denied any association with Ferrie, and stated that the only call he had ever received from New Orleans was “in March 1965 and it was from Mr. J. S. Martin.  It was personal.”

In 1970, the Toronto P.D. came into possession of a stolen wallet belonging to James, and while going through its contents discovered a number of phony cards, including the sampling below, which included Louisiana law enforcement credentials. It’s my suspicion that Jack Martin was responsible for some of these fake cards. As Beckham noted in his grand jury testimony, he became a protégé of Martin’s because he wanted to acquire all of his “cards.”

As for Beckham’s criminology degree, that was a caper he and Crisman cooked up during the period they first met in late-1965, at which time our dynamic duo formed a number of dummy corporations that included the “Northwest Relief Society,” “Professional Research Bureau,” “Associated Ambulances,” and, most notably, the “National Institute of Criminology, Inc.” from which they advertised a “PHD” course costing several hundreds of dollars. The Seattle FBI Field Office determined that “the firm is very likely a confidence game aimed at those with very little educational background.” According to the Dean of Beckham research, Larry Hancock: “Crisman was involved in bunco activities with Beckham that included stolen car trafficking connected to a car lot in Miami…”

As for the entertainer bit, Beckham promoted himself as a singer going by the name of Mark Evans. During Crisman’s grand jury testimony, when asked about his first visit to New Orleans, he replied:

“I came here with a young man [in early 1966], Tom Beckham, he has a show name of Mark Evans. It was in the vain hope that we could promote a record he was getting ready to cut and I was unfortunate enough to believe that he could promote it here and I went ahead and financed the trip and it turned out to be nothing…”

According to researcher Mike Sylwester:

“While working for the radio station, Subject [Crisman] acquired some knowledge about how the music industry operated. He understood that if a singer managed to sell a certain number of records, then his records would get more air time, which increased the record sales, and this process snowballed. [Crisman] therefore got involved in a scheme to artificially purchase large amounts of records…” 00001

One of the more intriguing aspects of Beckham’s testimony was his purported association with Jack Martin dating back to 1960. According to Beckham, he idolized Martin, and for some inexplicable reason modeled his life after him, which was a totally crazy thing to do given the fact that Martin (real name Edward Stewart Suggs) was an alcoholic with a sordid criminal history and sociopathic tendencies. According to researcher, Dave Reitzes:

He was arrested in January 1945 in Fort Worth, Texas, for carrying a pistol; he was fingerprinted in Los Angeles in December 1945; he was arrested in December 1947 for disturbing the peace in San Diego and again in May 1949 in Dallas. He later would be investigated on numerous occasions for allegedly impersonating a doctor, an FBI agent, a CIA employee, a US Army colonel, and an ordained priest. Subsequent to his 1949 arrest, Suggs moved to Texas. In Houston, Suggs took up a new trade as practitioner of illegal abortions. In 1951, he fled the state when one of his unfortunate patients, one Helen Nichols, died shortly after undergoing an operation at the hands of “Dr. Suggs.” A state grand jury indicted Suggs for murder in June of that year. Suggs was arrested in Los Angeles on May 2, 1953, as a fugitive from Texas, but he managed to get the murder charge dismissed. He would later describe his philosophy of life as, “The strong take from the weak and the smart take from the strong,” and he “considers himself one of the smart.” He related the details of the “‘murder rap’ he was involved in” and bragged that he “outsmarts everyone.” In March 1954, Suggs was fingerprinted in Galveston, Texas, for vagrancy and a drunk-and-disorderly charge. Soon after this, he moved to New Orleans and adopted the name, John Stewart Martin, Sr. He had difficulty holding a job and was largely supported by his wife, Paula. Concerned about his erratic behavior and excessive drinking, Mrs. Martin eventually insisted that her husband enter an alcohol treatment program in the Psychiatric Department of Charity Hospital. In January 1957, Martin caused a disturbance in a New Orleans store and told store authorities he was an FBI agent. The FBI “instituted inquiries in this matter… and determined that he [Martin] was in a psychiatric ward [at] Charity Hospital, New Orleans as of January 17, 1957. His psychiatrist informed our agents that Suggs was suffering from a character disorder…” 00002

Beckham followed his mentor’s lead by getting into a number of scrapes himself. In February of 1961—during Army basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in the Missouri Ozarks—Beckham went AWOL, and in short order found himself in the stockade. As is typical in such cases, the Army figured it best just to let him go. Beckham resurfaced later that year in New Orleans where he was arrested for vagrancy.

In 1962, Beckham was running a scam called the “United Cuban Relief Missionary Force” that was subsequently dismantled by the FBI. As part of this con, Beckham sported a clerical collar, pretending to be a Catholic priest, while soliciting donations that he apparently pocketed. That same year he was charged with the rape of a minor, and a second vagrancy charge. Some priest.

Although Beckham repeatedly named-dropped Jack Martin as a close associate and mentor in his House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) testimony, there’s no other evidence I’ve seen to confirm that the two men had actually known one another. I recently posed this question to researcher Larry Hancock, and this was his response:

“I found indications that Beckham was known to some of the street guys who served as sources and runners for Guy Bannister and there is ample reason to think Beckham knew of Bannister and his office – Beckham was a street guy and was charged with a couple of minor robberies along with the underage wife thing before he got his DJ job with the radio station. No sign that he ever knew Jack Martin though.” 00003

Like his supposed mentor Martin, Beckham had a history of psychological instability, and was in and out of loony bins during 1962 and 1963, and then later a return visit in 1974. In the latter part of the ‘60s, Beckham shifted his base of operations to Omaha, Nebraska, and spent part of his time traveling around the country preaching the good word, as documented in this letter to our very own Rev. Ray Broshears!

When quizzed by Garrison’s investigators about Rev. Broshears, Beckham gave one of his typically inscrutable answers:

At some point, Garrison got a bee in his bonnet that Beckham was a CIA assassin—but of course Garrison was convinced that everybody and his mother were CIA agents at one time or another, so make of that what you will.

When Beckham was pressed by Garrison about whether he had moonlighted with the CIA—or had known Clay Shaw or David Ferrie—Beckham steadfastly denied these allegations. However, a decade later—during testimony before the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations —Beckham was now singing a completely different tune, claiming he’d indeed been recruited as a would-be CIA assassin by none other than Fred Crisman. Around the time of his HSCA testimony, Beckham was shopping around a “300-page manuscript about the assassination,” so this may have been a ploy to wrangle a book deal. Beckham seemed to be one of those guys always on the make.

In 2005, Joan Mellen jumped the Thomas Beckham shark with A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case that Should Have Changed History . The ironically titled Farewell to Justice includes a number of Beckham-related revelations that read like JFK assassination fan fiction, including claims that Fred Crisman and Jack Martin had been Beckham’s CIA handlers, all part of some dastardly plot to groom “Tommy” (as Mellen endearingly refers to him) as an alternate patsy (ala Oswald) in a conspiracy featuring the usual Garrison suspects. Mellen’s source for the Beckham material was none other than Beckham himself, who had somehow snookered his way back into the JFK assassination fray during the 2000s, at the same time he was peddling his self published Remnants of Truth: Revealing Evidence on the Jim Garrison Investigation under the moniker of T.E. Beck’am. This alternate spelling of his name seemed associated with Beckham’s claim he’d became a full-fledged rabbi during this period. In 2003, Rabbi T.E. Beckham founded “The Spanish-American Rescue League Inc,” an LLC that received what’s known as a “Standing B” status from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). (Standing B basically means “bad”). This wasn’t Beckham’s first run-in with the BBB, as they’d been busting his chops as far back as 1967. But you can’t keep a good con down.

The key piece evidence Mellen presented in her book was a letter Fred Crisman allegedly “bestowed upon Thomas Edward Beckham…a government document meant never to be seen…The letterhead is not that of the CIA, but ‘United States Army Air Defense Command’ suggesting that many elements of President Eisenhower’s ‘military industrial complex’ contributed to a collaborative effort to murder John F. Kennedy, an effort in which the CIA stood in the front line…a number connoting his military service name is on this document, along with his correct social security number….The document describes Thomas Edward Beckham’s ‘intelligence service from October 27, 1963,’ under ‘Gov Control Fact Finding Missions.’ 00004 According to this letter, Beckham was “taught how to be an assassin” in 1963 at Camp Peary, a “CIA training installation…also known as The Farm.”

In my recent email exchange with Larry Hancock, I asked if he had any knowledge of this letter, and this was Larry’s reply:

“Crisman was a proven forger, with a tendency to steal blank stationary from various agencies and departments to use for his work. I advised Joan [Mellen] of that as well as gave her several warnings about Beckham but I’m afraid she decided to trust him as a sincere source…I have no doubt the letter you reference is a Crisman forgery. The ‘United States Army Air Defense Command’ did exist from ‘57 to ‘74 and its primary responsibility was NIKE anti-aircraft missile bases. Crisman may have swiped stationary from them, there were sites in Seattle and at Hanford. It goes without saying that no agency would ever put what was in that letter in print…”

“United States Army Air Defense Command” sounds strikingly similar to an outfit called “Defense Industrial Security Command” that never actually existed, and is cited in a curious tome entitled Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal (1970).

Also known as the Torbitt Document , it was authored by the pseudonymous William Torbitt, and claimed that:

“The chain of evidence connecting Albert Osborne, Fred Lee Chrismon[sic], alias John M. Bowen, Permindex, and his co-workers became iron clad when a Black Star photographer snapped a picture a few minutes after the assassination of Chrismon, alias Bowen, and two of his charges in the process of being arrested by two young Dallas police officers at Dealey Plaza. Fritz later released all three. The Chrismon, alias Bowen, arrest picture received limited public distribution in 1969 when it was published in the Midlothian Mirror by Penn Jones, the Texas editor. Co-Director of the Mexico based assassins, John H. Bowen, alias Fred Lee Chrismon, alias Free Lee, alias Jon Gould, alias Jon Gold, and Thomas Beckam [sic], front, and another assassin in the process of being arrested at Dealey Plaza immediately after the assassination.”

One curiosity that jumps out of the above text was the misspelling of the names of both Beckham and Crisman, which seemed intentional and perhaps a way to avoid a potential libel suit.

The smoking gun that some point to as proof of Beckham’s role in the JFK assassination is a photo of Beckham, Oswald and others in front of the New Orleans Trade Mart. According to Larry Hancock, the New Orleans Trade Mart photo “…shows Beckham chatting with his underage wife and some of her friends – they are off to the side of a photo showing Oswald on the same street passing out leaflets. Beckham appears to be paying no attention to Oswald at all…his attention is totally focused on the young women.”

In the mid-2000s, researchers started digging into Beckham’s recent activities and discovered a Kentucky LLC called the Life Management Clinic .

Although this link no longer lists Beckham’s bio, back in 2006 the Life Management Clinic website provided the following info:

r. Thomas Edward Beckham Clinical Director Dr. Beckham has a degree in Osteopathic Medicine and is educated in both non-allopathic and allopathic medicine, as well as multiple mental health disciplines. He is an internationally known author and speaker…His professional certifications and memberships include the National Association of Forensic Counselors, International Association of Counselors and Therapists, American Medical Directors Association, American Institute of Clinical Psychotherapists, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and International Association of Pastoral Psychologists. Dr. Beckham serves as our Clinical Director making him responsible for all staff, oversight, budgeting and general actions of Life Management Inc. His experience in this role is without parallel.

Beckham continued creating sketchy LLC’s in the years to come. In 2008, he launched a corporation called “World Congress For Justice and Human Rights, Inc.”

In 2012, an individual I assume to be our very own Dr. Beckham rolled out another sketchy enterprise called “The American Institute of Clinical Psychotherapists, Inc.” Beckham’s apparent partner in this operation was an evangelical minister named Josiah Drawhorn .

If that wasn’t enough, I was surprised to find a Youtube video of “Rabbi Dr. Beckham” preaching before a congregation in 2011. Admittedly, I only lasted a couple of minutes with this video, so if you want to torture yourself further go here .

The video is linked to a website no longer active called http://www.shalomrabbi.net/ which I’m guessing was registered our beloved Dr. Rabbi Beckham. However, if you’re jonesin’ for more Dr. Beckham goodness, I discovered he has a blog which appears to be active! On it, Dr. Rabbi dispenses pearls of wisdom he probably copy and pasted from other sources.

Jim Garrison’s “Odd Sects” was further fleshed out by author Peter Levenda with his “Wandering Bishops” theory concerning a network of consecrated con men engaged in political witchcraft. According to Levenda, this lineage of Wandering Bishops started with a schism in Catholicism at the end of the 19th century that resulted in the emergence of the Old Roman Catholic Church, which also appears to have spun-off from the Russian Orthodox Church. This, in turn, gave rise to a smattering of splinter sects which produced “a weird world of monks, priests, and bishops” that crept clandestinely about the country, concealed in the cloak of religion.

This supposed band of Wandering Bishops included the usual “Odd Sects” suspects: Beckham, Crisman, Martin and Ferrie, not to mention our very own Rev. Ray Broshears who got lumped into Levenda’s mix of religious nuts, no doubt due to his association with the Garrison investigation. It’s Levenda’s contention that these Wandering Bishops basically used their religious organizations as fronts for intelligence operations to promote fascist agendas that included the assassinations of U.S. political figures.

Levenda’s entrée into the weird world of Wandering Bishops began in the late ‘60s when he was a “familiar face for about a year at the headquarters of the Old Roman Catholic Church in Brooklyn, New York…as well as the American Orthodox Catholic Church headquarters in the Bronx.“ These activities involved trying to pass himself off as a priest to avoid getting shipped off to Vietnam. It was through the American Orthodox Catholic Church that Levenda became acquainted with Archbishop Walter Myron Propheta, who he has described as a right wing wacko somehow involved in the JFK assassination. While I doubt Propheta had any real connection to JFK’s assassination, he did indeed make his way into Garrison’s Odd Sects files.

I suspect Propheta’s letter was something Levenda discovered among a trove of Garrison investigation documents that were released in the early 1990s, and from it he wove together his “Wandering Bishops” storyline, which like a lot of Levenda’s material is highly entertaining while at the same time connects dots in a, shall we say, somewhat speculative fashion. Whatever the case, the connecting link—Odd Sects to Wandering Bishops—seems to be Jack Martin, who is named in Propheta’s letter. Martin, in my estimation, was probably the guiding light behind a lot of the Odd Sects conspiracies that bedeviled Garrison’s brain.

In Dead Names , Levenda—using the “Simon” pseudonym—claims that it was through his association with certain Wandering Bishops that he came upon a copy of the original Necronomicon, a grimoire featured in the tales of H.P. Lovecraft that was supposedly written in Damascus in the 8th century A.D. by the “Mad Arab,” Abdul Alhazred.

The Necronomicon was supposedly reprinted in a number of languages including Latin, Greek and English, and then at some point was lost to the ages, mainly because everyone who messed around with the cursed thing ended up dying in a mysterious and/or gruesome manner. Long story short, Simon aka Levenda claimed he came into possession of the only existing copy of The Necronomicon in the late-1960s, then afterwards translated it from Greek so your average Joe on the street could summon their very own Cthulhu! This translated version of The Necronomicon —mass marketed as non-fiction in 1977—is considered one of the great literary hoaxes of our times.

Curiously enough, the Cthulhu Mythos was featured in Wilson and Sheas’ Illuminatus! where it was interwoven with a kitchen sink of conspiracies that revolved around the Bavarian Illuminati, ritual magick, and nazi occultism—central themes Levenda later explored in Unholy Alliance and Sinister Forces .

This leads your humble author to conclude that The Necronomicon was deeply influenced by Illuminatus!

Levenda has been steadfast, over the years, in his denial that he was/is Simon, although The Necronomicon is registered at the U.S. Copyright Office with “Simon” listed as Levenda’s pseudonym. The one thing Levenda has been consistent about is his evasiveness in this matter, as he’s continued to try to distance himself (to the point of absurdity) from the persona of “Simon.”

More recently, Levenda has been involved with Tom Delonge’s To The Stars Academy , a group dedicated to UFO Disclosure, which segues nicely into what will be our next startling installment of this series: The Raymond Broshears Files Part 00003: Flying Saucer Attack!

Click this to read The Raymond Broshears Files Part 00001: Welcome to the Garrison Investigation Funhouse !

  Notes

00001 Crisman-Beckham Archives (JFK Lancer)

00002 http://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100whomar.html

00003 Oct 12, 2018 email correspondence with Larry Hancock

00004 Mellan, Joan. 2007. A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK’s Assassination, and the Case that Should Have Changed History . (pgs 371-372)

2 replies on “The Raymond Broshears Files Part 00002: Odd Sects and Wandering Bishops”

Are you positive that the Defense Industrial Security Command never existed?

I’ve heard otherwise from several individuals who claimed to have secured independent corroboration of this agency. I have been under the impression that it still exists as the Defense Security Service.

Bob Harris:

“When I mentioned it once in passing to a close friend who works pushing papers for a defense contractor and has a pretty high clearance, he casually said, “oh, you mean Disco.” Disco? “Yeah, Disco, those are the people who keep all the files on anyone with a security clearance.” (The “o” stands for “organization.”)”

“My friend thought that everyone knew what Disco was. Probably everyone he works with does. If he’s right, certainly anyone who processed clearances would, and that would be thousands of people. I’ve since asked two other folks I know who have clearances; one confirmed, one claimed (truthfully, I think) ignorance.”

“The address given in the Torbitt Document (1064 W. Broad St. in Columbus, Ohio, if memory serves), could have been correct at the time, but I was there once and it’s still a federal building, except I seem to recall it was a GSA storage facility or something like that. I suppose it could have some secret offices, but that sounds a little too James Bondian for my tastes. My friend thinks it’s now in Alabama, possibly at the big Huntsville NASA facility. He also seems to think Disco was always a NASA thing.”

http://www.umsl.edu/~thomaskp/harhal.htm

Robert Charles-Dunne:

“Yes, DISC was a real organization, charged with maintaining security among, and vetting, the employees working for US military defense contractors. [The name was changed to DISCO at some point, though I’ve not been able to determine the date. I came across the new name in a US Senate report, issued in the early 1970s, on money-laundering, so the name change predates that.]”

“If the unit’s history is hard to trace, the reason may be attributable to the covert nature of its role. Literally millions of US employees work at highly sensitive military defense jobs, and it was the purview of DISC/O to ensure that prospective security threats never made it into those positions. This involved in-house spying on employees without their knowledge. A favoured ruse was to drop a leftist ne’erdowell into a sensitive workplace, and see who among the employees fraternized with him, playing on guilt by association. It has been suggested that arranging for defector LHO to work at JCS in Dallas may have exemplified a DISC operative in action.”

“According to an old article I have from Counterspy mag, there are indications that DISC may have played a role in the MLK assassination as well. Cannot recall the pertinent details off the top of my head, but there was allegedly a DISC office in Memphis that arguably facilitated either the hit, or the getaway.”

“DISC/O is/was situated in a very interesting nexus. As an adjunct to the Defense Intelligence Agency, it had access to the Pentagon’s intelligence resources, but by maintaining a necessary reciprocal relationship with the FBI’s Division V, it traded in civilian political intelligence as well. Via either of these conduits, DISC/O would also have had access to virtually any police force in the country, and its files. In short, a powerful and entirely clandestine investigative agency.”

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/5301-william-torbitt-nomenclature-of-an-assassination-cabal/?tab=comments#comment-43762

Regarding the whole ‘schism in Catholicism’ matter it is worth noting that the basis for dissent against the church at that time was based on both conservative ideology and sexual preference. The social milieu in Louisiana was both Catholic by French heritage and Evangelical Protestant by being in the South in the early 1960s’. In April 1962, the process of desegregation was occurring in Louisiana. Picketing immediately began: April 4, one of Jim Garrison’s ‘old flames’ Evelyn Jahncke picketed US District Judge J. Skelly Wright’s residence who had ended segregation in the elementary schools. April 23, 24, Guy Banister’s secretary Delphine Roberts began picketing the home of Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel’s home who had begun integration in his parish and expressed his intentions of integrating the Catholic schools in the fall. She again picketed St Stephens Roman Catholic Church on the 29th and solicited donations to build a church for ‘excommunicated Catholics and segregationists.’ April 27th, she and an associate were photographed picketing city hall in New Orleans prior to President Kennedy’s appearance there the following week.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

web analytics

The Imaginative Conservative Logo

The Wandering Bishop

IMAG3764--640x360

Ralph Napierski (2nd on r) posed as a bishop at the Vatican

Mother church is often more like a grandma, and one of my pastimes is rummaging around in her attic.

I enjoy investigating religious oddities and curiosities. I’ll pay the admission price to see the ecclesiastical equivalent of Ripley ’ s Believe it or Not . I’ll go out of my way to see the incorrupt body of a saint, peer at a Eucharistic miracle, or poke a dubious relic. I like to hear about levitating saints, the stigmata, weeping Madonnas and pancakes that bear the image of Mother Teresa.

One area of eccentricity that never ceases to interest and delight are the “episcopi vagantes” or wandering bishops. These schismatics are often quaintly bizarre. On the fringes of lunacy, they set themselves up as bishops, archbishops, popes, patriarchs, eparchs, and abbots.

The first wandering bishop I met was the late Right Rev. James Parker Dees. A former Episcopal priest, Dees established the Anglican Orthodox Church which had a parish in Greenville, South Carolina. We students at Bob Jones University were allowed to attend Evensong there on Sunday nights.

Bishop James Dees

Bishop James Dees

Bishop Dees was like a character out of Tennessee Williams play. An ecclesiastical Big Daddy, Dees drove a lumbering Lincoln Continental and collected wealthy Southern Episcopal ladies who were disenchanted with the liberal drift of the Episcopal Church. On his visits to the little church he would try to recruit starry-eyed young men like me to attend his seminary in North Carolina. For a fee.

The Anglicans are especially prone to schism and have accumulated a full basket of alternative churches and wandering bishops. For those who are interested in a pleasant afternoon rummaging through grandma church’s attic, they might like to go to this website which lists about eighty Anglican breakaway churches with their wandering bishops. Some are ultra conservative. Some are ultra liberal. All are ultra unusual.

Wandering bishops not only come complete with their copes, miters, croziers, gloves, rings, cathedrals, and calling cards (usually printed in Gothic typeface) but they also establish an alternative hierarchy and a statement of faith, and always publish the record of their episcopal authority. They are very insistent on showing how their orders are descended from the apostles and are as proud of their pedigree as the owner of a prize poodle.

In addition to all the clobber and clothes, the wandering bishops usually have their own cathedral in a room over their garage. They also have their version of church history which proves that their small church is the authentic one. They take pride in being the remnant, one of the “few the faithful few.” “Many are called and few are chosen” don’t you know, and “narrow is the gate and few there be who find it….”

glastonbury-abbey-wide-view-2

So Blake wrote,

“And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

As I walked up the main street, I was pleased to see a Christian bookshop and discovered that it was Eastern Orthodox. The fellow at the desk had the obligatory black robe, stovepipe hat, long beard and holy expression. I asked him what branch of Orthodoxy he belonged to.

He replied in a solemn English accent, ‘The Celtic Orthodox Church.’

I’d never heard of such an outfit, but happy to acknowledge my ignorance of the complexities of Eastern Orthodoxy, I asked him where his patriarch was based.

He gazed on me with a lugubrious expression, stroked his beard and said, ‘Alas, we have not had a patriarch for thousands of years.’

And so I was introduced to the alternative reality of Celtic Orthodoxy. The basic idea is that the church in Britain was founded by Coptic Christians from Egypt before the turn of the first century. This ancient Celtic Church existed in sublime isolation from the Roman Church for six hundred years before St Augustine was sent by Pope St. Gregory the Great to evangelize the Anglo Saxons in 597 AD.

This website will outline the supposed links between Ireland and Egypt. You can learn all about the Holy Celtic Church and her venerable history here . The most important aspects of ‘Celtic Orthodoxy’ seem to be its British-ness, its antiquity, and its historic independence of Rome. As the Holy Celtic Church’s website claims “Because of its autonomy and geographical isolation, the Celtic Church remained uniquely uncorrupted by Hellenistic Greek philosophy or Roman jurisprudence.”

Pope Michael (David Bawden)

“Pope Michael” (David Bawden)

It seems harsh to refer to the Catholic schismatic bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (the Lefebvrists) as episcopi vagantes but many would deem them so. If we’re looking for Catholic wandering bishops we can do no better than Pope Michael , a resident of Kansas who was elected Pope in 1990 by six lay people. A collection of contemporary anti-popes can be viewed here . They include other American Popes: Earl Pulvermacher, known as Pope Pius XIII, Chester Olszewski of Pennsylvania—Pope Peter II—and Francis Konrad Schuckardt of Spokane, Washington, who declared himself Hadrian VII in 1984.

Not to be outdone by the traditionalists, Catholic progressives also have their set of schisms and wandering bishops. In addition to the Roman Catholic Women Priests and the Women’s Ordination Conference, there is the Worldwide Ecumenical Catholic Church of Christ with Archbishop Karl Rodig and the Ecumenical Catholic Church not forgetting the Ecumenical Catholic Communion . In a quick search I discovered nearly twenty “independent” Catholic Churches.

The two strangest things about the phenomenon of the wandering bishops is not their grandiose titles, their ornate robes, or their pro-cathedrals in their Aunt Pat’s basement, but firstly their utter conviction that they and their faithful band of pilgrims are the true church, and secondly, that they want to be bishops at all, for the bishop is a living sign of communion with the apostles and the successor of Peter.

Being a renegade bishop is therefore not only a contradiction in terms, it’s as ridiculously bogus as a cowboy at a dude ranch.

The Imaginative Conservative  applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider  donating now .

All comments are moderated and must be civil, concise, and constructive to the conversation. Comments that are critical of an essay may be approved, but comments containing ad hominem criticism of the author will not be published. Also, comments containing web links or block quotations are unlikely to be approved. Keep in mind that essays represent the opinions of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Imaginative Conservative or its editor or publisher.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

About the author: dwight longenecker.

wandering bishops

Related Posts

Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Laughter, & Lent

Jane Austen, C.S. Lewis, Laughter, & Lent

A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

Depicting the Whole Christ: Von Balthasar & Sacred Architecture

Depicting the Whole Christ: Von Balthasar & Sacred Architecture

Christopher Dawson’s “Beyond Politics”

Christopher Dawson’s “Beyond Politics”

Lent, Laughter, and the Joyful Soul

Lent, Laughter, and the Joyful Soul

' src=

Yes, plenty of delightful crackpots in England. Remember the ‘Catholic priest’ who went on Antiques Roadshow and discovered he had a Van Dyck painting? Well, he’s actually in The Old Catholic Church of Great Britain, who have three bishops and an archbishop! They’re in communion with the Anglicans, but not with the Catholic Church – something about the diocese of Utrecht in Low Countries being granted compete autonomy from Rome…by Bl. Eugene III in the 12th Century. All good, nonsensical fun!

' src=

Here is Brighton we are fortunate enough to have His Excellency, Jerome Lloyd, the Major Metropolitan Archbishop of Western Europe. He is from something called the Old Roman Catholic Church. He does like dressing up. He can often be seen strolling around Brighton in a cassock.

Along with his exalted, episcopal position, he also runs a gay pub in town. He live streams what he believes to be Mass from a little chapel in the cellar every day.

What is particularly dangerous is that he tries to carry himself like a Catholic priest. On Ash Wednesday last year he vested and distributed ashes outside the local shopping centre (Mall for Americans)

Of these wandering bishops, surely the most bizarre is Ralph Napierski.

He famously tried to sneak into St. Peters in 2013.

He does a very dodgy line in fake relics of the True Cross which are sold on EBAY.

If he wasn’t so dangerous, he would be comical. He manages to pose for pictures with various prelates to pass himself off as legitimate.

' src=

In my small Arizona town, we have the Liberal Catholic Church headed by Mother Sally under Bishop Michael Burke. They trace their lineage through the Old Catholics. They very much live up to their name. I find it interesting that the Old Catholics, who broke off from the Church over papal infallibility, have in many cases gone in a very progressive direction. Another interesting thing about this church is that while they are very progressive, their liturgical style is more in the traditionalist vein as evidenced by an ad orientem altar setup.

' src=

These are not only stupid and dangerous people but: they are also so vain.

Leave A Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

ECCLESIA GNOSTICA CATHOLICA Stranded Bishops Ordo Templi Orientis

By peter-r. koenig, creed of the eglise gnostique universelle at lyon, 1908, creed of the église gnostique de france, paris 1913, theodor reuss: our fundamental tenets, 1913, creed of reuss and crowley's gnostic catholic church, creed of arnoldo krumm-heller's gnostic mass, fraternitas saturni: juste cruci suffixus est, o.t.o. and e.g.c.: for a pretence, make long prayers [1], o.t.o. gnostics and templars, one o.t.o. mass no church doth make, e.c.h. peithmann and o.t.o. ernst tristan kurtzahn.

True Orthodoxy

Orthodox theology, a statement of the rocor bishops concerning the moscow patriarchate ..

ENGLISH TRANSLATION: 18 February/2 March 2000

A Statement of the ROCOR Bishops Concerning the Moscow Patriarchate.

The leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate has now officially declared that it looks upon the property of the Russian Church Abroad as its own, for only it, and no other, is the “sole legal heir to the property of the pre- Revolutionary Church,” which, consequently, “is being held by the schismatics abroad -illegally,” and that such a decision “is accepted by the Orthodox believing people of Russia with joy and profound gratitude.”

This statement compels us, the hierarchs abroad, to address the Russian Orthodox people directly. It is essential that we clarify the essential question which has emerged over the last decade-the question of succession with regard to the Russian Orthodox Church and historical Russia.

I. On the eve of the fall of the Communist regime it seemed possible that the previous cause of the ecclesiastical division-the atheistic government-was already falling away, and that the rest of our problems would be resolved in a fraternal dialogue. The Council of Bishops repeatedly referred to this idea in its epistles, and in actual fact strove to open paths to this fellowship. In this, however, great difficulties were encountered, and later-as far as we are able to judge, due to the active interference of the authorities in Russia early in 1997-our attempts at clarification were broken off (the seizure of the monastery in Hebron). Difficulties manifested themselves, firstly, in a totally different attitude toward questions essential to the Church, and our differences in this regard have not been resolved to the present day. A) The question of the sainthood of the new martyrs and the Tsar-Martyr, the anointed of God, who were slain by the atheistic authorities. From our point of view, they fulfilled the principal mission of the Church of Russia in the 20th century.

B) The policy of collaboration with the atheistic authorities begun by Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) against that part of the Church “disloyal” to the Communist overlords, which brought about the destruction of the former. From our point of view, to defend this policy is to demean the struggle of the New Martyrs.

C) The ecumenical activity of the Orthodox in the World Council of Churches. From our point of view, this crosses the boundaries set by the holy canons and the Tradition of the holy fathers, infringing upon the very truth of Orthodoxy.

D) Relations toward the post-Communist leadership of the Russian Federation. From our point of view, they are introducing a non-Christian policy designed to break down the Russian people and destroy Russia. And this false spirit is in nowise offset by the gilding of domes and the restoration of church buildings in which these very leaders are praised Attempts at “dialogue” on these differences on various levels did not lead to the hoped- for results. We acknowledge that in this certain of our representatives are partly to blame, for in their haste to make the Truth clear they insufficiently understood the complex conditions of the turmoil in Russia. In the tumultuous sea of the last decade in Russia it was incredibly difficult to make our Russian brethren hear the Truth of the Russian Church by which we live-in unbroken succession and without the intrusion of malicious powers into our ecclesiastical life. We were mistaken in our response to the situation in Russia and in our search for reliable allies, being somewhat lacking in patience and love for those opposed to us-which soon even became viewed as arrogance in the eyes of the Russian people. Yet what we wished for was something quite different.

II. Over all the preceding decades, we had preserved spiritual fellowship with those who did not submit to militant atheism, preserving Orthodoxy; and our hearts were open to them, in whatever part of the Church of Russia they were to he found. This fellowship was in part also in accordance with the canons of the Church, so that when times of greater liberty came, these ties, this presence in Russia, were also revealed. This happened because there was preserved, and continued secretly to live, that part of the Church of Russia which did not .accept the “Declaration of Loyalty” (1927) imposed by the militant atheists, wherewith Metropolitan Sergius tried to bind both the conscience of all Orthodox people in Russia as well as our conscience (demanding that each clergyman abroad personally sign an oath of “loyalty to the Soviet authorities”).

As the years passed, the word “schism” began to be applied to us and others who were viewed as “disloyal”; this term continues to distort the eccelesial crux of the question to this day. We have never accepted this term, and we do not wish to apply it to others. This question is extremely painful, and must, from our point of view, be resolved in some other way.

As early as 1923, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad resolved: “Having as our immediate objective the nurturing of the Russian Orthodox flock abroad, the Council of Bishops, the Synod, the hierarchs and priests, within the limitations of their powers, must show all possible cooperation in meeting various spiritual needs when asked to do so by the ecclesiastical organizations which remain in Russia or by individual Christians.” In particular, it was stipulated: “Representatives of the dioceses located outside the boundaries of Russia, acting together, express the voice of the free Russian Church abroad; but no individual person, nor even the Council of the bishops of these dioceses, represents itself as an

authority which has the rights which the whole Church of Russia possesses in all its fullness, in the person of its lawful hierarchy.”

The concept of the whole Church of Russia and a lawful hierarchy, according to canon law, does not exclude the diaspora, but naturally embraces the totality of the Church of Russia in the light of the Pan-Russia Council of i917-1918. It is impossible to restore this integrity by a process of rejection and exclusion which have their origin with the militant atheists, who tried to set the Orthodox people against one another, and for this purpose concocted the “Living Church” and other obstacles. We consider that the interpretation of historical and ecclesiastical judgment must be a joint task over which the Russian people-all of us-must labor with great patience, first of all with love for the Truth. Otherwise, there is the danger that we will fall to disentangle ourselves from the snares, or may fall into them again.

We reject the word “schism,” not only as one which distorts the crux of the problem, but also, as a lie against the whole Church of Russia concocted by the enemies of Christ during the most terrible period of persecutions. We have never accepted this lie concerning the Church just as we have not accepted the lie concerning the Church contained in the “Declaration,” in which, to please the regime of that time, patristic doctrine and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures were trampled underfoot. For this reason, our fathers declared in 1927: “The portion of the Church of Russia abroad considers itself an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the great Church of Russia. It does not separate itself from its Mother Church, and does not consider itself autocephalous. As before, it considers its head to be the patriarchal locum tenens Metropolitan Peter of Krutitsa, and commemorates him [as such] during the divine services.” At that time, we discovered that the lawful first hierarch of the Church of Russia had rebuked his deputy, Metropolitan Sergius, from exile, for “exceeding his authority”, and commanded him to “return” to the correct ecclesiastical path; but he was not obeyed. In fact, even while Metropolitan Peter was alive, Metropolitan Sergius usurped, first his diocese (which, according to the canons, is strictly forbidden), and later his very position as locum tenens. These actions constituted not only a personal catastrophe, but also a universal catastrophe for our Church.

We never left the Church, even though there have been those who began to separate and drive us out with the word “schism” from those most terrible of days even to the present-failing to grasp the main point, and still not being aware of it. It is impossible to resolve contemporary ecclesiastical questions by simply usurping the title “sole lawful ecclesiastical leadership,” trampling the tragic truth of the Church in Russia underfoot. Our readiness, even over the last decades, to help the believing people in Russia (as far as our weak powers permitted) in various ways (literature, bearing witness concerning the persecution of the Church, protests) has not changed. It has led to our receiving believers under our omophorion, and, for

various reasons, a small number of clergymen in addition to those who already had had a secret existence for some time. In addition to the above- mentioned reasons, others were added which entailed at the time intolerable violations of the canons of the Church, and these were still uncorrected in 1989-1991. Then a tempest arose over the “opening” of parishes of the Church Abroad in Russia. We did not try actively to open parishes and foist ourselves on them from abroad, but merely “accepted” those Russian people who had learned more about the history of the Church and its life and yearned for ecclesial communion with us, despite the barriers of a propaganda inherited from past times. This little portion, for which our shortcomings did not overshadow the Truth and which, for this reason, decided to unite themselves in Russia to our prayers, has been subjected to persecutions, while our Church is slandered in all the official church publications.

Yet the same leadership: of the Moscow Patriarchate, which on the new stage of gradual liberation has exacerbated the situation by its own interpretation of events and has so bitterly fought against the “parallel structure,” has itself, since the end of World War II, continuing to carry out the demands of the authorities then in power, created its own structures where its was only possible in the diaspora, and in Israel, in 1948, totally drove away our monastics when establishing itself. At that time this was, for us, although grievous, at least understandable-we saw the Church’s lack of freedom and the enslavement of officially sanctioned ecclesiastical structures in Russia, which were fettered by the authorities and chained to the authorities.

These latter years have witnessed a new wave of forcible seizures by the Moscow Patriarchate of churches and monasteries from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in various countries, or attempts to seize them- with the help of the secular authorities (foreign and Russian), wherever such is possible-in Italy, Israel, Germany, Denmark, Canada. Now it is finally confirmed, even by the mouth of the primate of the Moscow Patriarchate, Alexis II, and representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Affairs, that they have no desire for unification with us on the proposed position of Truth. They prefer to resolve the indicated points of disagreement and the question of the history of the Church of Russia simply by eliminating the Church Abroad, by crushing it. In other words, the present leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate prefers to continue the policies of Metropolitan Sergius–only in a new form, at a new level.

III. Thus, when we pose the question of succession, we have in mind not only property title to the churches abroad. Regarding this question, it is well known that the Soviet regime refused them, as it did “ecclesial obscurantism” in general, when in the 1930’s it announced its “five-year plan for atheism.” It is precisely the Russian emigration which was able to save these churches from confiscation by foreign states and from destruction, carefully restoring them with its own means as Russia Abroad, which is open with all its heart both

to the Russian past (tsarist Russia) and a Russia of the future. Therefore, this is in actuality our joint heritage-the heritage of the whole Russian people, and without fail it will be such as a result of the restoration of the one Church of Russia, which stands in the Truth. However, to our distress, the past decade has shown that the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate are avoiding true union, are not ready for it, for this would mean that they would have to give an honest account to the people and listen to its voice. This is also the reason why they are violently seizing churches which have not been preserved by their efforts, taking no account of the outlay of expenses, even though in Russia itself thousands of desolate churches need to be saved.

It is obvious that the principal objective of this is the smothering of our Church, and not they nurturing of the flock abroad, for here they do not in the least fear the terrible scandalizing of that flock. Who among the emigrants will enter those churches which have been wrested away by violence and wickedness? One cannot fail to see that they are attempting to eliminate us as a vexing and incorruptible witness to the loth century history of Russia. The main succession which we preserve and which our “opponents” in the Moscow Patriarchate are trying to uproot in our person, is historical and spiritual. After the militantly atheist Revolution, it was our Russian Church Abroad which became the linchpin of that small portion of the Russian nation which did not recognize the Revolution and chose as its path the preservation of loyalty to our Orthodox state. This stubborn stand for the Truth, despite its apparent “unreality,” pressure from the Bolsheviks, from pro-Soviet hierarchs, and the surrounding democratic world, was realized among us as a “struggle for Russianism in the midst of universal apostasy”-in the hope that for this God would have mercy on Russia and give our people a last chance to restore its historic aspect. This was the primary purpose of the Russian diaspora. It is for this that we have been praying in our churches for eighty years: “For the suffering land of Russia” and “That He may deliver its people from the bitter tyranny of the atheist authorities. “This refers also to the post-Communist regime of the Russian Federation, which considers itself the successor not so much of historical Russia (this is declared only rarely, and in words only) as the successor of the Bolshevik regime. The entire legal system of the Russian Federation is founded on the Soviet legal system, and not on the pre- Revolutionary laws.* The present democratically elected officials in Russia have preserved the majority of Bolshevism’s atheistic symbols (the five- pointed star, etc..), monuments, street and city names, ignoring the people’s original intent: that the Communist heritage be overturned, that the national tragedy of Russia in the loth century be reassessed, that there be repentance. At the same time, a new, anti-Christian ideology has taken root in the Russian land. And so as to weaken the people’s opposition to this, there is being waged an intentional, conscious, calculated demoralization of the people themselves by cutting them off from their true, historic and spiritual roots. And all of this is going on with the permission, consent and even blessing of the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate which, in

order to preserve its own power structures, is prepared to collaborate with any regime whatever, and to participate actively in ecumenism, not only with non-Orthodox Christians, but even with non-Christian political powers. “By our joint efforts we will build a new, democratic society,” declared the head of the Moscow Patriarchate, Alexis II, in 1991, in an address made to rabbis in New York, where he preached peace for all “in an atmosphere of friendship, creative cooperation and the brotherhood of the children of the One God, the Father of all, the God of your fathers and ours.” How a similar irenic activity answers to our fate is evident in the fact that not long ago, while in Israel for the feast of the Nativity of Christ, the primate of the Moscow Patriarchate performed three morally incompatible activities: he prayed to the God we have in common, Christ the incarnate Son of God, then reached an agreement with the Moslems concerning the seizure of one of our monasteries, and finally praised the destroyer Yeltsin for “laboring for the good of Russia” and for his “efforts in restoring the morality of our people.”

IV. We are convinced that the intensifying persecution against the Russian Church Abroad throughout the world is one of the steps being taken toward the establishment of a new world order. Furthermore, peoples deprived of them own spiritual and cultural originality, and Christian principles are being perverted and undermined. Anti-Christian powers are achieving their objectives by employing various methods, among which is the inciting of certain nations and confessions against others, and often of a certain part of a nation against another, always encouraging within the local Orthodox Churches those groups which are deemed useful at a given moment, and denigrating those who oppose them. Is this not what is taking place right now in the midst of Russian Orthodoxy? Is it not obvious that there are powers which are striving to reduce the Church of Russia to an ideological instrument-both the authorities of the Russian Confederation and the “mighty of this world” who Stand behind them-for the control of the Russian people’? How can we fail to remember the image of the harlot church seated upon the beast, which is described in the Book of Revelation? And if the Book of Revelation tells us: “Power was given him over all kindred, and tongues, and nations. And all who dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear” (Rev. 13: 7-9), then it would seem that over the past decade it

has been entirely possible to discuss and clarify in a “dialogue” in what way one ought to understand, following a true, patristic interpretation of the Sacred Scripture (which every consecrated bishop is obligated by oath to keep holy), that “there is no power but of God” (Rom. 13:1-5). By this it may be possible to set aright the perversion of the Orthodox Faith, terrible in its consequences, which is to be found in documents being published in the name of the Moscow Patriarchate as in the name of the Church of Russia itself. Encroachment upon the sense of Holy Tradition hinders spiritual healing. Our appeal

continues to be ignored… the Truth of the Church is not being proclaimed; false teaching is not being condemned.

We know that a significant part of the people and clergy of Russia are aware of the danger of the situation, which is being manifested in many different forms. Still, the neo-Renovationists, the ecumenists, and their opponents within the “right-leaning” circles of the Moscow Patriarchate, who call themselves “true catacomb Christians” despite all their irreconcilable differences, not to mention the very leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate, are united in spreading the selfsame slander against our Church. We know that our being situated outside Russia can seem “unpatriotic” to some-as is proclaimed in the publications of the Moscow Patriarchate. Yet those who attack us for this should read St. Athanasius the Great’s “Apology for My Flight,” and the canons of St. Peter of Alexandria, to avoid unchurchly, secular reasoning and to understand how the Holy Church has actually treated similar questions. We see in this fate of part of the Russian people, sent into the West by the Providence of God, a call to understand the universal scale of the impending apocalyptic period. We do not place our hope in foreign authorities when we appeal to them, pointing out the principles of Justice (as the holy Apostle Paul once appealed to his Roman citizenship so as to avoid violence united with iniquity) when we demand the cessation of the iniquity inflicted upon the “little flock” of Christ, our little Church. Justice is appealed to-as we avail ourselves of a traffic light on a road-so as to insure elementary order for all, among whom one may also consider the émigrés who once saved themselves from annihilation. We place our trust in the One Holy Trinity, Whom we confess, and on the wisdom of our people, who for a thousand years have confessed the unity of the Trinity amid all the vicissitudes of history. We hope that, taught by its new bitter experience, it will have learned a lesson from the 20th century through which it has has just lived. The fate of Russia is in the hands of God and the hands of the Russian people, if they desire to remain the people of God.

We, descendants of the various generations of émigrés, who find ourselves exiles in a foreign land by dint of the bitter dregs which our people drained in the beginning, as well as many of the other peoples of the world (whose children have since come to us for the salvation of Christ), hope to hold out until that day when, through the supplications of our holy new-martyrs, Russia will be moved by prayer to carry out its final mission-to bear witness before the world concerning the Truth of ‘Orthodoxy and the Orthodox form of government. As far as our scant powers permit, we will always bear witness to this for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. Our goal, however modest, is not to allow anyone to drown this Truth in the ocean of impending apostasy.

Forgive us, compatriots who are dear to us in Christ, for our mistakes. And do not discard the Truth itself with our shortcomings and weaknesses. We call upon you to be aware of the universal scale of the

present Church problems, to reunite with us in common prayer, and to deepen in our native land the struggle of being Russian amid the conditions of apostasy-despite the policies of those worldly and ecclesiastical authorities who do not value Russia’s universal spiritual vocation. Why is our existence disturbing to those who call us “a tiny handful of schismatics?” Saint Mark of Ephesus demonstrated that the Truth is not measured by the number of ruling hierarchs. All of Orthodoxy can be defended by a single, solitary “schismatic.” The holy apostles, the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, the holy martyrs, call upon us, for the sake of Truth, to withdraw from falsehood, from the imminent kingdom of the Antichrist, and to struggle in love for Christ, that we may be written “in the Book of Life of the Lamb, Who was slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear.”

+Metropolitan Vitaly +Archbishop Lavr +Archbishop Mark +Archbishop Hilarion +Bishop Kirill +Bishop Mitrofan +Bishop Ambrosy +Bishop Gavrill +Bishop Mikhail

18 February/2 March 2000.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

' src=

  • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
  • Subscribe Subscribed
  • Copy shortlink
  • Report this content
  • View post in Reader
  • Manage subscriptions
  • Collapse this bar
O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his Poverty might be rich: Deliver us, we pray thee, from an inordinate love of this world, that inspired by the devotion of thy servant Sergius of Moscow, we may serve thee with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his Poverty might be rich: Deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that we, inspired by the devotion of your servant Sergius of Moscow, may serve you with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the age to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Psalm 34:1-8 or 33:1-5,20-21 Ecclesiasticus 39:1-9 Matthew 13:47-52 (St2)

Orthodox Christianity

Subscribe to our mailing list

  • Orthodoxy Today
  • Homilies and Spiritual Instruction
  • Saints. Asceties of Piety. Church Holy Days
  • Churches and Monasteries
  • Church History
  • Coming to Orthodoxy
  • Sretensky Monastery
  • Orthodoxy Around the World
  • Suffering Church
  • Church and State
  • Marriage and Family
  • Photogalleries

wandering bishops

  • Index – Imbolc 2024
  • Redactioneel – Imbolc 2024
  • Moons, Esbats & Sabbats 2024
  • Arachne’s Web
  • Interessante adressen
  • Heksencafé’s, moots en meets 2023
  • Redactioneel – Samhain 2023
  • Redactioneel – Lammas 2023
  • Redactioneel – Beltane 2023
  • Redactioneel – Imbolc 2023
  • Redactioneel – Samhain 2022 – Echte horror
  • Redactioneel – Lammas 2022
  • Redactioneel – Beltane 2022
  • Redactioneel – Imbolc 2022
  • Redactioneel – Samhain 2021
  • Redactioneel – Lughnasadh 2021
  • Redactioneel Beltane 2021
  • Redactioneel – Imbolc 2021
  • Redactioneel – Samhain 2020
  • Redactioneel nummer 161 – OMdenken
  • Redactioneel Beltane 2020
  • Index Imbolc 2020
  • Index Samhain 2019
  • Index – Lughnasadh 2019
  • Index Beltane 2019
  • Index – Imbolc 2019
  • Index Samhain 2018
  • Index Lughnasadh 2018
  • Index Beltane 2018
  • Index – Imbolc 2018
  • Index Samhain 2017
  • Index – Lughnasadh 2017
  • Index – Beltane 2017
  • Index – Imbolc 2017
  • Index – Samhain 2016
  • Index – Lughnasadh 2016
  • Index Beltane 2016
  • Index – Imbolc 2016
  • Index – Samhain 2015
  • Index Lughnasadh 2015
  • Index – Beltane 2015
  • Index – Imbolc 2015
  • Index Samhain 2014
  • Index Lughnasadh 2014
  • Index Beltane 2014
  • Index Imbolc 2014
  • Index Samhain 2013
  • Index Lughnasadh
  • Index Imbolc 2013
  • Redactioneel Beltane 2013
  • Medewerkers Wiccan Rede Online

Wandering Bishops, Landed Bishops and Initiated Brothers

With the late 19 th century Gnostic revival among the French occultists, we saw not only an introduction of the apostolic lineages into the growing assembly of occult orders at that time, but even the introduction of new Gnostic lineages into the collection of succession lines passed on from wandering bishop to wandering bishop. With the slow fusion of wandering bishop lineages into the various constellations of orders and groups in Europe at that time, we might claim that the wandering bishop tradition went in some instances from a moving autonomous praxis to a ”landed” tradition that became framed by various esoteric and occult traditions. The Gnostic lineages mentioned differ from the apostolic lineages in nature mostly in such a way as the Gnostic experience here represents an encounter with divinity or the Holy Spirit and at the same time where said lineages do not go back to Jesus, but another person’s epiphany, union with god(s)/saints or divine experience. Some of these new Gnostic lineages would indeed be based upon epiphanies. That is, revelations that mystics received from deities usually bestowing upon them holy missions. An example of this would for instance be Doinel’s church, the Eglise Gnostique, based upon a series of Gnostic revelations Doinel received from 1888 and onward, some of which happened in the Cathar ruins of Montségur. Vintras and the Church Eglise Gnostique Apostolique is another example of this phenomenon. Another type of lineage might be said to be a kind of gnostic charismatic church, such as Maitre Phillipe’s lineage (Gnostic Therapeutic Philippeista) or Jean Sempé’s lineage (Gnostic Therapeutic Sempiesta), where the usage of magickal abilities and mystical gifts were an integrated part of the Church. There are also those orders that have transitioned into Churches. An example of this might be Lucien-François Jean-Maine and his Memphis-Misraïm lineage. With the introduction of the wandering bishop lineages into the French spiritual underground, we also see that subsequent orders and occult personalities have come into contact with, and in some cases united their orders with, said lineages. We shall be taking a closer look at this. The following are a few examples of such cases:

Bernard Fabré-Palaprat, Ordre du Temple and The Johannite Church

In 1804 several Frenchmen, including the former Roman Catholic priest Bernard Fabré-Palaprat, founded the Ordre du Temple and, using the Larmenius document, declared it to be a continuation of the medieval Templar Order, which was suppressed in 1312. In 1812 Fabré-Palaprat formed the Johannite Church, introducing faith-based elements into his order. The Johannite Church, properly known by its full name, l’Église Johannite des Chrétiens Primitifs (The Johannite Church of Primitive Christians), is a Gnostic Christian denomination. The Johannite Church received its full name in 1828 after Fabré-Palaprat’s claimed discovery of the Lévitikon gospels. Fabré-Palaprat introduced a Johannite Mass in 1834. Based on the book called the Lévitikon, which contains an esoteric lineage from Jesus to the Knights Templar, and hints that Jesus was an initiate of the mysteries of Osiris, which were passed on to John the Beloved, an apostolic lineage was introduced into the church. In 1836 the order arrived at a schism, within which there were differences as to the role of the Church within the Order. The schism eventually resulted in the Order being split from its Church and both continuing and developing independent of each other.

Charles Leadbeater, the TS and the Liberal Catholic Church

Like many other spiritual and Gnostic movements of the time that expanded into Free masonic orders and bishop lineages, the Theosophy Society (TS) was no exception. The Theosophical movement was not only indirectly involved in the co-free masonic order Le Droit Humain, but even the church The Liberal Catholic Church. Annie Besant, at the time (1907) the president of the Theosophical Society, managed to spread the co-masonic order Le Droit Humain internationally and eventually became the order’s Most Puissant Grand Commander. She did not unite the Theosophical Society with the order Le Droit Humain, but endorsing it to the point of a de facto extension. Other prominent Theosophists chose to pursue more ecclesial endeavors. Such Theosophists were Charles Webster Leadbeater and Free mason Wedgwood who were consecrated in the lineage of the former Roman Catholic priest, Bishop Arnold Harris Mathew. Leadbeater received his consecration from Wedgewood in 1916. Following the homosexual scandal of Bishop Willoughby and his subsequent suspension as a bishop within the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain, Matthew eventually dissolved the Church claiming that it had become too Theosophical. Wedgewood and Leadbeater later formed the Liberal Catholic Church (LCC). Annie Besant would in 1919 be involved in an ongoing dispute (around the LCC) within the Theosophic Society concerning its apparent endorsement of a particular religion. She defended the Church and its standing within the TS.

Gerald A.V. Encausse (Papus), Martinism and the EGU

The Martinist movement was restarted by Papus in 1891. In 1892 Papus entered the newly formed Gnostic church of Jules Doinel: “L’Église Gnostique”. The Church changed its name several times over the years, primarily due to schisms, yet under the leadership of Bricaud it was renamed to the “Eglesia Gnostique Universelle” (EGU). In 1911 Papus, signed a treaty under which he recognized the Universal Gnostic Church as the official Church of Martinism and together with Bricaud and Fugairon proclaimed the Eglise Gnostique Universelle (EGU) to be the Official Church of the Ordre Martiniste. The Martinist Order was to be the esoteric aspect of Papus’ organisation and the Gnostic Church represented the exoteric aspect.  

Theodore Reuss and the O.T.O.

With Theodor Reuss’ consecration in 1909 by the hands of Papus, the stage was set for many subsequent occult orders united with the bishop lineages. Theodore Reuss took over the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (E.G.C.) from Papus, Bricaud and Fugarion when they changed the name of their church from the EGC to the EGU. The EGC then became Reuss’ ecclesiastical arm of his occult order, the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). When he in turn initiated Aleister Crowley into the O.T.O., he presumably also passed on the bishop lineages by consecration. According to some, this happened in 1912. This, however, still remains undocumented. Crowley’s version of the O.T.O., the Mysteria Mystica Maxima, continued the E.G.C. as being the ecclesiastical arm of the O.T.O. Other national charters of the O.T.O., e.g. the Swiss O.T.O., also continued the E.G.C. in a likewise manner. After a visit to Moscow, Russia in 1913 Crowley wrote the EGC Mass, officially under the influence of the Liturgy of St. Basil of the Russian Orthodox Church. On the 17 th July 1920 Reuss and Bricaud attended the Congress of the World Federation of Universal Freemasonry in Zürich, which lasted a few days. Reuss, with Bricaud’s support, advocated the adoption of the religion of Crowley’s Mass (Thelema) as the ”official religion for all members of the World Federation of Universal Freemasonry in possession of the eighteenth degree of the Scottish rite”. This was not received well. Reuss left the Congress the next day. Consequently, this is a contributing factor to why the OTO no longer calls itself a Freemasonic body today.

wandering bishops

Aleister Crowley as Baphomet

Current day O.T.O.

Sometime during the late 1980ies, the leader of the Califate version of the O.T.O. (i.e. re-started O.T.O.), William Breeze (Hymeneus Beta), sought to reinforce his lineage(s) by seeking consecration from other Bishops who might help with such an endeavor. Besides the consecration received within the E.G.C. lineage, W. Breeze received consecrations from Allen Greenfield and Jack Hogg, both having lineages that could be retraced to Michael Bertiaux. Later it would seem that the O.T.O. would move away from the importance of having Apostolic and Gnostic lineages, and endorse their own lineage back to Aleister Crowley as the only true and sole lineage of importance. Originally, the two organizations, the initiatory O.T.O. and the ecclesiastical E.G.C., were in union but kept separate as two distinct organizations. Under the leadership of W. Breeze, these two organizations underwent a more or less fusion with each other, so that ordinations and consecration are now obtainable only via undergoing certain initiatory degrees.

Harvey Spencer Lewis and the AMORC

Another order that was partially based on a Memphis-Misraim charter given by Theodore Reuss was the order known as Ancient and Mystical Order Rosæ Crucis (A.M.O.R.C.). Reuss had given a M.’.M.’. charter to Harvey Spencer Lewis. It is presently unknown if Spencer Lewis ever received the wandering bishop lineages (i.e. the Apostolic and Gnostic lineages) from any of the French Gnostics or their bishops. However, he did receive what is presumed to be ”Gnostic” lineages from Rt. Rev. Mazzini-Ananda. Mazzini-Ananda established his syncretic church, a mixture between Catholicism and Buddhism, sometime in the 1910s. He created two churches all together, and they were called: The American Buddhist Church of Dharma and The Church of Universal Truth. It is uncertain where and when Mazzini-Ananda was consecrated. He presumably consecrated Spencer Lewis sometime in 1905. In the early 1920ies Spencer Lewis established the Pristine Church of the Rose Cross. The Church was non-sectarian, yet in the broadest sense of the term, Gnostic. Started parallel yet not united with his Order (A.M.O.R.C.), the Church was inaugurated in the early 1920ies and continued until 1931. It had regular services and many members were also members of the A.M.O.R.C. The Church was never united with the Order, as the Order was specifically non-religious. Bishop Lewis had many radio sermons that he sent on Sundays from Rosicrucian Park in San Jose. This was the first Radio Church in the Western United States and it was very popular. It would seem that the Church came into a conflict with some of the AMORC members on the same grounds that the Liberal Catholic Church was in bad standing with some of the Theosophical Society members, namely that these organizations endorsed universal spiritualism and not a sectarian religion. Harvey Spencer Lewis later dissolved the Church and dedicated his time to the Order instead. It is unknown if he ever consecrated bishops during the time the Church existed.

Bishops within the Memphis-Misraim system

Within the Free-masonic system called Memphis-Misraim there are 99 degrees. One of these degrees, the 66th degree, also known as the “Patriarch Grand Consecrator”, is said to equate to an episcopal consecration. It is unclear if there ever was an apostolic lineage as a foundation to this degree, or if it has anything to do with the wandering bishops at all.

Lucien-François Jean-Maine and the Memphis-Misraïm

As if things were not complicated enough, one of the developments from the French Gnostic underground turned the co-free masonic system Memphis-Misraim into a Gnostic wandering bishop lineage. The history of the Ecclesia Cabalistica Gnostica de Memphis-Misraïm goes back to 15th August 1899 where Lucien-François Jean-Maine (Ogdoade-Orfeo I) was made a bishop of the Église Ophite des Naaseniens by Paul-Pierre de Marraga (Orfeo VI). Influenced by Gnosticism, Martinism, Voudon, the “Fraternitas Lucis Hermetica” (F.L.H.) and Theodore Reuss’ O.T.O., the Memphis-Misraim system was transformed from a masonic system to a magickal system that encompassed the method of consecrational transference of initiatory energies. In order to differentiate between the regular (masonic) Memphis-Misraim system and the “irregular” (i.e. magickal) Memphis-Misraïm system, it was decided that the new version was to make usage of the name, yet written with an ” ï “. This lineage has been recently developed and improved by the workings of Allen Greenfield and the Free Illuminists.

Michael Paul Bertiaux and the EGS

The Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis (E.G.S.) church has its roots in France, Spain and Haiti. The teachings are based on the direct contact of the individual with the spiritual planes. The current patriarch of the Church is Michael Paul Bertiaux, who also presides over several orders, among them the O.T.O.A., the Choronzon Club and the L.C.N. These orders exist parallel to the E.G.S. but are not united with the Church as such. The Church, like many other contemporary gnostic churches of today, presides over many different apostolic and gnostic lineages.  

Bishops and the Golden Dawn

A more recent development has been noted within the Golden Dawn Egregore. Most probably unrelated to the schisms within the Golden Dawn orders, members from some of the different fractions have become Martinists and Gnostic bishops. Most noteworthy Golden Dawn leaders to become bishops are perhaps Chic Cicero and David Griffin.

It would seem that David Griffin, leader of a Golden Dawn order, has worked together with Dr. Robert Word and Jean-Pascal Ruggiu, thereby coming across consecrations. Even here we see an approximation but not union between an occult order and the bishop lineages.

Paul Foster Case, the B.O.T.A. and the LCC

Although Paul Foster Case was not a bishop, one might claim that he was well on his way to become one prior to his demise in 1954. Case was ordained a priest by Bishop Charles Hampton in the Liberal Catholic Church in Ojai, California, in 1937, and served parishes throughout the southern California area. How much an influence his involvement with the LCC had on Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.) is unclear.

Gerald Gardner and the Wicca

Gerald Gardner had a good friend in Rt. Rev. J.S.M. Ward who consecrated Gardner as a Bishop, most probably sometime during the early 1940’s. Gardner would wear a clerical dog collar during services at Ward’s ”Ancient British Church”. Gardner was later consecrated sub-conditione during a visit to Cyprus in 1949 by Colin Mackenzie. There are no clear influences of the bishophood bearing down upon Gardner’s version of Wicca, yet Gardner did legally register his covenstead at Brickett Wood in Hertfordshire with the term ”Ancient British Church”. In spite of lacking evidence, one might claim that certain influences are detectable nevertheless, in e.g. Gardner’s claim that “Only a witch can make a witch” which parallels one of the consecration requisites in the sense that only a bishop can consecrate a priest to a bishop.

Other noteworthy occultists that had Orders and Churches are:

  • Dion Fortune, the Society of the Inner Light and her church Guild of the Master Jesus
  • Samael Aun Weor and the Santa Iglesia Gnostica Cristiana Universal (SIGCU)
  • Arnold Krumm-Heller, FRA and his gnostic lineages
  • Roger Caro, the FAR+C and the Eglise Universelle de la Nouvelle Alliance
  • Leonard Stevens, Society of the Guardians and the Gnostic Guardian Church of Grace and Blessing
  • Gerald del Campo, Order of Thelemic Knights and the Thelemic Gnostic Church of Alexandria
  • Lucia Leokadia Grosch, the S.R.I.A. and the Holy Orthodox Church in America
  • Leonard Barcyncki, the Aurum Solis and the Paracletian Catholic Church.

As the above examples show, the apostolic bishop lineages and the Gnostic equivalent have merged with the initiatory orders of this last century to a greater or lesser degree, and in the process ”landed” significant parts of the wandering bishop tradition. These lineages appear to have been a more or less hidden undercurrent within the occult sub-culture and in some circumstances contributed to the internal legitimacy and esoteric depth of the occult underground. Most surprisingly, this Neo-gnostic revival has presented a fresh influx of gnosis into an otherwise fixed and conformed tradition of succession lines, thereby reviving not only a Gnostic underground but even in some cases revitalizing and transforming anti-Gnostic traditions within the successions lines at that.

wandering bishops

Martin Krogh-Poulsen

Originally appeared here: https://sites.google.com/site/gnostickos/orders

References :

Image: Liberal Catholic Church: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/beginnings-liberal-catholic-church-1865990046

Image Alister Crowley: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley#/media/Archivo:Aleister_Crowley_as_Baphomet_X%C2%B0_O.T.O.jpg

See also the review of “Wicca and the Christian Heritage – Ritual, Sex and Magic” – Joanne Pearson  (originally reviewed in Wiccan Rede 2007)

Of further interest: https://www.parareligion.ch/dplanet/html/parsifal.htm

' src=

About Gastauteur

Like what you read.

Wiccan Rede is powered by donations and volunteers only. So feel free to donate a little something to keep us online!

Onderwerpen

  • English articles
  • Heksenkronkels
  • Tijdloze teksten
  • Volle Maan Wandelingen
  • Web Wegwijzer

Recente reacties

  • Elly op Wie dan?
  • Anne op Wie dan?
  • Anne op Ben ik nog wel een heks?
  • Berichten feed
  • Reacties feed
  • WordPress.org

Privacy Overview

Russian True-Orthodox Church (Vyacheslav)

The Russian True Orthodox Church is an autogenic jurisdiction which claims to have arisen from differences with the Moscow Patriarchate that resulted from the Bolshevik revolution in Russia but was given a hierarchy through the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church . The group is not in communion with any of the historical and canonical Orthodox Christian Churches. Due to the similarities of naming conventions, they are commonly confused with the Russian True Orthodox Church , an early splinter from the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile

In the period from the 1970s-80s, many of the True Orthodox Church communities had lost their last bishops and much of their clergy. Many of these groups were forced to exist and celebrate services in the absence of a priest.

After the change in political conditions in the late 1980s, the True Orthodox Church began to emerge from the underground. Various churches solved the question of their future existence in different ways. Some of the communities joined the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia , which by that time had begun to open communities within Russia, many of which developed into existing Russian traditionalist jurisdicitions, such as the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church or the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile .

In 1996 an initiative group of Russian orthodox clergy and laity approached Patriarch Dimitriy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church , asking him to assist them in the canonical restoration of a hierarchy for the True Orthodox Church. It was decided that the name for the restored church would be the "Russian True Orthodox Church". The reason they did not go under the other existing Russian jurisdictions is unclear.

In June of 1996, with the blessing of Patriarch Dimitriy, Archbishop Roman and Bishop Methodiy (Kuriakov) of the UAOC ordained Hieromonk John a bishop of the Russian True Orthodox Church in order to restore Apostolic succession . In December of 1996 Bishops John and Methodiy consecrated Archimandrite Stefan a bishop for the new body.

These two bishops, In 2000 the jurisdiction officially changed the name to "Russian True Orthodox Church-Metropolia of Moscow" in order to distinguish it from other groups within Russia. The jurisdiction has been fraught with divisions usually due to modernists within their ranks and is most notable for revision of the term "godless authority" as a general admonition towards those who "hurt the poor".

Today, the Church is led by Metropolitan Vyacheslav of Moscow and Kolomensk, together with Archbishop Mikhail of Bronitsk and Velensk, and Bishop Vladimir. In the United States this group is represented by Archbishop Alexy of Minneapolis and Chicago, who was born in Kiev, Ukraine. He and his clergy run several small missions in the upper Midwest. Bishop Haralampos of Dallas runs some missions and also has a small Western Rite monastic community (whom uses a variety of Western Rites, including a "liturgy of St James-Scottish rite" of Anglican provenance.)

External links

  • Russian True Orthodox Church (Russian)
  • Russian True Orthodox Church: Archdiocese of North America (English)
  • Jurisdictions

Navigation menu

Personal tools.

  • Request account
  • View source
  • View history
  • Featured content
  • Browse categories
  • Recent changes
  • Random page

IMAGES

  1. Wandering Bishops, Landed Bishops and Initiated Brothers

    wandering bishops

  2. WANDERING BISHOPS 98 Figu

    wandering bishops

  3. "Mysteria", 1;2, Paris February 1913

    wandering bishops

  4. wanderingbishops.com

    wandering bishops

  5. WANDERING BISHOPS 100 Fig

    wandering bishops

  6. WANDERING BISHOPS 50 into

    wandering bishops

VIDEO

  1. wandering wanderland

  2. unidad de inteligencia ciudadana

  3. wandering wanderland

  4. unidad de inteligencia ciudadana news

  5. Brilliant Bishops Checkmate

  6. Narckopacto

COMMENTS

  1. Episcopus vagans

    Episcopus vagans. In Christianity, an episcopus vagans (plural episcopi vagantes; Latin for 'wandering bishops' or 'stray bishops') is a person consecrated, in a "clandestine or irregular way", as a bishop outside the structures and canon law of the established churches; a person regularly consecrated but later excommunicated, and not in ...

  2. Wandering bishop

    wandering bishop, in Christianity, a bishop without authority or without recognition in any major Christian church. Such bishops may have received an irregular consecration by another bishop, or they may have been properly consecrated but lack a diocese or were excommunicated by their church.. In the early Christian church, wandering bishops were a problem, primarily because some bishops were ...

  3. Wondering About Wandering About Bishops

    The definitive history of this most entertaining phenomenon is Peter F. Anson's Bishops at Large. Published in 1963, it could do with a scholarly update. However, I fear that in the intervening fifty seven years there have been so many Anglican splinter groups and wandering bishops that it would require many years of research and several volumes.

  4. Wandering Bishops

    Another place where wandering bishops abounded was the ancient Christian missionary territory of southern India, where, according to local tradition, the greatest and most vigorous of all wandering bishops, Apostle Thomas, lies in a tomb not far from the city of Madras. The Christians of St Thomas, originally Brahmins from the Malabar coast ...

  5. The Wandering Bishops

    Wandering Bishops. The concept of wandering bishops, also known as ' Episcopi Vagantes ', might traditionally be defined as a missionary bishop or a bishop without a diocese. This situation could easily arise in the early days due to political, geographical or cultural difficulties, e.g. war or harassment. Later it came to imply a bishop ...

  6. A few years ago, there were several Wandering Bishops, or ''episcopi

    A few years ago, there were several Wandering Bishops, or 'episcopi vagantes' in circulation in England, presiding over exotically named religious denominations like 'The Ancient Catholick Church ...

  7. PDF Chapter 4 Historical Overview of the Episcopi Vagantes and the Ξορεπισκοποι

    Badertscher, The Measure of a Bishop Chapter 4 Historical Overview of the Episcopi Vagantes and the Ξορεπισκοποι The modern disputes about theepiscopi vagantes and their Continuing Church kinsmen ultimately find their answers in the wandering bishops' ancient origins. The vagantes developed, at least partly, from the leaders known ...

  8. Episcopi vagantes

    Episcopi vagantes (Lat., 'wandering bishops'). Bishops who have been consecrated in an irregular manner or who, having been regularly consecrated, have ceased to be in communion with any major Church. Source for information on Episcopi vagantes: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions dictionary.

  9. Episcopi vagantes

    episcopi vagantes. (Lat., 'wandering bishops').The name given to persons who have been consecrated bishop in an irregular or clandestine manner or ... Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter ...

  10. Wandering Clerics and Mixed Rituals in the Early Christian North, c

    But the liturgical practices of the aforementioned wandering bishops must have been very different, and hence were labelled in the narrative as more lenient. The Íslendingabók, written in the early twelfth century, provides more names of foreign bishops active in eleventh­century Iceland: among them John the Irishman, later bishop of ...

  11. Apostolic Successions

    "The Wandering Bishops are not only heralds of an emerging new world spirituality, but custodians of the most ancient and powerful continuous spiritual lineage that still exists—the Apostolic Succession from the Great Master Jesus. This is the universal Priesthood of Melchizedek. It is not the exclusive property of Christianity, but belongs ...

  12. Episcopi vagantes

    Episcopi vagantes (Latin for "wandering bishops") are persons who have been ordained as bishops in some irregular fashion, especially those claiming to have valid Roman Catholic orders although their ordinations were not authorized by the Roman Catholic Church. (The singular form of the phrase is episcopus vagans.)They may be involved in running independent Orthodox churches.

  13. PDF The Measure of A Bishop: The Episcopi Vagantes, Apostolic Succession

    the phrase episcopi vagantes"." hese "wandering bishops," dubious, schismaticT personages who strayed into other bishops' jurisdictions, were somehow connected to the movement, yet no one wanted to claim them. The problem was, however, that in the eyes of the Episcopal Church the "Continuers" themselves were schismatics

  14. Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of

    Wandering, Begging Monks: Spiritual Authority and the Promotion of Monasticism in Late Antiquity. ... Bishops also condemned him, in part because he was a competitor for the limited resources of their ecclesiastical communities: "rival claims to apostolic identity, privilege, and authority were at stake in this contention over material ...

  15. The Raymond Broshears Files Part 00002: Odd Sects and Wandering Bishops

    Jim Garrison's "Odd Sects" was further fleshed out by author Peter Levenda with his "Wandering Bishops" theory concerning a network of consecrated con men engaged in political witchcraft. According to Levenda, this lineage of Wandering Bishops started with a schism in Catholicism at the end of the 19th century that resulted in the ...

  16. The Wandering Bishop ~ The Imaginative Conservative

    It seems harsh to refer to the Catholic schismatic bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (the Lefebvrists) as episcopi vagantes but many would deem them so.If we're looking for Catholic wandering bishops we can do no better than Pope Michael, a resident of Kansas who was elected Pope in 1990 by six lay people.A collection of contemporary anti-popes can be viewed here.

  17. Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica

    Nonetheless, Wandering Bishops are collectors of papers and diplomas. In all Ordo Templi Orientis versions, the line of succession is vitally important, as it is believed that the leader is the repository of the Order's magical power, and also has a claim on various copyrights and royalties, especially of Aleister Crowley 's work.

  18. A statement of the ROCOR Bishops concerning the Moscow Patriarchate

    ENGLISH TRANSLATION: 18 February/2 March 2000. A Statement of the ROCOR Bishops Concerning the Moscow Patriarchate. The leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate has now officially declared that it looks upon the property of the Russian Church Abroad as its own, for only it, and no other, is the "sole legal heir to the property of the pre- Revolutionary Church," which, consequently, "is ...

  19. Sergius, Abbot of Holy Trinity

    The fame of his virtues drew disciples around him. They compelled him to go to Peryaslavla-Zalessky, to receive priestly orders from Athanasius, Bishop of Volhynia, who lived there. Sergius built by his own labor in the midst of the forest a rude church of timber, by the name of the Source of LIfe, the Ever Blessed Trinity, which has since ...

  20. Documents of the June 1992, 1994, and 1997 Bishops' Councils of the

    The documents presented here detail the charges brought against Denisenko by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the ensuing decision of the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church to defrock him on June 11, 1992. All of the documents from the June 1992 Council are included here, as well as, notably, the letter of His All-Holiness ...

  21. Wandering Bishops, Landed Bishops and Initiated Brothers

    Wandering Bishops, Landed Bishops and Initiated Brothers. Geplaatst op 31 januari, 2021 door Gastauteur. With the late 19 th century Gnostic revival among the French occultists, we saw not only an introduction of the apostolic lineages into the growing assembly of occult orders at that time, but even the introduction of new Gnostic lineages ...

  22. Russian True-Orthodox Church (Vyacheslav)

    In the period from the 1970s-80s, many of the True Orthodox Church communities had lost their last bishops and much of their clergy. Many of these groups were forced to exist and celebrate services in the absence of a priest. After the change in political conditions in the late 1980s, the True Orthodox Church began to emerge from the underground.

  23. Sinister Forces—The Nine

    Fascinating details are revealed, including the bizarre world of "wandering bishops" who appear throughout the Kennedy assassinations; a CIA mind control program run amok in the United States and Canada; a famous American spiritual leader who had ties to Lee Harvey Oswald in the weeks and months leading up to the assassination of President ...