Arnold Mathew

Arnold Harris Mathew

Arnold Harris Mathew , also Arnold Harris Mathews or Arnold Harris Matthew (born August 6, 1852 in Montpellier , † December 20, 1919 in South Mymms , Hertfordshire ) was an English priest , first of the Roman Catholic Church , then Unitarianism , and archbishop an Old Catholic Church in Great Britain, whose association with the Church of the Union of Utrecht was broken for various reasons.

Live and act

Childhood, marriage and different names

Mathew was born on August 6, 1852 in Montpellier to Irish parents of different denominations and grew up in Cheltenham , Bonn and Stuttgart . In October 1890, he took the name Arnoldo Girolamo Povoleri , allegedly because his grandmother was a Countess Elizabeth Francesca Povoleri . After 1892 he called himself the Reverend Count Povoleri di Vicenza because his great-grandmother should have been a Contessa Piovene di Vicenza . Shortly afterwards he also claimed the title of Earl of Landaff for himself, since his father should have been a Henry, 3rd Earl of Landaff . Mathew had been married since 1892; however, his wife, the Canadian Margaret Duncan, left him around 1916. The marriage resulted in several children, how many is unclear.

priest

He first studied for the priesthood in the Scottish Episcopal Church down, but moved in 1875 to the Roman Catholic Church , in which he in on June 24, 1877 Glasgow , the ordination received. After taking a vow, he joined the Dominicans in 1879 , but left the order in 1880 and worked again as a diocesan priest. He changed parishes several times until he was suspended from the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church in July 1889 and resigned from church service. Then he converted to Unitarianism in the same year , where he again practiced the profession of pastor. In 1890 or 1891 he left the Unitarian Church and joined the Church of England , where he was employed in London as an assistant pastor. After he had also left the Anglican Church in 1899, he sought reunification with Rome in 1903 , but was refused dispensation .

Around 1906/07 he came into contact with the ex-priest Richard O'Halloran. He assured him that there were quite a number of dissatisfied Catholics in Great Britain and that they would vote for the establishment of an old Catholic Church with a bishop. Mathew then wrote to Gerard Gul ; in his capacity as Archbishop of Utrecht, he was also the leading bishop of the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands . Since around the turn of the century (19th / 20th), this has pursued a more expansive policy and also tried to gain a foothold in England, where it had not yet been represented. In the meantime, O'Halloran had drawn up an electoral charter allegedly signed by around 150 English priests and lay people, according to which Mathew had been elected bishop. It was from this document that the decision was made to ordain Mathew bishop. After he had converted to the Old Catholic Church, the Archbishop of Utrecht, Gerardus Gul, consecrated him as bishop on April 22 (28?) 1908 in Utrecht with the assistance of Bishops Jacobus Johannes van Thiel , Nicolaus Bartholomeus Petrus Spit and Josef Demmel the Old Catholic Church for Great Britain and Ireland .

bishop

When Mathew returned to England as a newly ordained bishop at the end of April 1908, it soon became apparent that O'Halloran's assurances about the interest of numerous people in the Old Catholic Church were not true; in fact, hardly anyone was interested. In addition, it turned out that the ballot paper created by O'Halloran with the 150 signatures was forged. Mathew reported these facts to Utrecht, whereupon he was publicly acquitted of personal guilt in the incident on June 3, 1908. He subsequently served as mission bishop for Great Britain. There were later differences of opinion about Mathew's role in the matter; some saw him as a bona fide victim of false friends, others as an accomplice, for still others he had deliberately submitted false statements and thereby gained the episcopal dignity - his role, victim or perpetrator, is still controversial today. He was extremely active in the consecration of priests and bishops, whom he appointed in large numbers, albeit often at random, including a large number of theosophists .

On December 29, 1910, he published a pastoral letter in which he denied any subordination to Utrecht or Rome and described himself and his English Old Catholic Church as completely autonomous and independent. This was followed on January 6, 1911, when he left the Union of Old Catholic Churches in Utrecht . At the same time he called his now autonomous Old Catholic Church the Western Orthodox Catholic Church in Great Britain and Ireland (WOCC) and was appointed English Catholic Archbishop of London by his bishops on January 25, 1911 . Around this time he consecrated Herbert Ignatius Beale and Arthur William Howarth as priests; these had previously been excommunicated by Robert Brindle, the Catholic Bishop of Nottingham , for alleged embezzlement . About this act, Mathew sent a message to Pope Pius X , asking for confirmation. As a result, however, the papal bull Gravi jamdiu scandalo , dated February 11, 1911, came back, in which Mathew was excommunicated by the Pope for his "arrogance" to appoint himself archbishop. Pius X. referred to Mathew as a "pseudo-bishop" and pronounced excommunication vitandus (excommunicatus vitandus), which meant that no one should come into contact with him. The Pope also extended the excommunication to all priests and bishops consecrated by Mathew.

On August 5th (June 24th?) 1911 Mathew succeeded in getting his WOCC recognized by the Roman Orthodox Archbishop of Beirut and Lebanon Gerasimos Messarra . But this connection did not last long.

Although Mathew had known for several years that the majority of his priests and bishops were members of the Adyar Theosophical Society (Adyar-TG), by 1915 he found this to be incompatible with the beliefs of the WOCC. On October 6, 1915, in a pastoral letter, he presented his church members with the ultimatum: either leaving the Adyar TG or expulsion from the WOCC. His appeal, however, was practically ineffective; because on the one hand only two insignificant people left the Adyar-TG, and on the other hand, an exclusion of all members associated with the Adyar-TG would have literally wiped out its already small community. Whether the hopelessness of this situation, namely that his church was not ruled by his convictions, but was at least partly governed by the teachings of theosophy , Mathew resigned and declared the WOCC dissolved. But only a few months later, around February / March 1916, he again founded his old Catholic church under the new name Western Uniate Catholic Church , still with a number of theosophists as members. However, some theosophists rallied around Frederick Samuel Willoughby, who had already been excluded from the WOCC on August 6, 1915 . He consecrated James Ingall Wedgwood as bishop on February 13, 1916 ; this was the starting point for the establishment of the Liberal Catholic Church .

After Mathew had declared the WOCC dissolved, he offered Pope Benedict XV in a letter dated December 31, 1915 . his submission and requested to be reinstated in the Roman Catholic Church. Before the Pope reacted, he revoked his offer to Rome in February / March 1916 and re-established his old Catholic Church. In April 1916 he appointed Bernard Mary Williams as his coadjutor ; from this point on he withdrew more and more from his bishopric; presumably on May 25, 1917 Williams officially succeeded Mathews as senior bishop of the Old Catholic Church in England. Around 1916/17 Mathew tried to join the Church of England ; Randall Thomas Davidson , the Archbishop of Canterbury , was skeptical about Mathew's ecclesiastical past and turned down the request.

Withdrawal and death

After his retirement from May 25, 1917, Mathew lived in the country; only as a layman did he sometimes help out in an Anglican church. After his death at the age of 67, he was buried as a layperson according to the Anglican rite on December 21, 1919, initially nobody from the Old Catholic Church took notice. His papers and papers disappeared after his death and have not reappeared.

Dispute over the Apostolic Succession

Soon after Mathew's death in 1920, the Union of Old Catholic Churches in Utrecht declared Mathew's episcopal ordination invalid because he had not been elected bishop by a church and had ordained bishops without ties to an existing congregation, thereby fulfilling the call of the old- damaged Catholic churches.

Mathew saw himself standing and working by virtue of his episcopal ordination by old Catholic bishops in apostolic succession . Numerous bishops from different churches led and still lead their apostolic succession back to him. As already mentioned, the Union of Utrecht declared Mathew's episcopal ordination invalid. Whether such a declaration of invalidity of an episcopal ordination is even possible remains controversial. Some take the point of view that Mathew and all of his consecrated bishops as well as those in the following lines would not be in apostolic succession. The others, however, see a once validly completed episcopal ordination as irreversible and therefore also in this case see the apostolic succession as given. The latter refer to Genesis 27  EU , where Jacob had sneaked the blessing of his father Isaac without this being able to be reversed. Likewise, numerous bishops from various churches, including even saints , would also be regarded as no longer standing in the Apostolic Succession if the reasons for Mathew's declaration of invalidity were also applied to them.

Of this dispute about their legitimate Apostolic Succession are u. a. affected all bishops of the Liberal Catholic Church , as they are in the line of James Ingall Wedgwood, Frederick Samuel Willoughby and Mathew, as well as most bishops of independent Old Catholic churches in the United States (including the Old Roman Catholic Church in North America ) who are succession attribute to Rudolph de Landas Berghes and Mathew.

The holders of the episcopal dignity in the high church apostolate St. Ansgar trace their succession back to Rudolph de Landas Berghes and Mathew.

Works (selection)

• Genealogy of the earls of Landaff, of Thomastown, County Tipperary, Ireland . undated, undated (approx. 1895).
• The life and times of Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. F. Griffiths, London 1910.
• The life and times of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI . S. Paul & co., London 1912.
• The life of Sir Tobie Matthew. Bacon's alter ego, by his kinsman Arnold Harris Mathew and Annette Calthrop . E. Mathews, London 1907.
• Woman suffrage . TC & EC Jack, London 1907.

literature

• Urs Küry : The Old Catholic Church, its history, its teaching, its concern. Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-7715-0190-3 .
• Henry RT Brandreth: Episcopi vagantes and the Anglican Church. Borgo Press, San Bernardino 1987, ISBN 0893705586 .
• Karl Pruter: The Old Catholic Church, a history and chronology. St. Willibrord's Press, San Bernardino 1996, ISBN 0912134194 .
• Christoph Schuler: The Mathew Affair. The failure to establish an Old Catholic Church in England in the context of Anglican Old Catholic relations between 1902 and 1925. Stichting Centraal Oud-Katholiek Boekhuis, Amersfoort 1997, ISBN 90-70596-64-4 .
• Andre J. Queen: Old Catholic, History, Ministry, Faith & Mission. IUniverse, Lincoln 2003, ISBN 0595749364 .
• Kurt J. Bruk: Was Bishop Arnold Harris Mathew a Vagant Bishop? Arcturus-Verlag, Schäffern 2005, ISBN 3-901489-40-1 .

Web links

• Declaration of autonomy and independence by Archbishop Mathew (English)
• Thoughts on Mathews' dispute over Apostolic Succession
• Old Catholic Church in Europe OCCE

Individual evidence

1. ^ Declaration of the Old Catholic Bishops' Conference 1920, quoted by Bernard Vignot: Le phénomène des églises parallèles. Cerf, Paris 2010, p. 63.