New Christians
The New Christians are a community around the "sword-bishop" Nikolaus Schneider (* 1937 in Oberriet, Switzerland) that is separate from the Roman Catholic Church , but sees itself as part of the Catholic Church .
Synonyms and other languages
The community is also called the community around the sword-bishop , earlier names were fight against Satan (KGS) and children's prayer storm .
distribution
In the year 2000 about 250 people belonged to the New Christians, 50 of them live in Germany , 30 in Austria , 90 in Switzerland and 50 in Holland . There is a sister church in Cameroon ; the exact number of members is not known.
Teaching
The main commandment of the new Christians is: "You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your thinking and with all your strength". Strengthening the reputation of God is supposed to save the world. The fight against Satan and his followers plays a central role, and Nikolaus Schneider also takes action against the Roman Catholic Church, which he accuses of wrong methods.
Worship and practice
The mass is celebrated from the bishop to the people ( versus populum ). The liturgical vestments are kept simple.
organization
There is a house church, where consecrated bishops and priests look after the faithful, and two daughter houses in Germany and the Netherlands. There is also a women's monastery, which is run by Pia Muff as abbess. There is also a sister church in Cameroon.
According to its own information, the group is financed by donations.
history
The history of this group began in 1977 when Nikolaus Schneider founded the Arche in Holland . In that year Schneider was ordained a priest by the vagante bishop Gerard Franck and just two months later a bishop. After Gerard Franck's arrest on allegations of child sexual abuse in 1996, most of the believers left the ark. Nikolaus Schneider moved back to his Swiss homeland and founded the Fight Against Satan (KGS) community in Rehetobel in 1984 . In 1990 it was renamed Neuchristen .
Ecumenism
The new Christians recognize the baptism of the Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches . Confirmation is repeated for Christians from other denominations baptized in the trinitarian way.
Controversy
The community is criticized by both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches as being fundamentalist.
According to the New Christians, their apostolic succession (priesthood and episcopal ordination ) can be traced back from Nikolaus Schneider to Ignatius of Antioch, but this cannot be conclusively proven.
Nikolaus Schneider's episcopal ordination goes back to a vagante bishop standing in an Old Catholic ordination line. The Roman Catholic Church never publicly recognized the Old Catholic ordinations. From a Catholic point of view, the validity of ordination is doubted. Today's old Catholic churches of the Utrecher Union do not recognize the consecration of episcopi vagantes . To this day, no final decision has been made on the question of the validity or invalidity of consecration among the New Christians.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Aachener Zeitung of October 2, 1996; Trierischer Volksfreund dated October 2, 1996, quoted in Insight , November 1996/7, page 31 (PDF file, 1.3 MB)
- ↑ Bishop arrested as a child molester . Berliner Kurier from October 2, 1998