Ecclesia Gnostica - History

History

The organization now called the Ecclesia Gnostica was originally organized in England under the name the Pre-Nicene Gnostic Catholic Church in 1953, by the Most Rev. Richard Jean Chretien Duc de Palatine with the object of “restoring the Gnosis - Divine Wisdom to the Christian Church, and to teach the Path of Holiness which leads to God and the Inner Illumination and Interior Communion with the Soul through the mortal body of man.” Born Ronald Powell, Richard Duc de Palatine had served in the Liberal Catholic Church in Australia, before moving to England. Bishop Duc de Palatine was consecrated by the Most Rev. Msg. Hugh George de Wilmott Newman (Mar Georgius I), patriarch of the Catholic Apostolic Church (Catholicate of the West) who consolidated many lines of apostolic succession.

Bishop Duc de Palatine also received a charter in 1953 to head an organization first called "the Brotherhood of the Illuminati," renamed "the Order of the Pleroma" in 1960. He received other esoteric lines and charters such as: the Templar Order, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, Memphis and Mizarim Rites of Freemasonry, and the Martiniste Order, and termed the combination with the Ecumenical Apostolic Succession "the Wisdom Religion-Gnostic Mystic Tradition."

In 1959 the organization became active in the United States through the work of Stephan A. Hoeller, who served as a priest of the church in Los Angeles, and was subsequently consecrated as regionary bishop for the Americas in 1967. He became presiding bishop on the death of Bishop Duc de Palatine in 1977, although there was a falling out prior to that.