Church Background
In 1937 the Roman Catholic bishop Carlos Duarte Costa - and his diocese of Botucatu, Brazil - severed ties with the Vatican. The bishop was excommunicated in 1945 after he accused the Vatican of having collaborated with the national socialists (Nazis) and fascists. He then founded the Igreja Católica Apostólica Brasileira (Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church). In 1949 the church was brought to Germany by the future Archbishop Johannes Peter Meyer-Mendez where it was registered as the Free Catholic Church ("Freikatholische Kirche").
After the death of Archbishop Meyer-Mendez, his successor Georg Fröbrich, later Archbishop Hilarios Karl-Heinz Ungerer, transferred the seat of the archbishop, i.e. the principal seat, from Cologne to Munich, the capital of Bavaria. Archbishop Ungerer also was temporarily conductor of the now vacant Kustodie der Mariaviten in Bayern - founded by Archbishop Maria Paulus Norbert Maas - until his successful bid for demission of bishop's duties in 1978.
In September 1972, Bishop Ungerer rented a shop for a "shop church", which became the Free Catholic Shop Church at 25 Thalkirchner Strasse in Munich, as was the fashion in some big towns at that time. Over the next 25 years he endeavoured to integrate marginal groups into the church.
Read more about this topic: Free Catholic Church
Famous quotes containing the words church and/or background:
“It is an evil world. The fires of hatred and violence burn fiercely. Evil is powerful, the devil covers a darkened earth with his black wings. And soon the end of the world is expected. But mankind does not repent, the church struggles, and the preachers and poets warn and lament in vain.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)