Universal Catholic Church - History

History

The Church traces its apostolic succession to Archbishop Arnold Harris Mathew. Mathew was consecrated bishop on 28 April 1908, by Archbishop Gerhardus Gul of Utrecht, assisted by the Old Catholic bishops of Deventer and Berne, in St. Gertrude's Old Catholic Cathedral, Utrecht. Only two years later, Mathew declared his autonomy from the Union of Utrecht, with which he had experienced tension from the beginning. It was only a short time later that Bishop Mathew found himself at odds with his own clergy in Great Britain and ultimately walked away to seek union with the Roman Catholic Church.

The founding bishop of the Liberal Catholic Church was James I. Wedgwood of the Wedgwood China family, formerly a cleric in the Church of England (Anglican). Wedgwood grew dissatisfied with the Church, and discovered the Theosophical Society, which had a stronger appeal to his sense of life and justice. When Archbishop Arnold Harris Mathew sought to ordain some clergy who were dissatisfied with the Church of England, Wedgwood was one who joined the new Old Catholic Church of England. Archbishop Mathew knew of Wedgwood's membership in the Theosophical Society, as well as that of other clergy in the Old Catholic Church of England, and originally promised that this would not be a problem, but later retracted that promise and asked all clergy to resign from the Theosophical Society. Not willing to do so, Father Wedgwood and most of the Old Catholic Church in England found themselves without a bishop as they withdrew from Archbishop Mathew's leadership.

One of the men whom Archbishop Mathew had consecrated to the episcopate, Bishop Frederick Samuel Willoughby, offered to consecrate and elevate one of the withdrawn clergy to the episcopate so that they would not be without a bishop. Father Wedgwood was selected and elevated to the Episcopate on February 13, 1916. The Church was eventually reorganized and renamed The Liberal Catholic Church. Archbishop Wedgwood then consecrated another former Anglican priest, Charles W. Leadbeater, later that same year, with Bishop Leadbeater going on to become the 2nd Presiding Bishop of the Church in later years.

The Liberal Catholic Church underwent a schism between the American Province and the worldwide Church in 1941. The American Province reorganized under the name Liberal Catholic Church International. In April 2007, Bishop Dean Bekken severed his parish and those clergy under him from the LCCI and formed the Universal Catholic Church.

In September 2010, the church incardinated the religious order of St. George of Cappadocia (OSGC).