Philip Schaff · 51 of 60

The Fourteen Theses of the Old Catholic Union Conference at Bonn. A.D. 1874.

[This interesting document deserves a place at the end of this volume as the first attempt to formularize the doctrinal consensus of Old Catholics, Greeks, and Anglo-Catholics, who acknowledge, besides the Holy Scriptures, the binding and perpetual authority of the ancient Catholic tradition before the separation between the East and the West. The object of this Consensus-Formula is to prepare the way, not for an absorptive or organic union, but for a confederation or intercommunion of Churches, on the basis of union in essentials and freedom in non-essentials. It involves a protest against some of the mediæval innovations of Romanism, and is so far an approach to Protestantism; but Protestantism goes beyond the œcumenical catholicity to the inspired fountainhead of the Apostolic Church.

A conference of divines friendly to the reunion of Christendom was called by Dr. Döllinger, of Munich (in behalf of a Christian Union Committee of the Old Catholic Congress), and held in the University at Bonn, Sept. 14–16, 1874. It consisted of about forty members—namely, 1. Old Catholics: Dr. Döllinger (who presided with great ability), Bishop Reinkens, Drs. Reusch, Langen, Knoodt, Lutterbeck, Michaud, and others. 2. Orthodox Russians and Greeks: Joh. Janyschew, Rector of the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg, Alexander Kirejew, Theodor von Sukhotin, Arsenius Tatchaloff, Professor Rhossis, of Athens. 3. English Episcopalians: Bishop Edward Harold Browne, of Winchester, Dean J. S. Howson, of Chester, Dr. Henry Parry Liddon, Canon of St. Paul's, Edward S. Talbot, Warden of Keble College, Oxford, Professor E. B. Mayor, of Cambridge, Canon Wm. Conway, of Westminster, G. E. Broade, British Chaplain at Düsseldorf, and others. 4. American (High Church) Episcopalians: Bishop John B. Kerfoot, of Pittsburg, Rev. Dr. Wm. Chauncey Langdon, of Geneva, Rev. Dr. Robert J. Nevin, Rector of the American Episcopal Church, Rome; Rev. H. F. Hartmann, Rev. Geo. F. Arnold, and Rev. E. A. Renouf. Besides, there were present as invited guests, without taking an active part in the transactions, several Lutheran and Evangelical theologians and ministers from Germany and Denmark, as Professors Lange, Krafft, Camphausen, of Bonn, Rev. Von Gerlach, of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Dr. Wolff, of Rotweil, Rev. G. Schmidt, of Schlangen, Rev. J. V. Bloch, of Copenhagen, and Rev. J. McMillan, a Congregational minister from West Burton. The proceedings were held in English and German.

The text is taken from the official Report of the Conference, edited by Prof. Dr. Reusch in the name of Dr. Döllinger. The titles of the Articles we have supplied. The Theses were originally drawn up in English, and translated after the Conference by the editor, and revised and approved by Dr. Döllinger. The English text, therefore, is the authentic text.

The first and preliminary Thesis which was agreed upon, but not included in the fourteen, refers to the vexed question of the double procession of the Holy Spirit, which was the chief cause of the separation of the Greek and Latin Churches. It makes an important concession to the Greeks concerning the legal aspect of the question of the filioque, but leaves the dogmatic question to future conferences. It is as follows:

NOTES.

1. Dr. Döllinger proposed also the following article concerning the Invocation of Saints, but withdrew it in consequence of the opposition of the Greek and Russian members, who maintained that such invocation was a duty, on the ground of the seventh œcumenical Council:

2. These theses have no official authority, and express simply the private convictions of the members of the Conference; but they may be regarded as the provisional creed of the Old Catholics until acted upon by their Synod, which is the official organ.

3. Art. XIV.—Dean Howson, of Chester, at the second Bonn Conference, held a year afterwards, entered, in behalf of some evangelical Anglicans, the following protest against a possible Romanizing interpretation of this Article:

'Some members of the Church of England, who earnestly desire success to the present efforts for reunion, having been made anxious and doubtful by that part of the Article on the eucharist, provisionally adopted last year, which speaks of the encharistic celebration as a "representation and presentation on earth of the one oblation of Christ, which is continuously presented by him in heaven;" and those expressions being capable of different shades of interpretation, I beg leave respectfully to state the meanings which such persons, with myself, are disposed to attach to them. We view the eucharistic celebration as a "representation," because in it (according to 1 Cor. xi. 26) we show forth the Lord's death till he come; we speak of it as a "presentation," because those who receive, in the Holy Communion, the blessings procured by the sacrifice of Christ, do at the same time, as sinners, plead that sacrifice before God; and we conceive the sense assigned to Christ's "continuous oblation in heaven" must be limited by the revealed fact (Heb. vii. 27; ix. 12 and 25–28; x. 10 and 18) that his sacrifice for sin was made complete, once for all, before he ascended to heaven. I feel bound in conclusion to add that, on further reflection, I have less confidence than I had before as to the strict consistency of the language of this Article with the language of the English Book of Common Prayer.'

Dr. Liddon dissented from this protest, and expressed his agreement with the Article in the full sense of its language. Döllinger and the Old Catholics were silent. There is, however, no precise correspondence between the original 'representation and presentation' and the German translation, 'Darstellung und Vergegenwärtigung;' and both terms are capable of different interpretations.

[Note.—Bishop Reinkens and Bishop Herzog, consecrated by Reinkens, Sept. 18, 1876, were excommunicated by Pius IX., Dec. 6, 1876, in these words: 'By the authority of Almighty God, we excommunicate and anathematize the sacrilegious consecration of Edward Herzog and all those assisting at the sacrilegious consecration,' etc., Acta sed. sanc. IX., 595. The Jansenist Abp. of Utrecht was excommunicated by Leo XIII., Feb. 28, 1893. An Old Catholic Confession of Faith was signed, Sept., 1889, by the Abp. of Utrecht and the Bishops of Haarlem and Deventer, and by Bishops Reinkens and Herzog. For the text, see Mirbt, 488, 574.—Ed.]