Our Message to Other Apostolic Christians

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West)

The Ancient Church of the West is a small, local catholic jurisdiction, independent of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates, as was the practice of the Early Church in the first four centuries of Christianity. We maintain the Apostolic Faith and Practice of the Undivided Church, the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and the historic liturgical forms of English Catholicism, otherwise known as "Anglocatholicism." Our bishops are in Apostolic Succession by the laying on of hands and the invocation of the Holy Spirit from the ancient sees of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Rome, Canterbury, the Scottish Non-Jurors and the Old Catholics of the Polish National Catholic Church. 

As a small church, one often hears a litany of questions regarding the necessity of "yet one more small group." It is important to know what we bring to the table and what our unique burdens and callings are in the larger context of worldwide Christianity. Contrary to what people may suspect, we do not exist in a state of schism or reaction to others. Instead, we exist because our ecclesiology is fully realized on a local level (bishop, priests, deacons and the gathering of the faithful people of God) and we invite to Holy Communion all who hold the orthodox faith, have been baptized in the name of the Trinity, and have received the laying on of hands of a bishop in Succession for the reception of the Holy Spirit. Through our repentance, faith and communion with Christ and our love and mutual submission with our brothers and sisters, we are in full communion with all those whom Christ has called into His Body, the Church.

While we have much in common with our brothers and sisters in the Roman Church, we do not believe that being members of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church necessitates submission to the Bishop of Rome. We do concede the Pope's rightful and canonical place within the Church as "Primus Inter Pares," or the "First Among Equals," which was the role the Pope played in the first millennium of the Undivided Church. Unfortunately, Roman Catholics have increasingly accepted an unnecessary and hurtful doctrine of papal centrality, primacy, infallibility and anti-conciliarism since the Great Schism. Based on these errors, which were dogmatized at Vatican I's proclamation of papal infallibility, the Roman Catholics have become trapped with an inaccurate paradigm of God's grace flowing only through the person of the Pope. 

While we use many of the ancient and received patterns of English worship that are common to Anglocatholics around the world, and that have, from time to time, been embraced by the Anglican Communion, we are not submitted to the worldwide Anglican Communion or defined by their councils - some of which have been in contradiction to Scripture, the Fathers and the Canons of the Ancient Church. The 39 Articles and the Decisions of the Lambeth Conferences are not binding upon us and are only considered contextually by our bishops. Anglicans have compromised the Apostolic Tradition by allowing the foibles and tendencies of our contemporary political correctness to undermine the rock-solid teachings of the Ancient Church in areas of sexuality, priesthood, divorce and remarriage, and the absolutely essential and non-negotiable dogma of the Sacraments. Some Anglicans have become substantially protestantized, including bishops, and have turned away from faithful teachings because of itching ears and a desire to "be on the right side of history," compromising God's unchanging truth for relevancy and status.

We are closest in ecclesiology, faith and practice to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and may be called "Western Rite Orthodox" without compromising our Anglocatholic identity. We see that the Orthodox strive to be doctrinally faithful whilst being politically unfaithful to Christ's Command for Evangelism and Servanthood. Orthodoxy has moved to a power paradigm, the princely management style of the Byzantine State, rather than keeping their eyes on pastoral service and the essential capacity of evangelism in the Church as being of equal importance to sound doctrine and right practice. They will only do the Great Commission when they have territories carved out, leading to overlapping jurisdictions and much "soft schism" between churches that maintain communion on paper. This rejects the reality that cultures only convert and become ecclesial territories after the Good News of the Apostolic Gospel has been properly, humbly, self-sacrificingly shared over many generations. The West, and the Far East, must hear a fully orthodox and apostolic Gospel for conversion to Christ, and this must be done with humility, earnestness, and a return to the norms of the Early Church - local leadership, married clergy, and a recognition that service and pastoral ministry are the foundation of priestly authority.

It is the our unique calling to speak to all three of these errors, in Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy, and call Apostolic Christians back to the fullness of the Faith, once and for all delivered to the Saints. With right focus on the Fathers and the Early Church, these three groups must return to the order, sacramental unity, doctrinal clarity and prophetic role of the Early Church - they will all, by God's grace, be reunited in one, orthodox, catholic, apostolic and Holy Church. God will use persecution, postmodernism, dechristianization and secularism as the fire through which our political dross will burn away and we will be melded and molded into a more unified likeness of Christ. We are called to this by Christ Himself, Who is the Head of the Church. He prayed that we might be one, "even as we are one." This work must never stop, and must only be eclipsed by the pressing needs for worldwide evangelism.