Order of Corporate Reunion

Following the dissolution of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, the Order of Corporate Reunion was established in response to Apostolicae curae, which declared all Anglican ordinations "absolutely null and utterly void".{{Cite web|title=Apostolicae Curae (1896)|url=https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_le13ac.htm |access-date=2021-09-11|website=New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia}} Its founders were Frederick George Lee, Thomas Wimberley Mossman, and John Thomas Seccombe.{{Rp|page=23}} Its founders claimed consecration through Roman Catholic bishops, yet their alleged consecrators were not revealed until 2000.{{rp|22}} Lee self-styled as Bishop of Dorchester; Mossman as Bishop of Shelby; and Seccombe as Bishop of Caerleon.

During the initial existence of the Order of Corporate Reunion, Richard Williams Morgan and Charles Isaac Stevens were both allegedly consecrated within the OCR on 6 March 1879.{{Rp|page=24}} Morgan had been previously consecrated by Jules Ferrette of the Ancient British Church. According to Church of England priest Henry R. T. Brandreth, however, "it is very unlikely, however, that any of the {{abbr|OCR|Order of Corporate Reunion}} bishops performed a consecration" of Stevens.{{cite book |last=Brandreth |first=Henry R. T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Vby2MepOiRAC&pg=PA50 |title=Episcopi vagantes and the Anglican Church |date=1947 |publisher=Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge |isbn=978-0-89370-558-9 |pages=50, 65 |authorlink=Henry R. T. Brandreth}} According to one claimed successor of the original OCR, following Arnold Mathew's controversy with the Old Catholic Churches of Utrecht, he was conditionally ordained and consecrated in November 1909 by Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare.{{Cite web |last=Kersey |first=John |date=2017 |title=Arnold Harris Mathew and the Old Catholic Movement in England: 1908-52 |url=https://occna.org/pluginAppObj/pluginAppObj_85_01/arnold-harris-mathew-and-the-old-catholic-movement-in-england-1908-52-3rd-ed-01-17.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240815175159/https://occna.org/pluginAppObj/pluginAppObj_85_01/arnold-harris-mathew-and-the-old-catholic-movement-in-england-1908-52-3rd-ed-01-17.pdf |archive-date=2024-08-15 |access-date=2024-08-15 |website=Old Catholic Church of North America |page=81}} Conybeare was consecrated in 1894 by Lee, Mossman, and Seccombe.

Becoming later disillusioned with the OCR and believing that he had made a mistake, Lee was received into the Catholic Church, shortly before his death. Mossman and Seccombe were also received into the Catholic Church, yet neither of the three were formally recognized as bishops. Following their deaths, the original order fell dormant until its revival between 1911 and 1912.{{rp|24–26}}

Arnold Mathew, a former Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Old Catholic turned Independent or Old Roman Catholic bishop, re-established the OCR. According to Brandreth, it "seems still to exist in a shadowy underground way" in 1947, but disconnected.{{rp|page=18}}Colin Holden, through Ritualist on a Tricycle, placed Mathew and his attempted revival of the OCR into perspective, writing that Mathew was an episcopus vagans, lived in a cottage provided for him, and performed his conditional OCR acts in this cottage—sometimes called according to Holden, "bedroom ordinations."{{cite book |last=Holden |first=Colin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=INLXz6614cUC&pg=PA272 |title=Ritualist on a Tricycle: Frederick Goldsmith, Church, Nationalism and Society in Western Australia, 1880-1920 |publisher=University of Western Australia Press |year=1997 |isbn=187556098X |series=Staples South West Region publication series |location=Nedlands, W.A. |page=272 |issn=1030-3359 |access-date=10 May 2013}}

Mathew questioned the validity of Anglican holy orders and became involved with the members of the order—in 1911 according to Edmonds—and he openly advertised his offer to reordain Anglican clergy who requested it, which angered the Church of England.{{cite ODNB|year=2013|orig-year=2012|last=Edmonds|first=Stephen|title=Mathew, Arnold Harris (1852–1919)|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/103378}} Questioning the validity of Anglican orders, Mathew, in his newspaper The Torch, stated "that the ordinations of the Church of England are not recognized by any church claiming to be Catholic."{{Rp|page=25}}

According to D. J. Scannell O'Neill's observations of Mathew, the Old Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain, and his revival of the OCR, the "most charitable construction to be placed on this latest move of Mathew is that he is not mentally sound. Being an Irishman, it is strange that he has not sufficient humor to see the absurdity of falling away from the Catholic Church in order to assist others to unite with the Holy See".{{cite journal |last=O'Neill |first=D. J. Scannell |date=September 1912 |editor-last=Preuss |editor-first=Arthur |editor-link=Arthur Preuss |title=The Revised Order of Corporate Re-Union |url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433068283641?urlappend=%3Bseq=187 |journal=The Fortnightly Review |location=Techny, IL |publisher=Arthur Preuss |volume=19 |issue=18 |pages=515–516 |lccn=15001974 |access-date=12 May 2013 |hdl=2027/nyp.33433068283641?urlappend=%3Bseq=187}} It was reported that "anything between 4 and 265 was suggested" as to how many took up his offer of reordination through the OCR.

According to one successor body of Mathew's revived OCR, the order grew in the United States of America through the conditional consecration of Ignatius Nichols—a former bishop of the American Orthodox Catholic Church led by Aftimios Ofiesh.{{Cite web |last=Damick |first=Fr Andrew Stephen |date=2009-07-18 |title=From Aftimios Ofiesh to The Satan Seller |url=https://www.orthodoxhistory.org/2009/07/17/from-aftimios-ofiesh-to-the-satan-seller/ |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=Orthodox History |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=History of the OCR |url=https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.org/history-of-the-ocr |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=Order of Corporate Reunion |language=en-US}} This OCR's membership would later claim the membership of Hugh George de Willmott Newman of the Catholicate of the West. Newman would also later become the head of this order, according to the successive claimant.

In 1998, another branch of the OCR was established by Diederik Quatannens; his leadership was succeeded by Bertil Persson.{{Cite web |date=2023-03-29 |title=The Order of Corporate Reunion |url=https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.com |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329213752/https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.com/ |archive-date=2023-03-29 |access-date=2023-06-30 |website=Order of Corporate Reunion}} After Persson's retirement, this division of the order was then led by Archbishop Peter Paul Brennan of the Old Catholic Confederation, who died in 2016.{{Cite web |title=Bishop Peter P. Brennan |url=https://www.occus.org/bishop-peter-p_-brennan |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609143106/http://www.occus.org/bishop-peter-p-brennan |archive-date=9 June 2021 |access-date=2021-09-11 |website=Old Catholic Confederation - Old Catholic Church in the United States |language=en-US}}

Following Brennan's death, Independent Catholic bishop Michael Kline of the Exorcist Order of Saint Michael in Missouri,{{Cite web|date=2012-06-21|title=Exorcist Order of Saint Michael|url=http://www.exorcistorder.com/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120621092943/http://www.exorcistorder.com/|archive-date=21 June 2012|access-date=2021-09-11|website=Exorcist Order of St. Michael}} claimed to have been entrusted as Brennan's successor the revived and branched order. Kline, alongside Persson and Brennan incorporated their branch of the OCR within the United States. During his tenure, this Order of Corporate Reunion schismed into at least three separate groups.

Another notable OCR branch has been based in the United Kingdom and led by John Kersey,{{Cite web |title=Clarification on the OCR (July 7, 2023) |url=https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.org/clarification-on-the-ocr |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=Order of Corporate Reunion |language=en-US}} also claimant successor to the defunct Catholicate of the West, dispenser of the Vilatte orders, and self-styled nobility.{{Cite web |title=The Talented Mr. Kersey: The Tory Pressure Group, the Diploma Mill, and the Tesco Tax Manager |url=https://vocal.media/theSwamp/the-talented-mr-kersey-the-tory-pressure-group-the-diploma-mill-and-the-tesco-tax-manager |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=The Swamp |language=en |quote=JohnKersey.org was set up around 2008 by Mr. Kersey with the intention of promoting his many titles. He had begun his research of various religious organisations and being a doctor just wasn’t enough for him. John Kersey decided that he should be a Bishop too and actually made claim to being the direct true heir to Saint Peter. Over the next few years he would revive dead orders of the church and say that he was now the head of them. John Kersey claims to be the adopted son and heir of Prince Kermit William Poling de Polanie-Patrikios of West Virginia, a descendant of the Byzantine Emperor Leo V Patrikios and of Rurik, ruler of Novgorod, and the head of the monarchist movement in exile of Belarus. He claims that in 2016 he was appointed a Pontifical Academician, becoming an Honorary Academician of the Pontificia Accademia Tiberina in Rome, and in 2017 was supposedly elected an Academician of Honor of the Norman Academy. John Kersey says on his website that he has earned numerous degrees from universities in Costa Rica and Panama.}}{{Cite web |date=2012-01-25 |title=Prince-Abbot |url=https://san-luigi.org/prince-abbot/ |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=The Abbey-Principality of San Luigi |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2020-07-14 |title=Response to material placed on Wikipedia by Robert Kobylinski and others |url=https://san-luigi.org/publications/currentdocuments/response-to-material-placed-on-wikipedia-by-robert-kobylinski-and-others/ |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=The Abbey-Principality of San Luigi |language=en}}

Upon the resignation of Kline as disputed primate over all of the Order of Corporate Reunion, Richard Cumming was appointed the leader of the branch incorporated in the United States by Brennan, Kline and Persson, in 2022. The following year, this branch led by Richard Cumming reorganized itself as its predecessor—the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom.{{Cite web |title=Notice |url=https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.com/notice |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=www.orderofcorporatereunion.com |language=en-US |quote=The existence of such division is certainly unfortunate as is the fact that many of the "competing" groups consist primarily of self-appointed clergy who possess no pastoral charge, who seem enamored by titles and honors instead of wishing to consecrate themselves to the service of the people of God, and who wish to include canonical bigamists, ladies, and homosexuals in their ranks. In recognition of this sad reality, we have made the reluctant decision to "rebrand." We will retain possession of our Missouri corporation and of our UK corporation. However, henceforth our public activity will be undertaken in the name of The Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, the title of our predecessor organization. This will enable us to continue to undertake the work of the Order of Corporate Reunion without engaging in these petty acrimonious disputes with various vagantes clerics.}} The organization's name and seal led by Kersey was also, as of 2023, a registered trademark within the United States of America.{{Cite web |title=US Federal Service Mark Grant |url=https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.org/service-mark-ocr |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=Order of Corporate Reunion |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Copyright of the Seal for the OCR |url=https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.org/copyright-of-the-seal-for-the-ocr |access-date=2025-03-18 |website=Order of Corporate Reunion |language=en-US}}

• John Edward Bazille-Corbin

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• [https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.com/home Order of Corporate Reunion] Richard Cumming branch.
• [https://www.orderofcorporatereunion.org Order of Corporate Reunion] John Kersey branch.