In the Old Catholic Church’s self-understanding, the word ‘old’ refers to the spirit of authenticity – the spirit of the early Christian communities to which the Old Catholic Church professes its allegiance. The term ‘Catholic’ is derived from the Greek word katholikós (meaning ‘as a whole’, ‘general’, ‘universal’).

In Germany: Old Catholic Church; in Austria: Old Catholic Church; in Switzerland: Christian Catholic Church, Église catholique-chrétienne, Chiesa cattolica cristiana.

English: Old Catholic Church; French: Église vieille-catholique; Polish: Kościół Polskokatolicki (Polish Catholic Church); Dutch: Oud-Katholieke Kerk; Czech: Starokatolická církev; Croatian: Starokatolička crkva; Swedish: Gammalkatolska kyrkan.

Old Catholic Christians reject, amongst other things, the doctrine introduced at the First Vatican Council (1870), the dogma of papal infallibility and the primacy of jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, because, in their view, these contradict the teachings of early Christianity. In its theological self-understanding, the Old Catholic Church draws upon the biblical and patristic heritage of the undivided Church of the first millennium.

The Old Catholic movement is based on the non-recognition of the dogmas of the First Vatican Council (1870). Clergy and professors from Munich, Breslau/Wrocław, Prague/Praha and Bonn, amongst others, publicly voiced their protest against the papal bull *Pastor aeternus*, whereupon they were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. In order to continue providing pastoral care for the excommunicated faithful who had joined them, they organised themselves into associations and parishes. These, in turn, united under the name ‘Old Catholic Church’.

In Germany, a church constitution was adopted at the first synod in 1873, and Josef Hubert Reinkens (1821–1896) was elected as the first bishop, who was subsequently consecrated by Bishop Heykamp of Deventer. At present, the German Old Catholic Church has its episcopal see in Bonn.

Old Catholic Church of the Transfiguration of Our Lord
Christi/now the Kontaktkathedrale,
Warnsdorf/Varnsdorf
(postcard: c. 1930)
[Herr/Böblingen Archive, Warnsdorf].

In Austria, the first parish was established in Vienna after 1870 on the initiative of the parish priest Alois Anton, and another in Ried in Lower Austria on the initiative of the parish priest Josef Brader. At the same time, Anton Nittel founded a parish in Warnsdorf/Varnsdorf in Northern Bohemia. The Old Catholic movement in Northern Bohemia was the strongest in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at that time (it comprised almost 10,000 Old Catholics in 1896) and continued to grow after the First World War and the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic. In 1897, the seat of the diocese for the entire monarchy was moved from Vienna to Warnsdorf. The Old Catholic Church in Austria was long denied state recognition. The Old Catholic sacraments, in particular baptisms and marriages, as well as the marriages of Old Catholic priests, were declared invalid by the official Roman Catholic authorities. Following the collapse of the monarchy, a new Old Catholic diocese with its seat in Vienna was established for Austria in 1920.

The bishop’s see in Warnsdorf remained intact; the associated diocese was now situated on Czech territory and centred on the predominantly German-inhabited region of Czechoslovakia. During the 1930s, the inclination of German-speaking Old Catholics towards National Socialism gave rise to conflicts within the Old Catholic Church and led many Old Catholics to lose their loyalty to the Czechoslovak Republic. Following the Munich Agreement (1938) and the occupation of the so-called Sudetenland, the Old Catholics of Northern Bohemia became members of the German Old Catholic Church, with the dioceses of Bonn, Vienna and Warnsdorf. Following the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939, the Old Catholics living within its borders were placed under the jurisdiction of the parish of Brno, which belonged to the Diocese of Vienna until 1945. After the Second World War, the Old Catholic Church of Czechoslovakia suffered significant losses in numbers due to the expulsion of the Germans between 1945 and 1947; only around ten per cent of the former parishioners remained in the country, amounting to some 2,500 people. During the period of communist dictatorship after 1948, the Old Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia was effectively dissolved and was only re-established in 1990 by a church leadership that had emerged from illegality. Since then, the Old Catholic parishes in the Czech Republic have been growing once more. As part of bilateral projects, contact has been established between the ‘historic’ parishes in the Czech Republic and the ‘new’ parishes in Germany founded by displaced German-speaking Old Catholics, for example between Gablonz/Jablonec nad Nisou and Neugablonz. The Old Catholic Diocese of Czechoslovakia, or rather the Czech Republic, was based in Warnsdorf until 1995; and since 1996 it has been in Prague, where a Czech-speaking parish had existed since around 1899, professing the Hussite tradition or the Utraquist Church (Calixtines). However, the Czech-speaking Old Catholics remained a minority within the territory of what is now the Czech Republic until the end of the Second World War.

Among the Old Catholic centres during the early days of the Old Catholic Church was Breslau/Wrocław, which in the 1870s was a culturally and economically significant centre of Prussia. The Polish Catholic Church in Poland (known until 1951 as the Polish National Catholic Church of America) originally emerged amongst Polish emigrants in the USA and saw the establishment of parishes in Poland in 1920. The Polish Catholic Church now has three dioceses: Warsaw, Wrocław and Kraków-Częstochowa.

In countries where the small number of Old Catholic believers made it impossible to establish a separate diocese, the International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference sets up delegate territories which fall under the jurisdiction of a bishop of the Union of Utrecht. These currently include the four parishes in the former Yugoslavia (now Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina), the Mission de France and a parish in Malmö.

The Old Catholic Churches of the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland joined together in 1889 to form the Union of Utrecht.^[1] The Union of Utrecht emphasises the relative independence of the local churches, episcopal (apostolic) succession and the Eucharist as the focal point of church life. The Union of Utrecht is active in ecumenical relations. The Old Catholic Church has been in full ecclesiastical communion with the Anglican Church since 1931. There is a consensus on matters of faith with the Orthodox Churches. At the level of the local churches, there are also agreements with other churches regarding ecclesiastical communion or mutual invitations to the Eucharist.

The so-called Utrecht Declaration of 1889 defines the Old Catholics’ understanding of the faith:

“We hold fast to the principle of the early Church, which Vincentius of Lerino expressed in the following statement: Id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est; hoc est etenim vere proprieque catholicum (We hold fast to that which has been believed by all the faithful, always and everywhere; for this is truly and properly Catholic).’

In accordance with this fundamental statement, Old Catholics profess the faith of the so-called Early Church, as expressed in the ecumenical creeds and the generally accepted dogmas and decisions of the ecumenical councils. Seven councils are recognised by Old Catholics: the First Council of Nicaea (325), the First Council of Constantinople (381), the Council of Ephesus (431), the Council of Chalcedon (451), the Second and Third Councils of Constantinople (553 and 680) and the Second Council of Nicaea (787). The Old Catholic Church recognises later theological teachings only if they are in accordance with the teachings of the early Church.

The Old Catholic national churches are organised on an episcopal-synodal basis; laypeople are also permitted to vote and have a say in the organisation of the Church. Individual confession is considered optional. Great emphasis is placed on the freedom of conscience of all believers. Divine services in the Old Catholic national churches are generally celebrated in the national language. Priestly celibacy is considered optional. The Old Catholic churches in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland practise the ordination of women. In the Czech Republic, women may be ordained as deacons.

• Urs von Arx, Maja Weyermann (eds.): Statutes of the International Old Catholic Bishops’ Conference (IBK). Official edition in five languages. Statutes of the Old Catholic Bishops united in the Union of Utrecht. Bern 2001 (International Ecclesiastical Journal 91/2001, supplement).
• Victor Conzemius: Catholicism without Rome. The Old Catholic Church Community. Zurich, Einsiedeln, Cologne 1969.
• Leo Donald Davis: The First Seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787). Their History and Theology. Collegeville 1990.
• Hans Josef Demmel: History of Old Catholicism in Austria. Kempten-Allgäu 1914.
• Christian Flügel: The Union of Utrecht and the History of its Churches. Norderstedt 2006.
• Karel Koláček: Vznik a vývoj starokatolického hnutí na území severních Čech do roku 1946 [The Emergence and Development of the Old Catholic Movement in Northern Bohemia up to 1946]. Brno 2006 (Deus et Gentes 3).
• Urs Küry: The Old Catholic Church. Its History, its Doctrine, its Mission. Expanded and with an afterword. 2nd ed. Stuttgart 1978 (The Churches of the World, Series A, 3).
• Stanko Marković: The Old Catholic Church in Yugoslavia. A historical account based on Old Catholic literature in Serbo-Croatian and German. Bern 2001 (Thesis, University of Bern).
• Johann Friedrich von Schulte: Old Catholicism. A History of its Development, Internal Organisation and Legal Status in Germany. Based on official records and authentic sources. Aalen 2002 (2nd reprint of the Giessen edition, 1887).
• Jan Visser: The Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht. In: International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 1 (2003), p. 68–85.

• Old Catholic Church in Germany www.alt-katholisch.de/
• Old Catholic Church in Croatia hrvatska-starokatolicka-crkva.com/
• Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands www.okkn.nl/
• Old Catholic Church in Austria www.altkatholiken.at/
• Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic www.starokatolici.cz
• Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland christkatholisch.ch/
• Polish Catholic Church www.polskokatolicki.pl/
• Utrecht Union www.utrechter-union.org/

Lucie Kodišová: Old Catholics. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2013. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32853 (accessed 22 June 2021).