Old Catholicism in Switzerland, the history of its origins and the current state

The Second International Old Catholic Congress, held in September last 1892, for which one of the most picturesque cities in Switzerland, Lucerne, was chosen, involuntarily drew everyone’s attention to this small country, which had more than once been the center of large, both church-religious and political movements. The people living in these inaccessible mountains have long been distinguished by a certain spirit of independence and, in the struggle for their freedom, put forward heroes who became synonymous with every liberation movement. It is not surprising, therefore, that in modern times, when in the Western Christian world a movement began towards liberation from the intolerable tyranny of ultramontanism, which did not stop before the proclamation of the blasphemous dogma of papal infallibility at the Vatican Council of 1870, this movement found a living echo in the hearts of the Swiss people, the result of which was the origin of Old Catholicism in Switzerland, which in the past Congress showed his best side. In view of this, it would not be superfluous to briefly sketch both the history of this movement and the state of the Old Catholic community there at the present time 1. The first beginnings of the Old Catholic movement in Switzerland date back to the very meetings of the Vatican Council, the progress of affairs at which the population, like the government of this country, followed with intense attention. There were reasons for this. Switzerland had previously experienced a lot of ecclesiastical and political unrest, which were almost exclusively based on the intrigues of the Jesuits and the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Already from the first decades of this century, attempts began in Switzerland to throw off the papal yoke, one of which, by the way, was made by the free-thinking Vicar Wessenberg, who incurred the disfavor of the Vatican by trying to introduce worship in German, caring for better education of the clergy, limiting holidays and other transformations in an extremely neglected area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe church and religious life of the people. From that time on, the Curia began to be generally suspicious of Switzerland, and when in 1833 the question of restoring an independent metropolitanate arose there, Pope Gregory XVI condemned this movement as schismatic and, through his agents, began agitation against any renewal of church life, which in turn led to reprisals from the Swiss government, so that more than once it came to open uprisings and bloody clashes between hostile parties, so called old and young Switzerland. During this struggle, the cantons were divided into parties. Lucerne became the nest of the most ardent ultramontanism, and the canton of Aargau became a representative of the opposite trend. In 1844, the last canton announced a proposal to expel the Jesuits, as the main culprits of all church-political unrest, from all of Switzerland, but this proposal could only be implemented after a new civil strife, namely after the defeat of the Ultramontane cantons (1847), which concluded a “special” alliance (Sonderbund), which threatened the political integrity of the country. This victory of the free-thinking cantons led to the publication of a new constitution (1848), by virtue of which the Jesuits were expelled and complete freedom of conscience and equality of religions were declared. Despite this defeat, Ultramontanism did not resign itself and continued to carry out agitation in the cantons most devoted to it, where, despite the strict prohibition, little by little and under various pretexts the main servants of the papal throne, the Jesuits, did not hesitate to enter and return, who soon again concentrated in their hands all the threads of Ultramontan aspirations and harassment. The Jesuits continued to spread out their network of schools and educational institutions, carried out free or forced conversions, invaded all areas of life, even in the area of ​​industry and trade, everywhere causing extreme confusion and irritation in society. Ultramontanism seems to have triumphed, especially in the canton of Geneva. But this triumph only prepared the ground for a new strong anti-Ultramontan movement, which found expression in Old Catholicism. In view of the indicated state of affairs, it is not surprising that public opinion in Switzerland treated the Vatican Council, which had as its task to give a dogmatic sanction to the ultramontanism it hated, with the most serious attention. “The progress of affairs at the council,” says Bishop Herzog in his message, “was everywhere followed with the most intense attention, and the agitation of minds reached the highest degree when it became certain that the majority of the bishops assembled in Rome would speak out for the dogmatization of the doctrine of papal infallibility. In German Switzerland, this teaching had hitherto not been preached either in the religious education of youth, or in theological institutions, or from pulpits. Even after the opening of the council, in strictly papist-minded, but less informed circles of German Switzerland, they argued with complete seriousness that this was simply an invention of the enemies of the church, who, with malicious intent, spread the rumor that the council would declare the pope infallible. The main organ of Roman Catholic Switzerland 2 therefore joyfully welcomed the fact that the bishop of the diocese of Basel, Eugene Lacha, took with him to Rome a well-known opponent of the doctrine of papal infallibility, canon Prof. Tanner from Lucerne. And when they later heard that at least one Swiss bishop, Great of St. Gallen, joined the minority at the Vatican Council, the Catholic cantons were so happy about this that even persons distinguished by their strictly Roman Catholic tendency wrote an approving address to the said bishop and let it sign. The address, however, was not sent to Rome. The weak-willed Bishop Great, having heard of the proposal to greet him on the occasion of his position at the council, immediately ordered that it be reported that he would not accept the address, and admonished those responsible for taking better care of calming the agitation of minds among the people. The matter had obviously already been decided. If anyone at that time still spoke out against the new teaching, he was branded with the name of a disturber, or even an outright enemy of the church, and the Roman press no longer accepted articles directed against the tendency of the majority at the Vatican Council. This was the situation when, in April 1870, in Lucerne, four clergymen (these were the Lucerne pastor Schürch, two teachers of the gymnasium Helfenstein and Suppiger, and Professor Herzog) decided to publish a special weekly newspaper in defense of the “old Catholic teaching,” as they put it. It was first published on April 22, 1870 under the title: “The Catholic Voice from Waldstätten” 3 . The newspaper program contained the following final words: “nothing should push us away from love and devotion to our common mother, our Old Catholic Church, and its worthy traditions; on the contrary, it is precisely this that serves as a sign of unchanging loyalty and devotion to it, that in times of danger, even fear, even fear of the wrath of zealots does not prevent us from speaking the truth, as we feel obliged to do in our conscience. In any case, let our motto be: fiducialiter agam et non timebo (I will act faithfully and will not be afraid).” “The Voice” remained true to this motto. With fearlessness he argued, on the basis of St. Scripture and church history, the falsity and harm of Vatican doctrines, recounted sad events from the Vatican Council, reported extracts from the writings of minority bishops, announced the beginning of the struggle in Germany, etc. The result was extraordinary: the newspaper was read everywhere in Catholic Switzerland, and its articles were reprinted in all liberal newspapers. Only on October 6, 1870, Bishop Lasha made a sharp statement against the “Catholic Voice,” calling it a “great temptation” for his diocese and exhorting the faithful not to pay any attention to it. At the beginning of 1871, all seven Roman bishops of Switzerland joined in this statement in one no less harsh message. Those four priests who published the newspaper had only one choice: either stop the newspaper, or, otherwise, complete the break with the Roman hierarchy. They decided in favor of the former; only one of them (it was prof. Duke) continued to fight in political newspapers, and in the fall of 1871 he was repeatedly summoned to episcopal commissions with a demand to frankly explain his position in relation to the new dogma. To these commissions prof. The Duke openly declared that he did not recognize new dogmas, considered it a duty of his conscience to stand for the truth, and would throw off his anonymity as soon as he was sufficiently convinced that his personality and position could provide real service to a good cause. This time he did not suffer any ecclesiastical punishment. But, a year later (in September 1872), he went to the Old Catholic Congress in Cologne and declared from there in an open letter to the Bishop of Lasch that he had joined the Old Catholic movement and assumed pastoral duties in the second Old Catholic community in Prussia (Krefeld), since until then there was only one other Old Catholic community in Cologne. Meanwhile, in Switzerland, opposition to the false Vatican teachings was becoming increasingly serious. This was especially evident in the diocese of Basel. The local bishop of Lasha returned to his diocese soon after July 18, 1870, and was received very coldly in Solothurn, where he had his residence. The governments of some cantons had already decided not to recognize Catholicism, modified by the Vatican Council, as the Catholic religion, which, in accordance with the constitution, was guaranteed full state protection, so it was decided to deny state recognition to Vatican decrees. On September 8, 1870, on behalf of the government of the six cantons, through the government councilor of the canton of Solothurn (Landamann Vigier), this was officially reported to the Bishop of Lacha and, according to this, he was required to stop publishing the new teaching of the faith. If Lasha wanted to give ecclesiastical legal significance to the new decrees through official actions, a threat was made to close the diocese. Since the papal secretary of state, Cardinal Antonelli, already on August 11, 1870, in a note addressed to the papal nuncio in Brussels, stated that there was no need for further publication of new dogmas, they hoped that Bishop Lacha would be prudent enough to stop such publication for his part and thus avoid a fatal collision with the government. Meanwhile, in his Lenten message of February 6, 1871, he spoke at length about the new teaching, declared that every Catholic was obliged to believe in it, and called those who did not want to accept it “false teachers and enemies of the church.” For the official reading of this pastoral letter in ecclesiastical dioceses, it was necessary to obtain permission (placet) from the governments of the individual cantons. Bishop Lasha tried to obtain this permission, but so late that, for example, in the canton of Bern, the reading of the message had already taken place when the government had just learned about it. In other cantons (Aargau, Basel), approval was not given, and in some, individual pastors personally allowed themselves to cross out those parts of the episcopal letter that related to the Vatican Council. The latter was done in Lucerne, by the way, by the prison pastor I. B. Egli. He himself immediately declared his action to the episcopal commissioner in Lucerne, adding to the statement a protest against the new false teaching. Consequently, he was solemnly excommunicated on March 10, 1871, and when the government then passed into the hands of the adherents of the papacy in May 1871, he was deprived of his place. Egli remained true to his convictions, but suffered great need, until in December 1872 he was unanimously elected as pastor by the small congregation of Olsberg in Aargau. Pastor Peacock Gschwind from Starkirch (in Solothurn) rebelled against the Vatican decrees with no less steadfastness. Already in 1870, under the name “Peregrina,” he published an essay against celibacy. Who the author of this work was, it was, so to speak, a well-known secret. Demanded by the episcopal chancellor for an explanation about this work, he did not renounce it. And when Gschwind then did not read to his community that part of the bishop’s message that spoke about infallibility, he was again summoned for explanations with the bishop. On October 30, 1872, Bishop Lasha sent a sentence of excommunication to his home, through two clergy adjacent to him, and declared him deposed. This verdict was based in part on completely false assumptions. Thus, Gschwind was accused of having signed an approving address to the excommunicated Döllinger (in fact, in Switzerland only Prof. Duke); that he published a message in the Catholic Voice that was offensive to the bishop (by the way, this message was made by a completely different pastor); that he published in the Bund an article offensive to the episcopal commissioner (meanwhile, the editors announced that the article was not sent to it by Gschwind), etc. Excommunicated and declared deposed, the pastor turned to the defense of the Solothurn government, and since the majority of the community remained faithful to him, he continued his pastoral work. The government declared the deposition pronounced by the Bishop of Lasha to be unfounded and without force, and convened representatives of the cantons of the diocese to inform them of such action by the bishop. Commissioners from five cantons (Aargau, Basel, Bern, Solothurn and Thurgau) attended the meeting. They issued a written statement to the Bishop of Lacha on November 19, 1872, in which they repeated that the Vatican decrees in their cantons had no legal significance, and therefore none of the clergy who rejected these decrees could be punished. On the basis of this, Lasch was required to unconditionally revoke the sentence of excommunication pronounced on the two pastors, Egli and Gschwind, within three weeks. Meanwhile, several large meetings of the laity had already taken place, which were an expression of the mood of the majority of the Catholic population. When the news of the dogmatization of papal infallibility and papal sovereignty penetrated the Alps, the indignation at the occasion of such a shameful yoke now being imposed on the believers was so great that the Old Catholic movement would have immediately embraced all strata of the population if, simultaneously with this news from the south, terrible news had not arrived from the north, which immediately absorbed everyone's attention: it was the news of the declaration of war between France and Germany. But as soon as the war moved away from the border of Switzerland, public opinion again took up the church issue. Of course, some were indifferent, others were fearful, others were prudently cautious. Meanwhile, in all larger places, whole hundreds and thousands responded to the call when some zealots of church truth issued an invitation to public discussion of the state of church affairs. So March 31, 1871 A meeting was held in Lucerne, in the presence of several hundred Catholic citizens, which unanimously voted for the rejection of Vatican dogmas and the provisions of the syllabus. A similar meeting, held in the episcopal city of Solothurn, declared (April 29, 1871) the Vatican decrees “a mockery of reason,” protested against the proposal to teach them in school or church, and came up with the idea of ​​​​founding a union that could embrace all like-minded people in Switzerland. Similar decisions were made at lay meetings in Olten, Basel and Zurich. Thus, on September 18, 1871, the first general meeting of Swiss Catholics was held in Solothurn, which, almost unanimously rejecting the proposal to leave the Catholic Church, at the same time unanimously decided to ask the cantonal governments: 1) declare the teachings of the syllabus of 1864 and the Vatican decrees of 1870 incompatible with Swiss state law and not allow their introduction into the teaching of religion in schools; 2) to favor the separation of private church communities or unions from the church that has accepted the false dogma, through the protection of their rights to church property, and 3) to provide communities with a free (independent of infallibilistic, i.e., adherents of the new dogma, bishops) choice of priests for themselves. The soul of these worldly meetings was Dr. Munzinger, professor of law at the Berne High School, who, being about 40 years old, already enjoyed high respect throughout Switzerland and, distinguished by religious warmth and patriotism, was at the same time a learned man, an eloquent speaker and an energetic figure. He took part in all large meetings, to which he addressed fiery speeches; not a single resolution was drawn up that was not either formulated by him or, at least, corrected by him. Together with Landamann Keller, who for half a century had enjoyed enormous influence in all public affairs of the Swiss people, Professor Munzinger also attended the first German Old Catholic Congress in Munich (from September 22 to 24, 1871). Professor Herzog from Lucerne also acted in concert with him. However, at the request of influential persons, none of the clergy took an active part in these worldly meetings; hence these meetings did not lead to the formation of Old Catholic communities. The resolutions passed at them were accepted silently by the Roman press, and were more and more considered quite harmless. But the excommunication of Pastor Gschwind gave a sign to a more practical struggle against the invasion of Vatican false teaching. Throughout liberal Switzerland, only one mood prevailed: it was necessary to support the small rural community of Starkirch, which remained faithful to its excommunicated pastor. But the success of this endeavor could not be particularly counted on when it remained the only Old Catholic community in Switzerland. Therefore, work has now begun in earnest on the formation of new Old Catholic communities. For this purpose, the second general meeting of Swiss Catholics was convened on December 1, 1872. Professor Reinkens from Breslau (later bishop of the German Old Catholics) was also invited to it. The city of Olten, which has long been distinguished by freethinking, provided its Catholic parish church to the congregation of several thousand people. Professors Reinkens and Munzinger, with their speeches, brought the meeting to the highest animation. Munzinger, himself a citizen of Olten, drew up a project for the founding of a Swiss Union of Freethinking Catholics, a project which was unanimously adopted by the assembly. Having thus entered into life, the union was called the “central committee”, the most influential member of which was Professor Munzinger. The extremely brilliant outcome of the Olten meeting encouraged friends of the Old Catholic movement in other places. Reinkens was invited to give lectures from Olten to Solothurn, Lucerne, Bern, Basel and Rheinfelden. Everywhere he found unusually numerous listeners who listened with sympathy to his animated speech. In view of such a favorable turn of affairs, Professor Munzinger immediately established relations with Professor Herzog, who was pastor in Krefeld, and asked him to return to his fatherland, and he gave him a choice between the communities in Olten and Solothurn. The Duke chose Olten, was elected in March 1873, and returned to Switzerland at the beginning of April to take over pastoral care of the Olten community. On the first day of Easter, April 13, his ceremonial inauguration took place. Olten's example was followed a few weeks later by the neighboring community of Trimbach. And here, too, the Roman Catholic pastor was dismissed, and in his place the Old Catholic priest Ludwig Kielchian from Lucerne was elected and installed by the Duke. In many other towns and villages of German Switzerland, communal meetings were held whose purpose, as a formal communal decision, was to declare the rejection of the teachings of the syllabus and the Vatican decrees. In some communities of the canton of Aargau (Rheinfelden, Olsberg, Mumpf, Melen, Laufenburg, Lenzburg) this took place in full agreement with the clergy; in others (Zurich, Magden, Solothurn, Basel, S. Gallen, etc.) such a decision led to a new election of clergy, or, if the majority remained on the Roman side, at least to the founding of special Old Catholic communities; then in many other communities the matter was limited to only this verbal decision, because at the moment there was a shortage of clergy who could renounce Vaticanism in the corresponding church-community life. But, in any case, the Old Catholic movement in German Switzerland already had a history of several years behind it, and, with the founding of many Old Catholic communities, this movement had already become significantly stronger by the time it appeared in French Switzerland. In French Switzerland, however, the soil for the Old Catholic movement was much less favorable. There, for example, there was not a single clergyman who would have had enough insight and courage to come out with an open protest against the new false teaching. The clergy, educated in the French way in seminaries, were accustomed to slavish obedience, and the liberal laity, as in France itself, for the most part treated religious matters with cold indifference. Therefore, in order to awaken interest in the transformative Old Catholic movement, a special external reason was needed. The first reason for the Old Catholic movement in French Switzerland was the clash between the government of the Canton of Geneva and the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Even when in 1864 the Genevan Father Mermillot, a Jesuit disciple of the purest water, was appointed bishop to Geneva, the government greeted this appointment with great disapproval. When, in spite of this, the Vatican, continuing its policy towards the Canton of Geneva, increased the powers of this bishop, making him an apostolic vicar general with unlimited powers in the canton, the government demanded of Mermillot that he renounce his office and title, and when he responded to this demand with a proud declaration that he was ready to obey God rather than people, the government decided to remove him from the canton until he will not comply with this requirement. Meanwhile, when the bishop, having settled in neighboring Ferney, tirelessly continued to fan the fire of opposition to the government in the Genevan clergy and people, the government also did not retreat from its position and, in order to weaken the strength of episcopal power, through a popular vote, issued a special church law, according to which, among other things, the choice of priests was left to the communities. Since the Roman Catholic population, under the influence of the suggestions of the pope and the hierarchy, did not recognize this law and therefore did not take part in the elections, this circumstance could not have been more favorable for the Old Catholics, which their leaders did not fail to take advantage of. In March 1873, three years after the Old Catholic movement began in German Switzerland, Fr. Hyacinthe Loison, in order to found old Catholic communities there under his leadership. Since the election of priests, which had recently taken place and was granted to the people, gave an advantage to the Old Catholics, several Old Catholic communities were formed in the Canton of Geneva, in a relatively short time and without much difficulty. Loison, who had previously been a Roman Catholic priest, had already married before moving to Geneva and thereby effectively abolished celibacy. In Geneva, he immediately declared private confession a matter of personal desire, which was also tantamount to the virtual abolition of the Roman confessional, and from the very beginning he celebrated the liturgy in French. These changes in places aroused confusion in German Switzerland even among those who did not actually disapprove of the movement; in general, the opinion was expressed that such radical transformations could only be undertaken by properly established church authorities, namely the synod, and that individuals should wait until such authorities were established. That's why Prof. The Duke, who pastored Olten, at first refused to enter into any relations with Loison. Only on July 9, 1873 did he enter into negotiations with him. But the laity of German and French Switzerland had already been in contact with each other before. From all sides during these relations it was recognized that there was an urgent need for the formation of a common church government. To discuss the basic principles of such church governance and the first necessary transformations, a meeting of representatives of the “Swiss Union of Free-thinking Catholics” was convened on August 22, 1873. With this the Old Catholic movement in Switzerland entered a new stage. Although this new stage clearly indicated that the Old Catholic movement had reached a certain maturity, which required the embodiment of its principles into a coherent church system, at the same time it cannot be said that the work of the movement continued to encounter extremely serious difficulties. The leaders of the movement had to go through an extremely difficult and thorny path before they were able to lay a solid foundation for a new church organization. In addition to the mass of open opponents, they had to fear most of all their so-called friends, for whom the religious question was only a means to political ends. Their most dangerous friends were the so-called free thinkers, for whom the mere name of a bishop seemed like a bogeyman, while the movement could only gain stability if it was able to develop into a system of episcopacy. In addition, the movement lost one of its most energetic leaders, suffering an irreplaceable loss in the person of Professor Munzinger, who died shortly before the first meeting of the commissioners († April 28, 1873). Therefore, anyone who has not himself experienced various difficulties and obstacles during the following years can hardly sufficiently appreciate the unshakable courage of faith which, despite all difficulties, was able to so firmly establish the Old Catholic Church in Switzerland. At the Olten meeting of August 22, 1873, ninety representatives appeared from more than forty communities and unions, but its discussions regarding the new church organization were limited to a resolution to postpone the actual dispensation of the church indefinitely. At the second meeting of the commissioners, held on June 14, 1874 in Bern, internal disagreements only became even more pronounced. Only at the third meeting (from September 21, 1874 in Olten) was the foundation of church government, concentrated in the synod and bishop, so laid that the necessary elections could then take place, and on June 14, 1875, the first Old Catholic or, more precisely, “Christian Catholic National Council” 4 actually took place. But even now, despite the persistent desires of the Genevans, things did not come to the point of electing a bishop. Only the second synod (on June 7, 1876) became the birthday of the Swiss Catholic national episcopate, and at the same time the Christ-Catholic Church itself in Switzerland. Prof. was elected to the position of bishop by a majority of votes. Duke 5, and the chosen one was solemnly consecrated on September 18, 1876 by the German Bishop Reinkens in the parish church in Rheinfelden. The content provided to the new bishop was at first extremely poor, but he could not be denied state recognition, and the less external funds were, the more the young church had to seek strengthening for itself “in the spirit of the ancient confessors.” After the election of the bishop, the development of Christ's Catholic Church took a more correct course. The synods prescribed by the charter met annually. At them, church reforms were discussed, reports were read on the most important events in individual communities, officials were re-elected, affairs of general administration were streamlined, etc. As a result, internal reforms and even the external growth of the church could become a subject of general interest. Already at the synod at which the bishop was elected, transformative decisions were drawn up that were of fundamental importance. Unionist conferences had already taken place in Bonn (in September 1874 and 1875), and, in view of them, the elderly president of the Christ-Catholic synodal council, Landamann Keller of Aargau, invited the synod to express his heartfelt sympathy with the aspirations for unity that had begun. Professor Michaud, taking advantage of this occasion, proposed to the synod a statement by which the Christ-Catholic Church more accurately defined its own theological basis. Both proposals were, with minor changes, accepted by the synod. The Synod stated that it “welcomes the aspirations of the Old Catholic Church in Germany to achieve unity with the Protestant, Greek and Anglican churches as a great thing, already predicted by the Founder of the Christian religion and contained in the will of Divine Providence, and, to the best of our ability, is ready to contribute to its successful completion.” Christ himself was then recognized as the sole head of the church, only the councils of the undivided church of East and West were recognized by ecumenical councils, “Catholic morality is only the morality of the gospel, as it is understood by the universal, constant and unanimous witness of Christian local churches; Catholic discipline and liturgy - only that discipline and liturgy as it was generally accepted and performed in the undivided church.” This fundamental decision of the first synod served as the basis for all individual church reforms. Practically the most important of them, but at the same time presenting the greatest difficulties, was the solution to the question of liturgy. The liturgical transformation carried out by Loison in Geneva, not only in the Bernese Jura, but also in German Switzerland, seemed to the population almost an impudent arbitrariness with which the shrine was profaned. It also soon became obvious that it was not enough to simply translate the liturgical prayers from Latin into the vernacular, but that it was necessary to transform the liturgy itself. But many retreated from this difficult and responsible work with fear. Therefore, at first in German Switzerland, matters were limited to the use of the former Latin liturgy, and the vernacular language was used only during the celebration of the sacraments, during burial, during evening services, during blessings in church, etc. Fortunately, German communities could already take advantage of the Wessenberg ritual of 1831 in this regard. It was already used in many Catholic communities in German Switzerland and remained in use until the very beginning of the Old Catholic movement. This made the work extremely easy for the Old Catholics of Switzerland. The Olten Synod (1876) appointed a commission to publish a new missal. The commission revised Wessenberg's missal and proposed it to the Berne Synod (1877). At the synod in Aargau (1878), the French edition of this service book also received church approval. It was more difficult to reach agreement on the issue of liturgy itself. The Synod of 1876 expressly allowed, “where desirable,” the translation of liturgical prayers and liturgical chants into the vernacular, and took care of the publication of a “missal.” But only after various preliminary works was the synod of 1880 finally presented with a “general prayer book,” 6 which was adopted unanimously. The liturgy contained in it has since been translated into English (in America); Likewise, its French edition was approved by the synod of 1881. The question of liturgy was then connected with the question of communion under both types. In view of numerous and repeated petitions, the synod of 1878 declared by a significant majority that communion under both types is catholic and permissible communion. On December 18, 1878, the bishop issued an archpastoral letter, where he established the form in which communion was to be celebrated. At Christmas 1878, in all the churches of the Geneva canton, as well as in the parish church in Chaudefond (Chaux de-fond in Neuenburg), communion was given to the faithful under both types. In most German communities, however, communion, due to the habit of the people, was performed under one guise, although no one was denied the cup who just wanted it. The issue regarding private confession was resolved much faster. And this question is also about. Hyacinthe Loison actually decided in Geneva before the synod could deal with it. The Basel community followed his example in German Switzerland. At the proposal of this community, the synod of 1876 declared private confession a matter of personal desire. But, in order not to leave believers without proper guidance in the matter of serious preparation for receiving St. communion, a special charter was included in the missal regarding the penitential deeds of entire communities, and in the episcopal letter of January 26, 1880, certain rules were prescribed for this new institution. This message has received significant distribution in Roman Catholic communities, and every year, precisely during Easter, masses of people from Roman Catholic communities flock to the nearest Christian Catholic communities to take part in repentance and communion with the Old Catholics. Each Christ-Catholic clergyman, meanwhile, is obliged to accept private confession from those who wish it. Along with these transformations, the abolition of compulsory celibacy also took place, when the synod of 1876 declared that “the legal capacity to hold spiritual positions does not depend on whether the corresponding priest is married or single.” The clergy of French Switzerland almost all married, and of the clergy of German Switzerland about half also married. “But with all these transformations,” says Bishop. Duke, “the Catholic population of German Switzerland also began to be reconciled more and more.” It is clear that the movement, still so young, although striving to stand on the unshakable soil of the ancient undivided church, could not immediately express its religious essence in dogmatically firm provisions. And therefore it was impossible not to notice at times some fluctuations, so to speak, the search for a point of stability. But it seems attractive that Old Catholicism in Switzerland constantly revealed a desire to stand precisely on the basis of ancient undivided Christianity, and many of Bishop Herzog’s archpastoral messages to his flock are directed towards this. Of these messages, the message of February 1, 1882 is particularly complete and thorough. It sets out, so to speak, the essence of Old Catholicism as a religious system. Touching upon the question of the sustainability of the cause of Old Catholicism, “the strength of which is in the future,” Herzog then says that the basic principle of Old Catholicism is the famous principle of Vincent of Lerins, that “the Catholic faith is that which was invariably held everywhere, always and by all,” that faith which was “once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), therefore, an unchangeable faith. The highest authority of the universal church is concentrated in ecumenical councils, and its head is Christ, the Son of the living God, and not the self-proclaimed vicar of Christ, deified at the false ecumenical council of the Vatican. Hence the true Catholics, that is, members of the Catholic Church, are those who do not recognize this deified papacy. And with the rejection of the papacy, all the illegal innovations they invented are themselves rejected - the dead Latin language in worship, forced celibacy for the clergy, deprivation of the laity of the Eucharistic cup. The Duke also includes private confession here, probably referring to the terrible abuses to which it was and is being subjected to in the hands of the Roman clergy. In contrast to papal absolutism, a selective principle is put forward in the matter of replenishing the hierarchy and clergy, and the entire letter ends with the encouraging saying of the apostle: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” 7. Later, the Christ-Catholic Church of Switzerland sided with the famous Utrecht declaration of the Old Catholic bishops of September 24, 1889, a declaration which, even more fully and, moreover, with dogmatic positivity, expressing the religious essence of Old Catholicism, put it on the direct road to rapprochement with the Orthodox East 8. This dogmatic doctrine found expression in the missal of the Catholic Church of Christ, and in it, for example, the Nicene Creed was cleared of the illegal addition Filioque (and of the Son), in which form it was read repeatedly in the presence of Orthodox participants in the international Old Catholic Congress. As for the present state of Old Catholicism in Switzerland, statistics show that the number of adherents of the Catholic Church of Christ is, although slowly, gradually rising. According to Bishop Herzog's report of 1890, compiled, however, on the basis of data delivered to him by priests in 1888, the number of all Old Catholics in Switzerland was more than 40,000 souls 9 . In 1888, among this population there were 761 baptisms, 181 marriages, 509 burials, and 4,677 children were taught the law of God in the Old Catholic parish schools. During the same time, there were 57 clergy; of these, three were ordained by Bishop Reinkens and 23 by Bishop Herzog. The Bishop of the Swiss Old Catholics is recognized as such by all cantons, with the exception of St. Gallen and Lucerne. He has a modest allowance of 5,000 francs, paid in installments by the cantons of Aargau, Bern, Geneva and Solothurn. The budget of the entire church is up to 70,000 francs, collected by the Old Catholics, in addition to interest on the church's fixed assets. The legal position of the Catholic Church at present seems quite satisfactory in most cantons, in which the state recognizes this church as an independent community and grants it the appropriate rights. The Berne government even opened a special “Christian Catholic Faculty” at the local university, in which outstanding leaders of Old Catholicism are professors. But some cantons, and especially Lucerne, which hitherto constitutes a nest of the most extreme ultramontanism, treat the Old Catholics with cruel intolerance. There can be no talk yet of their recognition by the government as a legally capable church-religious community. The government deprives the Old Catholics of any right to participate in the public funds of the city of Lucerne. In addition, the city's Old Catholic community, numbering up to 750 souls, is directly subject to persecution. Any official is immediately deprived of his government position if he converts to Old Catholicism. Merchants and innkeepers are subject to all kinds of criticism and slander in the Ultramontan press, unless, at the request of their conscience, they join the Old Catholic Church. As a result, for all those persons who are in one way or another dependent on the Ultramontane government, the adoption of Old Catholicism is an almost impossible thing and, in any case, requires great self-sacrifice. Until recently, the community could perform divine services only on great holidays, and only now, with the construction of a beautiful “Church of Christ” for itself, did it have the opportunity to freely offer its prayers to the Heavenly Father. By the way, it is not uninteresting to note that before building their own church, the Old Catholics for several years waged a long, stubborn and yet in vain struggle for the right to perform their divine services together with Roman Catholics in the so-called Mariengilf Church. The custom of different denominations sharing the services of the same church in Switzerland, as in other countries of Western Europe, does not represent anything strange, and hitherto, especially in poor, uncrowded parishes, there are churches in which services are performed alternately or at different times even by such irreconcilable denominations as Roman Catholics and Protestants 10 . Therefore, the claim of the Old Catholics to the right to perform their divine services in the Roman Catholic Church did not represent anything strange, especially since they took part in its construction and maintenance on an equal basis with the latter, and, therefore, it formed part of their public property. But the Ultramontane government looked at the matter differently. When even the city of Lucerne itself agreed to allow the Old Catholics to use the said church, the cantonal government, as the highest authority, at the instigation of the Ultramontanes, did not fail to revoke this permission. And this was all the more strange and unfair because since 1854 the same church had been placed at the disposal of the Anglicans and Scots 11 . Then the Old Catholics had no choice but to resort to self-help, and they began to energetically raise funds to build their own church. Their efforts were crowned with complete success, and the church they built was the site of the grand opening of the second international Old Catholic Congress, which brought together hundreds of theologians in Lucerne, as representatives of almost all churches and communities independent of the papacy. This last congress had a very beneficial influence on the Old Catholic Church in Switzerland. Having gathered a brilliant theological society in the very nest of ultramontanism, he unusually raised the spirit of the local Christ-Catholic community, which saw that it had not been forgotten by the rest of the Christian world and, on the contrary, had numerous friends, always with sincere willingness to respond to the call of the leaders of Old Catholicism for fraternal Christian interaction and warmly expressing their sympathy for it. In turn, the cantonal government could be convinced that Old Catholicism is not some temporary sect, an accidental result of church-religious fermentation, but is a strictly defined religious system, which, by the very essence of its principles, is capable of attracting sympathy in all churches independent of the papacy. In view of this, one can hope that his intolerance will weaken significantly, and this in turn will have a favorable effect on the further development and strengthening of Old Catholicism in Switzerland, where, in any case, a serious future can be foreshadowed for it. The main sources for this essay are two articles by Bishop Ed. Duke in the American Church Review for 1881 and 1890. (articles that, based on a person who was one of the main figures and exponents of this movement, have the value of a reliable primary source and an authentic document); then §§ 34 and 35 in the famous history of the church of the nineteenth century, Professor Nippold (Handbuch d. Neusten Kirchengeschichte von Fr. Nippold, Bd. II, pp. 448-478, 3rd ed., Berlin, 1890) and various articles in the Foreign Church Chronicle, also belonging mainly to the main leaders of Swiss Old Catholicism. Luzerner Zeitung, now Vaterland. Katholische Stimme aus den Waldstӓtten. The Old Catholic movement in Switzerland from the very beginning received the name “Christ Catholic” in order to more accurately indicate its essence and thereby more sharply define its character in contrast to Roman Catholicism, which constantly laid claim to the name “Catholicism”. This name, moreover, was historical for the Swiss, since already in 1834 it was adopted by the followers of Wessenberg. Nephew and heir to the spiritual talents of the famous Lucerne Provost Ley, who became famous in the 30s for his struggle against ultramontanism. See the text of this message in the Foreign Church Chronicle, December 1, 1882, pp. 202 et seq. See the famous articles of Protopresbyter I. L. Yanyshev in “Church. Bulletin" for 1890, No. 44–46. "Over 40,000". See Americas. Church Review, Jan. 1890 p. 155. As can be seen from the last pastoral letter of the Strasbourg Bishop Fritzen, in this diocese the custom of joint use of churches by Roman Catholics and Protestants is still very widespread. According to the church calendar of this diocese, there are currently up to 80 more such churches in it. The message is directed against this custom. See Allgem. ev.-Luth. Kirchenz. No. 46, 1892, p. 1126. See Weibel's article in the Foreign Church Chronicle, Sept. 1. 1891, p. 159.