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The Liberal Catholic Church (Old Synod) was the repository of many significant records, including original documents and letters, from the time of Archbishop A.H. Mathew. At some point, Presiding Bishop James Burton compiled these records into two volumes with his own annotations, of which we reproduce the first below.

The official view of the LCC was at that time that the Old Catholic Church in Great Britain led by Archbishop Mathew became the Liberal Catholic Church and that its further continuations by such as Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams were schismatic and, although valid, without jurisdiction. This view is strongly opposed and contested by many Independent Catholic groups and is not accepted by all Liberal Catholics. Nevertheless, it is the view brought forward in this work.

The attentive reader will notice some significant differences in dates attributed to particular documents when compared, for example, to the account by Archbishop Persson also available on this website. These anomalies cannot easily be reconciled without access to the original documents in question. The correspondence from +Mathew to +Willoughby, along with other letters of the period, was at some stage removed from the main LCC archive at Letchworth and the whereabouts of this material today is unknown.

>>Official Records of Synod 1910-15, compiled and annotated by Presiding Bishop James Burton of the Liberal Catholic Church

>>The Minutes of the Joint Clerical and Episcopal Synod of Great Britain and of the Clerical Synod of England and Wales of the LIBERAL CATHOLIC CHURCH (OLD CATHOLIC) Edited by the Rt. Rev. E.J. Burton, M.A. Part II - 1915-20