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The ancient Celtic tradition provided the inspiration for a distinct and particular movement within twentieth-century Old Catholicism that sought to reconnect with pre-Augustinian belief and practice. Although we consider this movement in some detail below, we should not forget that a number of Old Catholics who have seen themselves as Celtic in tradition or who have been influenced by Celtic spirituality originate from other branches of the succession, both before and contemporaneous with the people whose work is described below. Ultimately they are all the spiritual successors of Mar Pelagius (Richard William Morgan) who had sought to revive the Ancient British Church in the 1870s.

St Tugdual - the movement begins
The modern Celtic movement described here begins, not in the British Isles, but in Brittany, where British Celts had settled after being driven out of England by the Anglo-Saxons in the 4th century A.D. Brittany had, of course, maintained its independence until its defeat at the hands of France in 1488.

Jean-Pierre Danyel, who was to be variously poet, artist and hermit, was born in 1917 and baptised into the Romanian Orthodox Church, which he would later leave for the Greek Orthodox Church. He served in the Second World War, and was a prisoner of war in Germany. After the war he determined to pursue his vocation, and in 1949 was admitted a monk in the Eastern Orthodox Church. He sought ordination in the Orthodox faith, but was denied, and instead trained for the priesthood under Mgr. Marc Fatome, the Mariavite Bishop for France, who was based in Nantes. After theological examination and the bestowal of the minor orders, Danyel was raised to the priesthood and the status of hieromonk in 1951. In order to ensure greater acceptance of his orders within other communities who might reject the Mariavite succession, Fr. Danyel was re-ordained by Mgr. Lutyen, Archbishop of Antwerp, who was Metropolitan of the Eglise catholique du rite dominicain (and who had been consecrated by Mar Georgius) in 1953.

After a time exercising ministry in Nantes, Fr. Danyel was offered some land on which to found an erimitical community in the Bois-Juhel, near Saint-Dolay in Brittany. He seized the opportunity to become a hermit, and adopted the religious name Tugdual, after one of the seven protector saints of Brittany. His early years there were hard, living in a hand-built shelter, fed by the donations of the local village folk. In time, he built a wooden chapel, the Abbaye de la Sainte-Présence. Before long,  he had attracted followers and had built a sustainable community. The community elected Tugdual bishop in 1956, and Mgr. Comte Irenaeus d'Eschevannes, Archbishop of Arles and Primate of the Sainte Eglise catholique autocéphale, consecrated him together with Mgr. Comte Eugène de Batchinsky, Primate of the Sainte Eglise Orthodoxe Ukrainienne conciliare autocéphale en exil, and Mgr. Julien Erni, who would also re-consecrate him solo in 1957 in order to transmit further lines of Apostolic Succession. Most significantly, these events imparted the succession of Mgr. Jules Ferrette, founder of the British Orthodox Church in 1866. +Tugdual assumed the See of Redon, and in 1959 was raised to the status of Metropolitan and Archbishop of Dol. He remained in communion with ++d'Eschevannes to the end, and the two bishops collaborated closely.

The mission of ++Tugdual was to revive the Druidic heritage of the early British church. This was expressed through historical research, liturgical reconstruction based on a combination of what evidence had survived from those early days and conjecture based on later practice, and worship in and through the natural world, including the bestowal of the sacraments in the open air. ++Tugdual was also the author of a number of scriptural commentaries. By the 1960s, his community included ten bishops, among whom were Yvon Laigle (Gall, Bishop of Aran) and Michel Raoult (Bishop Iltud). ++Tugdual was granted the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Archbishop Charles Brearley in 1962. He attracted visitors from far and wide to experience the life of his community. Bishop Gall remembers him thus, "He would laugh all the time, and mealtimes were decorated with jokes of all kinds, but he could also all of a sudden rise and leave for the chapel, and sing all night the 150 psalms of David." (Source: Fr. Raphaël Steck)

++Tugdual was not to be granted a long life on this earth. He died in 1968, aged just 51 years, after repeated ill-health. His monastery was for a time abandoned, with his monks dispersed. But ++Tugdual had prophesied that ten years after his death his monastery would be reborn and his mission would continue. It was exactly so, and the renewed monastery endures today exactly where he founded it. In 1996, the successors of his community, now called the Celtic Orthodox Church, canonised him.

The monastery of Sainte-Prèsence

A picture and descriptive history of the monastery founded by St Tugdual can be found here (in French). The community welcomes visitors for retreat, spiritual advice or a simple visit.

The Celtic Orthodox Church (Eglise orthodoxe celtique)

The Celtic Orthodox Church, largest of St Tugdual's successors, maintains a website here (French Eparchy) with separate websites for the Swiss and British Eparchies. There are also communities in Australia and the USA.

Just as St Tugdual held lines of Apostolic Succession from Jules Ferrette through Mar Georgius, so does the Celtic Orthodox Church, descending via Mar Georgius' second cousin Mar Seraphim (whom he consecrated in 1977) to Paul-Eduard de Fournier de Brescia (Mgr. Mael), its current Primate. It was Mgr Mael who was to lead the revival of St Tugdual's monastery. He had founded a monastic community in Montpellier in 1973, the year in which he was ordained priest, and by 1974 it comprised three brothers. The brothers lived lives of poverty, visiting the old people of the district barefoot, and praying in mountain caves. By 1977 the call had come to revive St Tugdual's monastery. Living in the buildings, which had fallen into disrepair, they endured hard winters and built up their community, also encouraging families to settle in the surrounding area and become part of their Orthodox life. They built a new church, dedicated to Notre-Dame du Signe, which was consecrated in 1984.

Mgr. Mael was consecrated bishop by Mar Seraphim in 1980, and in 1995, following Mar Seraphim's decision to unite the Orthodox Church of the British Isles with the Coptic Orthodox Church (whereby it became the British Orthodox Church), Mgr. Mael was elected head of the Celtic Orthodox Church. Mgr. Mael has since consecrated two bishops for the Celtic Orthodox Church; in 1998, Jean-Claude Scheerens (Mgr. Marc) and in 1999, Stephen Robson (Mgr. Stephen), Eparch of Great Britain.

The Holy Celtic Church and Celtic Catholic Church

We have considered above those who were the geographical successors of St Tugdual at the monastery of Sainte-Prèsence; now we come to those who were his lineal successors in the Apostolic Succession within the United Kingdom. Among St Tugdual's consecrations was that of the Englishman (John) Patrick Nicholas Collins (1966), Primate of the English (Old) Catholic Church, Auxiliary of the Old Roman Catholic Church of Canada and Titular Bishop of Faversham. +Collins transmitted the succession from St Tugdual to Aelred Peter (Terence Coghlan) Distin, whom he consecrated in 1968.

++Aelred Peter Distin was to become Auxiliary of the Holy Celtic Church and Superior of the Order of the Atonement. He was born in 1938 and initially consecrated by Donald Garner in 1968. In the same year, along with +Collins and Garner, who was auxiliary Bishop in the Reformed Catholic Church and Bishop of Tewkesbury in the English Catholic Church, he established by concordat a community called the Old Catholic Church of Great Britain, for which he became Archbishop-Metropolitan. This was based on the 1910 Statement of Principles issued by +Joseph-René Vilatte.

In 1969, ++Distin consecrated sub conditione Anthony Walter John Williams, who had been consecrated two years earlier by Archbishop Charles Brearley. Archbishop Williams, a former Spiritualist resident in Cornwall and strongly interested in Celtic practices, assumed responsibility for the community of the Holy Celtic Church as Primate in as far as this community was constituted in the British Isles (St Tugdual having died the previous year), while ++Distin remained in charge of the Old Catholic Church of Great Britain. ++Williams had assisted ++Brearley at the consecration of +Donald Garner in 1967. His wife, Sister Anne, had herself been ordained for the Holy Celtic Church in 1968.

Along with these should be mentioned another significant friend of the Celtic Churches, Bishop William Handsworth Turner (Mar Guilielmus), based in Fulham. Having initially been associated with the Ancient Catholic Church of ++Harold Percival Nicholson, +Turner had been consecrated by ++Brearley in 1955 and subconditionally by Mgr. Julien Erni in 1960. +Erni was, of course, one of the consecrators of St Tugdual. For a time from 1957, +Turner was Bishop of London in ++Brearley's Old Holy Catholic Church, and was one of the fifteen prelates in the Sacred Synod of the Eglise catholique apostolique primitive d'Antioche orthodoxe de tradition Syro-Byzantine, founded by Jan Frederick Assendelft-Altland (now Amba Marcos), who had been consecrated by ++Nicholson. +Turner assisted +Erni in the consecration of Rupert Pitt-Kethley of Ealing (Mar Rupertus) for the Reformed Catholic Church in 1960. He was founder of the Order of Christian Unity, and died on 9 October 1990, a few weeks before ++Williams.

++Williams consecrated and appointed Thomas Illtyd Thomas as his co-adjutor in 1979, and with this action planned his retirement as Archbishop. This came about in the following January, when he resigned his office, and in 1982 he put aside the exercise of his Holy Orders altogether in order to devote himself to Spiritualist practice. He was to die on 25 October 1990, at the age of 91.

 Meanwhile, ++Thomas was now responsible for the community from his London chapel. In March 1980, he was adopted as Archbishop of what was now known as the Celtic Church of Great Britain, which was from 1982 to be called the Celtic Catholic Church, and Oecumenical Patriarch of Bardsey. In 1982, a priest came forward who now led the community centred upon the West Country founded by Fr. Dennis Green; this was Morris Francis Saville, who had been ordained priest by Archbishop P.C.S. Singer (++Brearley's re-consecrator) in 1967. Consequently, ++Thomas consecrated +Saville in 1983, and would consecrate him sub conditione in 1988 in order that he receive the ++Persson succession.

++Saville, now Primate, led his community from 1982 using the designation of the Holy Celtic Church once used by ++Williams, while that led by ++Thomas was re-designated the Celtic Catholic Church. ++Saville recognised the need to strengthen the pastoral leadership of his community, and to that end consecrated retired schoolmaster Leonard Beresford Shortt (who had been priested by ++Williams in 1976) in 1984. Sadly, +Shortt, who was aged 81, lived for only two more months, dying of a heart attack in August of that year. However, further consecrations were to follow. ++Saville, together with ++Thomas, consecrated Eric Frank Eades of Lincoln (whom +Thomas had ordained deacon and priest in 1980) and Allan Marcus Armstrong of Bristol as bishops for the Holy Celtic Church in 1988. Further ++Saville consecrations were of Gerard Daleth (Deceico) in 1984, and together with +Armstrong, of Charles Hastler in 1989.

++Saville endured poor health for many years, and died at the early age of 60 in May 1991, survived by his wife, Revd. Christine Saville, who had done much to support him in his work. It was resolved that +Armstrong (Mar Marcus) would succeed him as Primate of the Holy Celtic Church, and he was formally enthroned in a ceremony by ++Thomas in September 1991. Mar Marcus remains Primate today. A further blow to the Holy Celtic Church came with the premature death of +Eades in 1993; he had been one of the co-consecrators of ++Francis Cajetan Spataro for the Apostolic Episcopal Church in a splendid ceremony at Christ the King, Gordon Square, only eight months earlier.

The Celtic Catholic Church, under ++Thomas, continues its work, which is spread throughout London and the South-East. Its clergy include the Auxiliary Bishop, Leslie Bird, and a number of priests, deacons, deaconesses and professed religious as part of the dispersed Order of St David. Like the Holy Celtic Church, it has also suffered losses through the premature death of a number of clergy, including bishops Michael Weston and Martin Hird, who both passed away in 1992.

The Independent Catholic Orthodox Alliance

This community is the direct successor of ++Distin's Old Catholic Church of Great Britain, changing its name in 2006. ++Distin appointed as his co-adjutor Phillip R. Kemp of Norfolk (Titular Bishop of Elmham), and upon ++Distin's retirement in September 2004, ++Kemp was adopted as Archbishop-Metropolitan of Great Britain, the office which he continues to hold. However, ++Distin continued to exercise his office as Bishop of Lindsey independently until his death in 2007. The Benedictine Congregation of St Romuald, which he formerly led, was dissolved in 2004 but revived by ++Kemp in 2007.

The Vicar-General of the I.C.O.A. is Mgr. Fr. Simon D. Scruton, who was ordained priest by ++Distin in 2003 and sub conditione by ++John Kersey and ++Andrew Linley in 2006. A website for this community is here.

Among other consecrations of ++Distin should be mentioned the subconditional reconsecration of +Donald Garner in 1968, at which he assisted ++Collins, Ian Kirk-Stewart for the Reformed Catholic Church (at which he assisted +Garner) in 1969, and John Lester Peace in 1979 (at which he was assisted by +Garner). ++Distin also consecrated David Bowler in 2001. +Bowler rejoined the English Catholic Church (now the Old Catholic Church in Europe) in 2006 and became Bishop of Northumbria and Superior of the Society of Christ the King. Later in the year, he retired from the denomination.

Could you be a Celtic Catholic?

We should close by mentioning the tongue-in-cheek quiz from the Celtic Catholic Church in the U.S.A. (unrelated to the church described above, but also an Independent Catholic community). Their charming website has much to interest those drawn to Celtic spirituality.