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The University's Arnold Harris Mathew Center for the Study of the Independent Sacramental Movement (CSISM) is the first university center anywhere in the world to be devoted to the study of the independent sacramental movement originating within Catholicism and widely prevalent today. It disseminates rare archive material online, principally photographs and documents, and conducts research into the historic and contemporary independent sacramental movement. The Center is directed by the University President, John Kersey, who serves as a bishop of the Apostolic Episcopal Church, in addition to being a member of the Order of Corporate Reunion and the Society for Humanistic Potential.

In its broadest sense, the Independent Sacramental Movement (ISM) embraces many independent Christian communities, most relatively small, which stand in the Apostolic Succession from the Papacy and/or the Orthodox Churches and have, in the main, developed during the period from the mid-nineteenth-century onwards. In the entirety of their range, these communities vary in outlook from arch-conservative to highly liberal and embrace almost all possible shades of Christian belief and practice.

However, the modern use of the ISM categorization is less applicable to the more conservative denominations which tend to see themselves as either proto-Uniate Rites of Rome or indeed as representing a "traditional Catholic" standpoint in correction of Rome's doctrinal errors. Nor is it applicable to the many groups that represent a "Continuing Anglican" standpoint. Rather, the study of the ISM is concerned more with those groups that represent a progressive and emerging theology and praxis, often characterized by esotericism and liberalism. However, since there is extensive historical cross-fertilization between different churches and theologies we will make some limited reference to conservative and traditionalist groups in the course of our study.

To an outsider, the ISM often appears impossibly complex, and this complexity is increased by the wide degree of change and mutability of the groups concerned and the clergy within them. Yet there are common threads that unite even the most disparate of groups. In its diversity, the ISM offers a contemporary parallel to the pre-Constantinian Church, in that it is decentralized - even anarchic at times - and open to wide spiritual influence stemming from the leaders of each group and their spiritual influences in turn. Those leaders are also highly diverse in every respect; most notably in their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, educational backgrounds, theological standpoints and approaches to worship. This very diversity is the whole point of the ISM, since it mirrors the diversity of creation itself and promotes a far greater inclusivity than do most of the major denominations.

Scholarship concerning the ISM is extensive but has generally taken place outside the mainstream, not least because of hostility towards the ISM influenced by the vested interests of the major denominations, which have seen the ISM as a threat and a competing movement. This attitude continues to characterize material about the ISM on a number of websites today. The study of the ISM is important both in order to establish a historical record for its own sake, and also because the more experimental and evolving of these communities point the way to new means of becoming church, and of fulfilling ministry in the modern world. 

Much publication from within the ISM has been private, in the form of books, monographs and pamphlets which have seen limited circulation within the denominations concerned. Some of these have been works of high quality and historical significance.

However, in recent years important works have emerged into the public domain that have brought the ISM to wider attention and suggested that it may have more general applicability within the study of church history and the nature of church development in general. The efforts of the U.S.-based Apocryphile Press in particular have resulted in the re-publication of several key works of a historical nature as well as the commissioning of new studies and theological works from ISM clergy.

>>Official CSISM blog

General historical and organizational studies
>>About Catholicism beyond Rome
>>History of the Catholic movement beyond Rome
>>About the Apostolic Succession and independent bishops
>>About ordination and consecration per saltum
>>Roman Catholic views on holy orders in the Old Catholic and independent sacramental movements
>>The legitimate successor of Jesus by +Bertil Persson

Resources organized by church or community
>>The Ancient Catholic Church (+H.P. Nicholson)
>>The Apostolic Episcopal Church/The Order of Corporate Reunion
>>The Catholic Apostolic Church (Catholicate of the West)
>>The Catholic Episcopal Church (+F.E. Glenn)
>>The Catholic Orthodox Church (+J.S.M. Ward)
>>History of the independent Celtic churches in the modern era
>>The Church of the Ascension
>>Modern Gnosticism
>>The Liberal Catholic Church and the movement deriving from it
>>The Old Roman Catholic Church of Great Britain
>>Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani (The Templars)

Resources organized by bishop (other than those listed in the churches above)
>>Antoine Aneed (Antoun Anid) by +Bertil Persson
>>Sophronios Beshara (Bishara) by +Bertil Persson
>>William Montgomery Brown by +Bertil Persson
>>William Albert Nichols by +Bertil Persson
>>Joseph John Skureth by +Bertil Persson
>>A Biographical Sketch on Joseph Rene Vilatte by +Bertil Persson: part 1; 2; 3.

Certificates of consecration and similar relevant archival documents
>>Certificates and archival documents

Related programs
>>Programs in Christian Theology
>>Master of Theology in the Independent Sacramental Movement
>>Master of Theology in Thanatology
>>Master of Theology in Liberal Catholic Studies

Lectures
>>Talk given by John Kersey to the Adam Smith Institute TNG, December 2007

Book publications

Two Works by Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams, Second Archbishop of The Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain: A Summary of the History, Faith, Discipline, and Aims of The Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain (1924); A Pastoral Letter for Advent, 1920
New edition edited and with a preface by John Kersey

Archbishop Bernard Mary Williams was the successor to Archbishop Arnold Harris Mathew in the Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain and established the strongly traditionalist and conservative pattern still followed by that church's successors. These works speak of his conception of the ORCCGB as a Uniate Rite conforming to the Roman Catholic Church in most respects, but differing in the admission of a married priesthood and a vernacular liturgy.

Unavailable for many years, this edition has a Preface by John Kersey and is available as a free-to-download e-book as well as in hardcover. 47 pages.

To download or purchase a copy, please visit the University Press page here.

The Apostolic Succession in the Liberal Rite
John Kersey

The book "The Apostolic Succession in The Liberal Rite" by its former Presiding Bishop John Kersey was published by the University Press in 2007. It was available in hardcover only and runs to 276 pages. Extensively illustrated, it is one of the most complete surveys of the Apostolic Succession in the independent sacramental movement ever published. This work is now out of print pending a forthcoming revised and updated edition.

The Science of the Sacraments
Charles Webster Leadbeater
New edition edited and with a preface by John Kersey

This book, first published in 1920 is of crucial importance in understanding the origins and spiritual significance of the Eucharist and other sacraments within the Liberal Catholic rite. +C.W. Leadbeater explains the esoteric significance of each moment during the liturgy with side-by-side comparisons with the Roman (Tridentine) Rite and many pictures and diagrams. This new edition, complete and unabridged with a preface and updated notes by John Kersey, is available as a free-to-download online e-book as well as in hardcover. 495 pages including all original illustrations and tables.

To download or purchase a copy, please visit the University Press page here.

An Outline of Theosophy
Charles Webster Leadbeater
New edition edited and with a preface by John Kersey

This short and accessible book, first published in 1902, is a key introduction to Theosophy from one of its most significant advocates. +C.W. Leadbeater was a master of the spiritual arts and of what we would now refer to as an interfaith and synthetic outlook on faith. With +J.I. Wedgwood he created the Liberal Catholic movement that continues today. This new edition by John Kersey is available both as a free online e-book and in a printed hardcover edition for $10. 59pp.

To download or purchase a copy, please visit the University Press page here.

Monographs by Archbishop Professor Bertil Persson
Some significant monographs by Archbishop Professor Bertil Persson have been reproduced with his permission at the Mathew Center and without prejudice to his copyrights.

Archbishop Professor Bertil Persson is Primate Emeritus of the Apostolic Episcopal Church and was from 1987-95 Archbishop for Europe of the Philippine Independent Catholic Church (Iglesia Filipina Catolica Independiente). He has held clerical office in many other denominations since his ordination as a Pastor in the Church of Sweden in 1962 with responsibility for special projects. As a result, his role in the independent sacramental movement has been uniquely and widely ecumenical. His episcopal lineage has spread across the world. His scholarship, published through the former St Ephrem's Institute, Solna, Sweden, which he co-founded in 1974, has addressed the history of the ISM and many of its key figures, focussing in particular on the Apostolic Succession as a means to unite otherwise separated communities.

See: Ecclesiastical Biography of the Most Rev. Prof. Dr. Bertil Persson, FRSA (1983)