Johannes Jacobus van Rhijn

Before serving as Archbishop of Utrecht, van Rhijn served as a parish priest in Utrecht.

Following the death of Walter van Nieuwenhuisen, Archbishop of Utrecht, on Good Friday, 14 April 1797, van Rhijn was consecrated Archbishop of Utrecht by Bishop Adrianus Johannes Broekman of Haarlem and Bishop Nicolas Nellemans of Deventer. He was subsequently excommunicated for the act by the Roman Catholic Church.

C.B. Moss suggests that, perhaps linked to the fact that “Napoleon, who was now the real ruler of the Netherlands, [and] was determined to put an end to the independence of the Church of Utrecht,”[1] van Rhijn died suddenly on 24 June 1808. Neale suggests that van Rhijn was poisoned.[2]

Moss, C.B. (1948). The Old Catholic Movement: Its Origins and History. Berkeley, CA: The Apocryphal Press. ISBN 9780976402596.

Neale, Rev. John Mason (1858). A History of the So-called Jansenist Church of Holland. Oxford: John Henry & James Parker. pp. 252–260. ISBN 978-1602066571.