René Vilatte

The Society of the Precious Blood (SPB) was founded in 1887 in Wisconsin by Vilatte, under the name Société Missionnaire du Précieux Sang pour l'évangélisation des campagnes. There were French Canadians in the northern part of Door Peninsula who worked as laborers and foresters. It was an environment similar to Gatineau in Quebec, where Vilatte had worked as a teacher.

Others joined the church, including John B. Gauthier. He had been a teacher in Ottawa and in Illinois. After his ordination for the Precious Blood mission in 1889, he became master of novices and gave SPB a great impulse. He was a spiritual man and a good pedagogue. The children liked him and several became religious under his influence. Certain came with him to Quebec, to minister in the Berthier and Maskinongé counties and in Montreal. One of them was Stephen Côté, who was at the origin of the parish of Greater Montreal.

The Christian Catholic Church would not have developed as it did without the missionary activity of the religious of the Precious Blood. They preached Christ according to Scripture. Their goal is always to do pastoral work under this impulse. The first nuns, Sister Mary Ashmun and Sister Anne Schoen, joined the SPB in 1894. They were teachers and worked in Wisconsin.

Marx and Blied wrote that a letter "indicates that two self-styled sisters who operated among the Belgians were induced to join Vilatte for temporal benefits" and there was extremely little evidence that the women may have belonged to a Jansenist sisterhood of St Martha.[37]^: 62

The SPB tried different formulas, including the Benedictine Abbey of St. Dunstan in Wisconsin (1908) under Dom Bernard Harding, and Vilatteville in Mexico,an ecumenical community devoted to holistic wellbeing (through biological agriculture).

In March 1887, Vilatte, pastor of the Precious Blood mission, visited The Independent newspaper office, in Sturgeon Bay, and informed the newspaper that: he had solicited funds for building a seminary and "secured several thousand dollars for commencing the work", plans were being made in Chicago, furnishings were secured, and "construction will be commenced in June". He was asked about his order and responded that the "order has a large number of adherents" in Europe and "is doubling every three years" in some of those countries. Curiously, the article did not mention the name of the order.[43] In April, the Door County Advocate reported Vilatte visited Sturgeon Bay on April 25, 1887, to obtain a suitable location for the establishment of a college of his order.[44] Although months earlier Vilatte said "construction will be commenced in June", by the end of May, the Door County Advocate reported, only that, he had "signified his willingness to establish a seminary in this city provided our people see fit to donate the required real estate", and that, a benefactor, who "will give the society other material aid if it is necessary to secure the institution for this city", donated 1 acre (0.40 ha) of land.[45] In July, land "which has been purchased by the donations of our citizens" for the college, was transferred and work was to start on buildings in September.[46] The next day the city council permitted "himself and family" to reside in a vacant school building; he was to operate a school in that building until his seminary was completed.[47] In October, he began visiting cities along the East Coast of the United States "in quest of funds with which to erect the proposed seminary."[48] He was away for several months. But a week after his return from touring the East Coast of the United States,[49] Vilatte shocked Sturgeon Bay. His "contemplated seminary" would not be established there but elsewhere, wrote The Independent, in an article titled "Can this be true?" which exasperated that, "[t]he reasons given for this change are so extraordinary that we are not prepared to accept the statements made without further testimony." Vilatte wrote to Chris Leonhardt, President of the Business Men's Association, the group which facilitated the land purchase and aided him, that,

Our intention to build in this city a college for students of our denomination was about to be carried out, but after mature deliberation we find it necessary, because or ill-feeling and strong antipathy on the part of some of your fellow-citizens against us and our work, to postpone the matter until better days, [...] on many occasions [...] members of our family who have been spending the winter in this city have been publicly insulted in the streets and other places, and you will see how necessary it is that we protect the honor and the feelings of our students from such unpleasant occurrences and to guard them from such sad examples of ill-breeding and uncivilisation. [...] Since a large property in grounds, buildings, library and other requisites for a seminary are offered us elsewhere, we can afford to wait. Therefore, [...] we are compelled, by circumstances depending upon the conduct of your citizens alone, to withdraw for a while from your place, which is the center of our operations.[50]

His letter was seen as a deleterious depiction of their community. The Independent editorialized:

This city is endeavoring to increase its population and resources by inviting manufacturers and others to locate here. A seminary to accommodate a large number of students was about to be built, all preliminary arrangements having been made, but that seminary is now lost to us because, as its projectors allege, they have encountered "ill-feeling, antipathy, and public insults" from some of our citizens. That we should lose an institution which would have annually distributed thousands of dollars among our merchants, farmers and others, is bad enough but to have it charged that our bigotry, bad manners and uncivilization have driven away one of the very institutions which many of us are striving to obtain is a foul blot upon the reputation of Sturgeon Bay and will cost us dearly unless it is removed.[50][lower-alpha 12]

Brown died within weeks of Vilatte's announcement, on May 2, 1888.

By 1889, his scheme was apparent and he was seen as a scoundrel; building a monastery or college, the Door County Advocate wrote, "at any rate is the talk" nevertheless "without ever accomplishing anything" substantial.

What would be thought of a business man who would strike a town and under the promise of erecting a manufacturing establishment obtain the necessary site from the citizens, and after obtaining what he was after, turn around and tell the duped ones that their society was not up to his standard? This is precisely what [...] Vilatte did right here. He induced our people to give him several acres of land for a college site, and after he had secured this he immediately sought elsewhere for a location, using his success here as a lever to induce other towns to do a little better for him. Why, if a man did such things in the transaction of ordinary business he would be branded as a fraud at once, and he might consider himself fortunate were he not arrested for obtaining goods under false pretenses.[51]

Emma de Beaumont, wife of Father Ernest, the Episcopal priest who assisted Vilatte since 1887,[52] wrote to the Door County Advocate that, regardless whatever Vilatte had said, nothing had been done "toward building a college elsewhere" since Brown's death "upset whatever may have been the plan".

[Brown] ordered us here, [...] from New York to take charge of the new college, and after waiting [...] over ten months, during which we suffered much, we were left by [... Vilatte]. [...] We have been the first to suffer from the many changes you speak of in [...] Vilatte. We have given our time and spent our money, and are yet patiently waiting for a new bishop. [...] It is also true that [...] Vilatte intends to convert Little Sturgeon into a monastery, but we consider the matter as one of the many utopias of his reverence, and do not see how he can do so without his bishop's consent. [...] we received a communication from [...] Vilatte which stated in effect that he intended abandoning the work, and immediately afterward he turns about and commences the erection of a new church at Dyckesville. So you see one cannot well put any faith in what he says, he is so changeable, not considering a project before beginning it. I think it is well that you should know that there is no college anywhere; that the bubble burst long ago, and that any statement made to the contrary is false. [...] Our furniture and other possessions have been packed [...], we are here waiting, wiser, but much poorer, for having seen the work of [...] Vilatte.[53]

This project was never carried out and the land was returned to the donors.[26]^: 20

A second congregation, classified as an "unorganized mission" in the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac, was established in 1888 with Vilatte designated as the missionary priest taking charge on June 1, 1888.[36]^: 24, 72 This was called the St. Mary's mission, Dykesville (Duvall).[26]^: 50[lower-alpha 11] By October 11, 1889, less than two years after his Sturgeon Bay seminary scandal, a church, 93 ft (28 m) × 36 ft (11 m), and a parsonage, 30 ft (9.1 m) × 30 ft (9.1 m), was completed, located on 2 acres (0.81 ha) of land including a cemetery. The Independent reported that Gauthier sailed to Europe where he would be ordained and that Vilatte received a letter from Heykamp "informing him that an [O]ld [C]atholic bishop will in a short time be selected to take charge of the [C]hurch in this country."[55] He later received a gift of over 100 antique theology books, "many of them are more than two centuries old", from Heykamp and Jacobus Johannes van Thiel, of the Old Catholic seminary in Amersfoort.[56]

Grafton attempted to remove Vilatte from the St. Mary's mission in 1891.[9]^: 5

Herzog and Reinken's investigation concluded that Vilatte was an Episcopalian, according to Marx and Blied, Herzog wrote to Vilatte on March 24, 1891, and "ended his letter bluntly: 'I want to have nothing more to do with you'."[9]^: 6[22]^: 22–23

An anthology of correspondence excerpts was published, c. 1893, as Ecclesiastical Relations between the Old Catholics of America and Foreign Churches in response to an 1892 Second International Old Catholic Congress resolution.[22]^: 1–2 In Marx and Blied's opinion, this compilation was probably edited by Vilatte.[37]^: 62

Isolated from both the Episcopalians and the Old Catholics, Vilatte turned once again to another denomination. The text of a widely republished and translated 1891 document, purportedly from the Russian Orthodox Church through Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky of San Francisco and Alaska, announced Vilatte's conversion from an Old Catholic confession of faith to an Old Catholic Orthodox confession of faith under Russian Orthodox Church patronage. It also declared that only the Holy Synod of the Russian Church or Sokolovsky can prohibit or suspend Vilatte's religious functions; and, states that any action contrary to the declaration is null and invalid, based on the liberty of conscience and unspecified United States law but without mention of Russian Orthodox Church canon law.[lower-alpha 13] Sokolovsky "appears to have granted him some form of recognition", according to Brandreth.[2]^: 32, 48 In 1891, Sokolovsky visited Vilatte at the St. Mary's mission.[59][lower-alpha 11] Margrander wrote that Sokolovsky intervened, approved Vilatte's confession of faith and his official acts, and referred him to the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.[11]^: 188 Sokolovsky was removed, soon after, in the wake of a series of scandals.[lower-alpha 14] Harding also corresponded with Russian General Alexander Kireev.[22]^: 24–25[lower-alpha 15] However, "owing to the constitution of the Russian Church, Vilatte could not hope to obtain the episcopate from that source, or at least not without great difficulties."[5]^: 6

While waiting for the Russian Holy Synod's decision, Vilatte also consulted with Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church Bishop Antonio Francisco Xavier Alvares. Alvares offered to come to America and consecrate him bishop;[11]^: 188 Vilatte responded that he would travel to Ceylon. Anson believed that Vilatte did not want Alvares to realize the diminutive size of the schism.[1]^: 106 After months of waiting for a decision from the Russian Holy Synod, Vilatte sailed to Ceylon to receive the offered episcopate.[11]^: 188

Susan Bayly wrote, in Saints, Goddesses and Kings, the St. Thomas Christians were by the 1880s fragmented and included a "bewildering array", based mostly on Christian evangelicalism, of "wildfire sects, breakaway churches and messianic Christian guru figures"; and, unlike in the past, they were then shunned as ritually polluting by caste Hindus.[64]^{: 286–287} There was, and still is, a caste system among Indian Christians. To gain group status, they engaged in mass conversion campaigns, with a goal of increased adherents with maintained caste affiliation of the converts. For example, according to Bayly, baptized low caste Christians were "hived off into separate churches of their own" and not permitted to worship together.[64]^: 315 According to Robert Frykenberg, in Missions and Empire, there are at least six identified communities which claim apostolic tradition that are the historic Saint Thomas Christians.[65]^: 123

Writing about the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church prior to its regaining Catholicity, William Richards wrote, in The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, that their history shows a constant effort to obtain bishops, of Syrian descent, in communion with the Holy See.[66]^: 62 Finally, in 1896, three Roman-Syrian priests were consecrated as titular bishops, and sent to Travancore and Cochin as vicars apostolic. All the Roman-Syrians are under these Metrans and they use the Syriac language in their churches.[66]^: 62, 64[lower-alpha 16] This is not the denomination that consecrated Vilatte.

The denomination that consecrated Vilatte was a part of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church that had a Latin Rite patrimony. V. Nagam Aiya wrote, in Travancore State Manual, that Alvares "describe[d] his Church as the Latin branch of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch."[70]

The Holy See sought to consolidate two co-existing jurisdictions, the Padroado jurisdiction and the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith jurisdiction.[5]^: 6 As part of the transition, churches served by Goan Catholic priests remained under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of the East Indies until 1843. Later, this transition was delayed and extended until December 31, 1883. In British Ceylon, it ended in 1887 with the appearance of a papal decree that placed all Catholics in the country under the exclusive jurisdiction of the bishops of the island. That measure met resistance. Alvares and Dr. Pedro Manoel Lisboa Pinto founded in Goa, Portuguese India, an association for the defense of the Padroado. Then, according to G. Bartas, in Échos d'Orient, they complained that the new diocese and vicariates, were headed, almost exclusively, by European prelates and missionaries, and petitioned the Holy See for the creation of a purely native hierarchy. Bartas did not state if there was a response, but wrote that Alvares settled the difficulty by reinventing himself as the head of his schism, appearing on Ceylon, and settling into the main old Goan Portuguese churches in the village of Parapancandel.[71] Alvares was a Roman Catholic Brahmin.[lower-alpha 17] Aiya wrote that Alvares, an educated man and the editor of a Catholic journal, was a priest in the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Goa. Failing to maintain amicable relations with the Patriarch of the East Indies, Alvares left the RCC and joined Mar Dionysius the Metropolitan in Kottayam who consecrated Alvares as bishop.[70][lower-alpha 18] Later, he returned with title of Alvares Mar Julius Archbishop of Ceylon, Goa and the Indies, and involved about 20 parishes in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jaffna and in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Colombo on the island in his schism.[9]^: 6[71]

According to Marx and Blied, "several shady characters claim to have given him the information" about Alvares but Brandreth and others attribute Harding as the source.[2]^: 32[9]^: 7 Vilatte "never had a sizable income" according to Marx and Blied but could accumulate money for travel. For example, the people of Dykesville donated $225 for his journey,[9]^: 8 and being elected bishop by his small flock (according to the records of the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac, Vilatte had about 500 adherents), Vilatte sailed to Ceylon. There Alvares and two other Jacobite bishops consecrated him with the permission of the Patriarch of Antioch as Timotheos I, Jacobite Old Catholic Bishop of North America on 29 May 1892; Pinto, acting as the U.S. Consul, attested to the consecration. When news of this reached North America the PECUSA excommunicated Vilatte.

On February 23, 1894, Vilatte bought land and built a small frame structure, his cathedral dedicated to St. Louis IX of France, in the city of Green Bay that year.[81]^: 28 Later that year, the first convention of the American Catholic Church (1894) (ACC1894) appointed Vilatte as its ecclesiastical head "without arbitrary powers".[82] Constantine Klukowski wrote, in History of St. Mary of the Angels Catholic Church, Green Bay, Wisconsin, 1898–1954, that the 1894 Green Bay city directory lists Vilatte's cathedral "as 'American Catholic'" and its officials as: Vilatte, archbishop metropolitan and primate; Anton Francis Kolaszewski, vicar general; Stephen Kaminski, consultor; and, Brother Nicholas, church manager.[81]^: 28 In 1895, C. Basil, SPB, was listed as rector of St. Louis's cathedral.[81]^: 28 During this time, Vilatte used three church buildings: St. Louis's cathedral in the city of Green Bay, St. Joseph's church in Walhain, and St. Mary's mission in Dykesville.[37]^: 60[lower-alpha 11] He no longer used the Precious Blood mission which belonged to the Episcopal Diocese of Fond du Lac.[37]^: 61

Shortly thereafter, reduced to penury, Vilatte traveled the East Coast offering the sacraments to, and soliciting monetary aid from, Episcopalians and Roman Catholics, but was rebuffed; in some places he was driven away by the Franco-Belgian Catholics.[1]^{: 110–111}

Vilatte sought a second time, c. 1894 – c. 1900, to reconcile with the RCC. In March 1894 he approached Archbishop Francesco Satolli, Nuncio to the United States, who wrote to Messmer that Vilatte wished to reconcile; the next month, Vilatte wrote to Messmer that he was preparing his people for reconciliation.[1]^: 111 More correspondence took place between Satolli, Messmer and Vilatte. Later that year, the RCC offered to pay the expense of Vilatte's journey to Rome. His case dragged on for almost four years until, in 1898, Satolli wrote to Messmer that Vilatte was ready to reconcile.[1]^: 111 But Vilatte remained indecisive.[1]^: 112 Messmer "realized that there was no hope for a sincere conversion" and wrote to Satolli:

For the present, he has an asylum among the schismatic Poles, who will pay him court until he will be infatuated and foolish enough to consecrate one of them for the episcopate. Then they will cast him out, and being in such an extremity, he will probably have one more recourse to the Catholic Church, asking for money and pardon. But will it be sincere?[1]^: 112

In 1898, the name was changed from St. Louis cathedral to St. John church and A. A. Mueller was listed as rector.[81]^: 28 On February 10, 1898, Vilatte signed over his cathedral church to the company which foreclosed on him; it sold the church to Messmer on the next day. Messmer's dedication of the church as St. Mary of Częstochowa Church, which took place about two weeks later, included a procession accompanied by a city marching band.[81]^: 33–34 Marx and Blied did not state the disposition of St. Joseph's church but wrote St. Mary's mission was lost at the same time.[37]^: 60[lower-alpha 11] "Vilatte's cathedral was never known as Blessed Sacrament cathedral, as some claim", wrote Klukowski.[81]^: 28 Another mission was founded in Green Bay; it became the PECUSA Church of the Blessed Sacrament in 1908 and a priest ordained by Koslowski was placed in charge.[26]^: 21, 55[81]^: 28, 31

During this time he consecrated Kaminski and voyaged to Europe where he stop at Llanthony Abbey, to ordain Joseph Leycester Lyne, and "explained that he was in a hurry, on his way to Russia at the special invitation or the Holy Synod of Moscow" but that was improbable.[1]^{: 114, 118}

In early 1899, he was in Rome and most Catholic newspapers reported that he sought reconciliation with the RCC instead of union with the ROC.[1]^: 118 Messmer disclosed that "Vilatte had admitted to him personally that he had never been in good faith" and both Messmer and Katzer advised the Holy Office to delay passing judgement on his orders to test his sincerity. A Congregation of the Holy Office Consultor, Father David Flemming, issued Vilatte's abjuration statement and a Roman Curia official, Bishop John Joseph Frederick Otto Zardetti wrote to Messmer that Flemming had the case under control.[1]^{: 118–119} He made a "solemn recantation of his errors" February 2, 1899, but, according to Weber, he "relapsed within a short time" after he outwardly reconciled to the Roman Catholic Church.[16] Vilatte disagreed with authorities in Rome and as a result did not return to the RCC; authorities would not recognise him as a licit bishop.[83] He did not take a solemn vow of abjuration and was not reconciled with the RCC for second time.[1]^: 119

By early 1900, Vilatte was in the Benedictine Ligugé Abbey, near Poitiers. "He appears to have told" the monks that he wanted to make a careful study of ordinations in the Syro-Malabar Church, so that he could convince the authorities in Rome of the validity of his episcopate.[1]^: 119 Aubault wrote a picturesque description of when, in the monastery, he met Joris-Karl Huysmans and Vilatte.[1]^{: 119–120}

While living as a guest of the Benedictines of Poitiers, Vilatte did not cease his subversive, anti-Catholic activities, although conducted secretly. News of this reached Cardinal François-Marie-Benjamin Richard, Archbishop of Paris, who, on 17 April 1900, circulated a warning among his clergy to be on their guard against men who claimed to be ordained or consecrated by Vilatte.[1]^: 120

The Advocate in Sturgeon Bay reported August 14, 1897, that Vilatte, living in Green Bay, had bought 160 acres (65 ha) of land in Price County, Wisconsin, and planned to erect a church and a monastery. "It is his plan to found a colony of his people about the church as a center, the immigrants to come from Germany, Switzerland and portions of this country. [...] He expects to begin operations right away and will have fifty families, in the colony before winter."[84] Soon, according to the September 1, 1897 Milwaukee Journal, a Milwaukee German language newspaper printed a letter from Messmer warning people that women were soliciting funds using Messmer's and Katzer's names without authorization. They were seen and reported; when police arrived, "the priest who accompanied the sisters was called before the chief and questioned and cautioned as to obtaining money by any misrepresentations", according to the Milwaukee Journal. Vilatte felt the incident may have "left some wrong impressions" as they solicited funds, for developing the 160 acres (65 ha) of forest, near Emery, Wisconsin; as Vilatte noted, all within 1 mile (1.6 km) of a logging road. "These sisters were in Milwaukee last week soliciting aid for the asylum, and in some quarters were denounced as frauds", he said. Then, similar to how the Sturgeon Bay seminary scandal began in 1887, he added, "we shall begin active operations within the next month" although "plans for the buildings have not been entirely completed as yet." He envisioned, "[t]he purpose of the church is to found a monastery" as an "agricultural brotherhood of the Old Catholic Church" with a seminary, and an orphanage to bring children "up to agricultural pursuits". A real estate agent working for the Wisconsin Central Railway added that, during his negotiations with Vilatte he visited his "large and flourishing congregation" in Green Bay. The agent said they purchased "fine agricultural land" covered with hardwood forest.[85] Less than six months later, his diocese lost possession of its foreclosed cathedral.[81]^: 33–34

Vilatte acquired U.S. citizenship then returned to the United States.[4]^: 68 He settled in Chicago in 1902, and used a mission begun by Father Francis Kanski as his next permanent cathedra.[11]^: 189

At this time, he had severed all relations with Alvares' Independent Jacobite Church of Ceylon, Goa and India, the Indian Orthodox Church and the Old Catholic Churches of Europe. The establishment of the PNCC and Hodur's consecration was the final blow to his hope of being recognized as the Old Catholic Archbishop of North America.

Vilatte used, among other publications, nontrinitarian Jehovah's Witnesses publications for his religious education; in a letter attributed to him, in Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence, he said: "I do certainly believe that the 'little flock' will be an instrument by whom all the families of earth will be blessed; because all the churches are in a very poor situation and the world in great desolation."[86]

Vilatte's "unilateral arrogation of status as an Old Catholic prelate did not, [...] reflect objective fact", according to Laurence Orzell, in Polish American Studies. The "European Old Catholics neither sanctioned his consecration nor approved of his attempt to spread Old Catholicism to America."[87]^: 41 After successive annual conferences of the priests and delegates from parishes, a proposal to elect a Polish suffragan bishop was approved, and in 1897 the convention chose Kaminski from Buffalo, New York.[11]^: 188 Kozlowski, a losing candidate from Chicago, called a second convention in Chicago, which elected him as bishop; Vilatte refused to recognise him.[11]^: 188 When Vilatte advised the Old Catholics against Kozlowski's consecration, his "ecclesiastical antics" were taken into account and they "probably regarded such advice as all the more reason to proceed with the consecration."[87]^: 43 Kozlowski traveled to Europe, and, on November 21, 1897, Herzog, Gul, and Theodor Weber elevated Kozlowski to the episcopate in Bern. Although Vilatte adherents saw a conspiracy, according to Orzell, it remains unclear if Grafton actively promoted Kozlowski's consecration.[87]^: 43–44 Herzog, who ordained Vilatte, assured Grafton, in 1898, that "a desire to counter the French 'rouge' served as a major motive behind the Chicago priest's consecration" and asked Grafton to support Kozlowski and "develop friendly relations with him".[87]^: 44

Kaminski was born in West Prussia.[3]^: 44 According to Wacław Kruszka in Historya Polska w Ameryce, Kaminski did not attend any college, but learned how to play the organ from a local organist.[3]^: 44 After leaving the army, he forged official documents for which he received a two-year prison term.[3]^: 44 Upon his release, he emigrated to the United States where he clung to various priests as an organist. He felt called to the religious life and joined the Franciscan order in Pulaski, Wisconsin, but was expelled and moved to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where he worked in various menial jobs.[88]^: 101 He was organist at the independent Sweetest Heart of Mary Church in Detroit, Michigan (which Vilatte consecrated in 1893[87]^: 42) but later quarreled with and wrote in newspapers against the pastor, Dominic Hippolytus Kolasinski, and left.[3]^: 44

When Vilatte visited Kolaszewski, his vicar general, in Cleveland, Ohio, to dedicate the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church building and cemetery on August 18, 1894, he ordained Kaminski.[89]^: 50–55 The dedication ceremonies were marred by a riot, caused by protesters in the streets, that included a stabbing and shooting.[90]^: 49–51

In 1895, Kaminski and a faction of his adherents occupied the Polish parish church of St. Paul, a Roman Catholic church of the Diocese of Omaha in South Omaha, Nebraska, where he conducted devotion "in his own way".[88]^: 102[lower-alpha 19] Kaminski wounded a man and then shot at the altar to create the impression that he had also been shot at.[88]^{: 101–103} Later that month, Kaminski was called "a Polish nationalist who posed as a priest" by Elia W. Peattie, in the Omaha World-Herald. She wrote that he "barricaded himself in the sanctuary and used firearms to retain control, wounding Xavier Dargaczewski and Frank Kraycki." Peattie quoted in her article: "The priest, he say: 'I never leave this town till I see the bare bones of this church!' And he is seein' 'em!"[91] It was rumored he started the fire that burned the church, at the end of that month, to a pile of rubble and ashes; Kaminski's faction damaged fire hydrants so there was no way to extinguish the fire. Kaminski was arrested.[88]^{: 102–103}

Kruszka described the Buffalo situation as being the same that took place in Omaha.[3]^: 43

He wrote that, in June 1894, that Alfons Mieczysław Chrostowski's Jutrzenka, in Cleveland, printed that Kolaszewski and Wladyslaw Debski arrived in Buffalo to establish an independent parish.[3]^: 39

Hieronim Kubiak wrote, in The Polish National Catholic Church in the United States of America from 1897 to 1980, that the first independent parishes in the United States were organized by German, Irish, and French Catholics. A "pattern of a parish conflict" was already in place when Poles set up their independent parishes.[92]^: 85 "As long as the conflict continued, the parish most often divorced itself from the jurisdiction of the accused bishop and stood independent of him, which did not mean that the parish did not consider itself belonging to the Catholic Church symbolized by the Pope. In the division with the bishops, the parish kept very strictly to the rules of the norm of religious life, finding in it a further support for the rightness of their cause." Return to the previous state of affairs, exist in isolation and then vanish, or create "a self-determined religious movement" are the three alternative results, according to Kubiak.[92]^: 86–87

According to Kruszka, the causes of this "social ulcer"[lower-alpha 20] can be found several years earlier when Poles began immigrating to Buffalo in large numbers. They had only one church prior to 1886; they built an additional church, without waiting for the permission of Bishop Stephen V. Ryan of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, but a storm demolished it; they demanded another church and only under pressure from the Congregation for Propagation of the Faith was a second church built. Even so, there was by this time resentment and bitterness among the people which created prejudices against the clergy. That "social ulcer"[lower-alpha 20] burst in 1895 when a group demanded that Ryan relinquish ownership and management of their church; Ryan did not agree to the conditions, so the rebels schismed from the RCC and organized an independent parish. Their parish did not develop at all, because everyone thought their pastor, Antoni Klawiter, was morally bankrupt. Klawiter eventually left, intent on reconciling with the RCC, and Kaminski, who was according to Kruszka another notorious adventurer like Klawiter, replaced him.[3]^: 42–43 From 1896 until May 3, 1907, Kaminski was pastor of Holy Mother of the Rosary Parish in Buffalo.[93]^{: 189–190} According to Kruszka, Kaminski once counted under his jurisdiction a parish in Buffalo, a parish in Chicopee, Massachusetts, and a parish in Baltimore, Maryland.[94]^: 50

Kaminski failed to persuade Gul to raise him to the episcopate.[1]^: 113[5]^: 12 Soon after, Kaminski was to be consecrated bishop by Vilatte, but this was delayed over the fee charged for consecration.[3]^: 43 It was deliberate and premeditated simony, the act of buying and selling an ecclesiastical office,[95] Vilatte demanded money for the consecration but Kaminski did not have enough to give.[3]^: 43[87]^: 42 Only after Vilatte was bankrupt and had sold his house and cathedral in Green Bay was he less demanding and agreed to consecrate Kaminski.[3]^: 43 Kaminski was consecrated, on March 20, 1898, by Vilatte[93]^{: 189–190} as suffragan bishop for those Polish priests and parishes which accepted Vilatte's doctrinal reforms.[11]^: 188 In the end, he received $100 in cash from Kaminski and promissory notes for a few hundred dollars more.[3]^: 44 Kaminski threatened to take Grafton to court after Grafton publicly criticized him.[87]^: 42

"Notices were sent out", according to Anson, that stated both Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore and Archbishop Sebastiano Martinelli, the apostolic delegate to the United States, "would assist at the ceremony. It is hardly necessary to add that neither of these prelates put in an appearance."[1]^: 113 However, the new bishop fled the United States to Canada because of creditors. He was excommunicated by Rome and he abandoned Vilatte.

Kaminski was consecrated after the 1889 establishment of the Old Catholic Churches' Union of Utrecht and its IBC, "the orders of episcopi vagantes in general, and specifically those of [...] Kaminski, [...] and of all those consecrated by them, are not recognized, and all connections with these persons is formally denied" by the IBC.[21]^: 197

On September 9, 1898, Vilatte was excommunicated by Ignatius Peter IV for consecrating Kaminski in a way contrary to the canon law of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch.[4]^: 67 Anson wrote that in his agreement with Alvares, Vilatte acknowledged that if he "deviated from their Canons and Rules, he would be subject to dismissal from the dignity of Metropolitan."[1]^: 108 Bishops were consecrated by Vilatte "without authority" from the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch, who "therefore does not recognize such consecrations or their derivative consecrations and ordinations."[96]^: 1070[73]^: 39–40

For both Kaminski and Kozlowski, according to Kubiak, "their movements became isolated in the Polonia community, not so much because of the propaganda of the RCC, but rather because of the public opinion negative assessment of the associations of Polonia toward the dissenters."[92]^: 116 Kubiak wrote:

There is no doubt that in many cases, [...] the same followers and inspirers of the independent parishes were activists in [...] unions and [...] the Socialist party. In any case, in many instances independent parishes and groups of the Polish Socialist Alliance arose at the same time. The social postulates, [...] even the language of their propaganda, seems to indicate to a large extent a convergence in the two movements, [...][92]^{: 116–117}[lower-alpha 21]

Just before the Revolution in the Kingdom of Poland and wider Revolution of 1905 in the Russian Empire, Stanislaw Osada, in Historya Związku Narodowego Polskiego i rozwój ruchu narodowego Polskiego w Ameryce Północne, wrote in the United States, that Russian agents endeavored to draw believers into Old Catholicism, not for faith but for "implanting in the womb of Catholicism"[lower-alpha 22] the basis for Polish discord, to facilitate the Russification of the Catholic Church.[97]^: 502 Kubiak quoted Osada: "There exists yet another danger, namely that in recent times the leaders of that movement (independent) quite unequivocally help spread among the Polish masses the slogans of the Revolutionary-Socialists."[92]^: 117[97]^: 502[lower-alpha 23]

From 1898 to 1911 he edited and published a weekly Polish newspaper Warta, an organ of his independent church.

He died in Buffalo on September 19, 1911.[93]^{: 189–190} After his death, the Buffalo center of the independent movement ceased to exist and most of his parishioners affiliated themselves with the Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC), the Scranton center of the independent movement.[92]^: 95[99]

Paolo Vescovo Miraglia-Gulotti was a priest from Ucria, Sicily, who in 1895 was sent into Piacenza, in Northern Italy, to preach the May sermons in honor of Mary; there he was embroiled in a series of either scandals or conspiracies. He opened his Oratorio di San Paolo, Chiesa Italiana Internationale Paulina Irby wrote, in National Review that it began in a former stable of an old palazzo with church furnishing principally provided by Mazzini's niece. His congregation had just that church, and "is spoken of contemptuously as the congregation of Signor Abbate's stable", she wrote, as the Abbate family own the palazzo.[100]^{: 111–113}

On April 15, 1896, Miraglia, who resided in Piacenza but was a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Patti, Sicily, was excommunicated for, what was called, his "incredible, audacious, and obstinant scandals which long troubled the Roman Catholic Diocese of Piacenza".[101] That year, Nevin introduced in The Churchman the "modern Savonarola", Nevin wrote "he has placed himself under wise guidance, and will not be apt to do anything rashly or ignorantly" but failed to include any specifics.[102] The following week, The Churchman only hinted at the secular side of that movement by publishing a story from Milan's Corriere della Sera which wrote: "The struggle is now not only religious, but civic. The partisans of the bishop will hear of no truce with the partisans of Miraglia, and whenever they can, remove them from the employments that they hold."[103] Within a year, on August 31, 1897, he attended the 4th International Old Catholic Congress in Vienna.[104]

By 1900, two reformation groups in Italy elected bishops for their churches: one group in Arrone elected Campello as its bishop and the other group in Piacenza elected Miraglia as its bishop.[105] Campello was licensed in 1883 by Bishop Abram Newkirk Littlejohn, of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, to work as a priest "wherever there may be lawful opportunity" for Campello's reformation efforts in Italy,[30]^: 88–92 and by that time, Nevin already knew Campello for many years.[30]^: 96 Campello was elected bishop by a synod of his church in 1893 and asked Herzog for consecration, who in turn brought Campello's case to the IBC.[21]^: 196[106]^: 345 The IBC refused to consecrate Campello in 1901, according to Oeyen, "because of his limited number of baptisms and marriages and his close relationships with Anglicans, Methodists, and Waldenses".[106]^: 345 The Church of Utrecht thought Campello was to Protestant.[21]^: 196 Miraglia, by then a leader of reform in northern Italy, wrote to Vilatte regarding the movement and consecration.[11]^{: 188–189} On May 6, 1900, while the Holy See examined Vilatte's case, he consecrated Miraglia in Piacenza. Miraglia was a popular speaker known for his relations with Ferdinando Bracciforti, who represented Milanese liberal Protestantism.[12]^: 33–34[107] According to Smit "the orders of episcopi vagantes in general, and specifically those of [...] Miraglia, and of all those consecrated by them, are not recognized, and all connections with these persons is formally denied" by the IBC.[21]^: 197 On June 13, 1900, the Congregation of Universal Inquisition declared that major excommunication was incurred by both Miraglia and Vilatte.[101] The next day, June 14, 1900, the Alexandria Gazette reported that his anti-Catholicism offended the sensibilities of an American Methodist Episcopal Church in Rome that the "majority of the Protestant congregation interrupted" his discourse "with angry protests against his abuse of the pulpit and the police were finally called to prevent an open riot."[108] In 1901, Tony André Florence, in a report about the liberal movement in Italy presented to the International Council of Unitarian and Other Liberal Religious Thinkers and Workers in London, wrote that Miraglia's "desire to be at the head of a personal movement, after separating him from the Old Catholics whose ideas were akin to his, threw him suddenly into a false path." His consecration by Vilatte "lost him the sympathy of many, and his profession of faith completed their disappointment." Florence wrote that Miraglia's "reformatory movement, therefore, is now in suspense", after he was obliged to refuge abroad.[109] While the ACS reported, in The Times, that although the "discreditable incident" of Miraglia "having arrogated to himself the dignity" of bishop-elect and his consecration happened, the work of the "real bishop-elect", Campello, was going on independently, with headquarters at Rome.[110] It is unclear if the two juxtaposed groups were concurrent factions of one movement.

In 1904, the IBC refused to recognize Miraglia's consecration as valid when he presented himself to the sixth International Old Catholic Congress in Olten, Switzerland.[111]

Already a convicted fugitive who evaded Italian justice, Miraglia was then involved with religious associations in France.[4]^: 82 For example, a parish church in Piedigriggio, Corsica, was confiscated by the government from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ajaccio and devolved to a religious association formed on December 11, 1906. The parish's priest disappeared after he signed a declaration of adherence to the sect. From May, 1907, Jacques Forcioli, a Miraglia ordained priest working for that religious association, conducted schismatic services. In November, a lawsuit was filed by a replacement priest appointed to serve the parish by the Bishop of Ajaccio, against the mayor and Forcioli, demanding the restitution of the church. The court rendered a judgment which condemned the mayor, declared that religious association illegal, and ordered restoration of the property to the RCC's priest.[4]^: 80 Miraglia intended to ordain a priest for Christmas there; but he fled and evaded a French deportation order against him on Christmas Eve. A few days later Forcioli was arrested for stealing items from the church; the mayor and members of the sect were arrested for complicity. Fearing assassination, the mayor refused to implement the restitution on February 25, 1908. Finally, the Court of Appeal in Bastia dismissed Forcioli and restored exclusive possession of the Piedigriggio church property back to the RCC's priest. On March 14, 1908, La Croix emphasized that the scope of the Bastia decision was of special importance, not only because it was the first judgment on the subject, but also because of the principles of law it invoked.[4]^: 82–83[112]

Vilatte and Miraglia united in a joint effort, and except for the brief interval, c. 1906 – c. 1907, when Vilatte unsuccessfully attempted to organize a religious association in France, their work had chiefly been in the Midwestern United States.[16] According to Thomas E. Watson, in Watson's Jeffersonian Magazine, after being "arrested like a common criminal" Miraglia was deported from the United States, on August 4, 1910, "as though he were [...] an enemy to society."[113] Two days before his deportation, the New York Times reported that Miraglia, "self-appointed head" of the Catholic Independent Church of Rome, was detained on Ellis Island "on the charge that he is an undesirable citizen" after being apprehended in Springfield, Massachusetts. He admitted that "while in Piacenza and Parma he served several terms and was heavily fined for libel, and while a professor at the Patti University he forged the signatures of [f]aculty to fake diplomas, which he sold to deficient students."[114] On February 15, 1915, The Evening World reported that he was "charged with obtaining alms under false pretenses", after the Bureau of Charities went to his mission and "found only an empty shack", and arrested along with two of his alleged accomplices by detectives. While in court, a Deputy United States Marshal arrested him "on the charge of writing vicious letters" to a woman.[115]

Over the next few years Vilatte, according to Joanne Pearson in Wicca and the Christian Heritage, "carried on travelling and consecrating, truly a 'wandering bishop'".[73]^: 40

In the middle of 1903, Vilatte was back in South Wales and he raised Henry Marsh-Edwards, a former Anglican priest, to the episcopate with the title of Bishop of Caerleon. The next day both men consecrated Henry Bernard Ventham with the title of Bishop of Dorchester.

The Church of England (CoE) found Marsh-Edwards to be "incapable of holding preferment" after he was required to "answer charges against his moral character."[2]^: 39 Although Marsh-Edwards was married, Vilatte consecrated him as a bishop. Mandatory clerical celibacy was required by Old Catholics, according to Oeyen, in Switzerland until 1876, in Germany until 1878, and in the Union of Utrecht until 1922.[116]^: 298 Margrander explains that this third episcopal consecration, of Marsh-Edwards, conferred by Vilatte is noteworthy because the bishop-elect was not celibate; Vilatte's precedent was followed by Gul in consecrating Arnold Mathew several years later.[11]^: 189 Mathew, a former Roman Catholic priest who resigned and left the RCC, was married by the CoE.[117][lower-alpha 24]

"It is probable", Anson noted, that Vilatte consecrated Carmel Henry Carfora in 1907. "But there is no documentary evidence", he added, of the event.[1]^: 123

In 1913, Vilatte consecrated Victor von Kubinyi in South Bend, Indiana.[118]

Frederick Ebenezer John Lloyd was elected coadjutor bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Oregon in 1905.[119] Nelson Crawford wrote, in American Mercury, that some laity opposed Lloyd's election and sent a letter containing "numerous objections" to the hierarchy.[119] The letter was influential and Lloyd withdrew his name from consideration.[119] He was not confirmed and was not consecrated by the Protestant Episcopal Church of America (PECUSA).[119]

In 1907, Lloyd was degraded from the priesthood by Bishop Cortlandt Whitehead of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh and converted to the RCC that year.[2]^: 40 In 1909, he reverted to the PECUSA.[120] He was a member of the Illinois legislature.[119]

Vilatte's sect was incorporated in 1915 in Illinois under the name American Catholic Church (ACC);[121] Lloyd was an incorporator along with Vilatte and René Louis Zawistowski.[2]^: 35–36 Vilatte consecrated Lloyd later that year.[2]^: 40

At the conclusion of the service Vilatte said to Lloyd:

It needs no prophet to foretell for you and the American Catholic Church a great future in the Providence of God. The need for a Church both American and Catholic, and free from paparchy and all foreign denomination, has been felt for many years by Christians of all the denominations. May your zeal and apostolic ministry be crowned with success.[1]^: 125

He succeeded Vilatte as head of the ACC in 1920.[2]^: 40

According to Brandreth, Lloyd proselytized and the spread of the ACC was "largely due to his initiative."[2]^: 36

Lloyd founded his Order of Antioch (OoA), which was, according to Douglas, a group for Anglican clergy who were ordained by Lloyd.[2]^: xvii According to Douglas, Lloyd created a "loose organization in which he was looked to as the central episcopus vagans" that consisted to a greater degree of "an underground clientèle of Anglican clergymen" who were members of the OoA and to a lesser degree of churches.[2]^{: xvii–xviii} Douglas noted that the OoA attracted "an appreciable, if not large, membership, which was diffused all over England" but did not include an estimate of its membership.[2]^: xviii

Lloyd's assistant, John Churchill Sibley, who Lloyd consecrated in 1929, spread the OoA, surreptitiously according to Douglas.[2]^{: xviii–xix, 43} From about 1928 until 1934, Lloyd and Sibley used Saint Sarkis' Armenian Apostolic Church in London. In 1934, the Armenian priest informed his hierarchy, after being apprised by Douglas, that the Syriac Orthodox Church had repudiated Vilatte's apostolic succession; the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem then instructed its priest "to cease all relations with Sibley and the Order".[2]^: xviii

Lloyd and Sibley together operated a parallel business entity, called the "Intercollegiate University" (IU), in which Lloyd was president and Sibley was chancellor.[2]^: xix[122] According to the 1924 Year Book of the Churches, "in order to establish a legal bond with the American Catholic Church", the College of Church Musicians (CoCM) was reorganized and incorporated as IU in Illinois.[122]

George Alexander McGuire was an Antiguan and a baptized Anglican who graduated from a Moravian theological seminary and served as a Moravian Church pastor on Saint Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He was married and had one daughter. After he immigrated to the United States in 1894, during the nadir of American race relations, he was eventually ordained as a priest in the Episcopal Church.[123][124]^{: 246–247} After various assignments, from 1905 he held "the highest position open to a black man serving the church within the United States" as Bishop William Montgomery Brown's archdeacon for colored work in the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America considered proposals for the creation of black bishops, either in missionary districts independent of local dioceses or as suffragan bishops of local dioceses.[123] Brown, a proponent of social Darwinism, proposed that black people should be racially segregated into a separate denomination.[123][124]^: 103 Theodore Natsoulas wrote, in Journal of Religion in Africa, that McGuire wrote an addendum to a diocesan annual report which endorsed Brown's "Arkansas Plan".[125]^: 82 Hein and Shattuck point out that Brown later apostatized and became a Communist; his "extreme theological and social views" eventually led to his removal.[124]^: 109 As Brown's archdeacon, "under his own initiative, he attempted to enact Brown's plan" but, according to Bains, McGuire seemed to have preferred the alternative missionary districts plan and "was frustrated by the racism of the Episcopal Church".[123] Natsoulas thought that McGuire "probably came away from Arkansas with the idea of an independent black church."[125]^: 83

McGuire later received a Doctor of Medicine and served as rector in the United States and on Antigua.[123] In New York, he joined Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and the African Communities League in 1919, and was elected its chaplain-general the next year.[123] While affiliated for a short time with the Reformed Episcopal Church, when McGuire established the Church of the Good Shepherd, he and his congregation became part of the Independent Episcopal Church which was renamed the African Orthodox Church (AOC).[123] According to David Hein and Gardiner Shattuck, in The Episcopalians, McGuire created the African Orthodox Church "along the lines of what the Conference of Church Workers and Brown had previously proposed."[124]^{: 109–110}[lower-alpha 25] Garvey did not want a hierarchical church like McGuire created.[123]

While Bains called it only "a brief period of estrangement" from Garvey,[123] McGuire actually became involved in a rival organization, the African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption (ABB).

According to Rochell Isaac and Louis Parascandola, in Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present, the ABB was a Marxist communist and black nationalist secret society founded by Cyril Briggs in Harlem, New York. It was an African American self-defense "response to the violent race riots of the Red Summer of 1919" and the Ku Klux Klan.[126][127] Parascandola called it a "secret paramilitary group".[127] According to Isaac, much early ABB history is not documented but she wrote it was inspired by the Irish Republican Brotherhood.[126] Many of its leaders were Caribbean immigrants and its council joined Comintern.[126] Briggs, editor of the Amsterdam News, was fired by that newspaper for his support of an "autonomous black nation within the United States".[126][127] "The ABB saw racism as an offshoot of capitalism and viewed Marxism as the solution to the race problem."[126] James Oneal wrote, in American Communism, that it, the ABB,[lower-alpha 26] appeared some time in 1921 and was used to attract blacks to the Communist movement.[128] McGuire, who had been active in the UNIA, according to Oneal, "became a prominent leader in the new organization."[128] Mark Solomon wrote, in The Cry Was Unity, it "enjoyed a burst of good fortune in the fall of 1921 when three UNIA leaders" including McGuire "bolted to the ABB" but "did not widen its ideological appeal."[129] The AOC "took great pains to demonstrate his legitimacy." Natsoulas wrote that it "was important to its mission that the new church be founded on solid grounds" and quoted McGuire's words that "[t]he Negro everywhere must control his own ecclesiastical organization" yet hold the Apostolic traditions.[125]^: 87 He was refused consecration by Episcopal, Catholic, and Russian Orthodox bishops.[123] About the same time, on September 28, 1921, Vilatte consecrated McGuire.[2]^: 42 The ABB, according to Solomon, contemplated a secret army with weapons "smuggled into Africa by men 'in the guise of missionaries, etc.' as a prelude to gradual liberation of the continent."[129] But, Jeannette Jones writes, in In Search of Brightest Africa, that the ABB had a flawed understanding of missionaries because, in fact, the "colonial powers distrusted many black missionaries as race agitators."[130]^: 121 By the end of 1923 the ABB was no longer an "independent political organization" as it merged with the Workers Party of America;[126] and, it was dissolved in 1925.[127]

McGuire believed that apostolic succession was "essential to authenticate the claims of the AOC". According to Bains, however, "the questionable authenticity of Vilatte's consecrations haunted their relations with other churches." For example, although three months after being raised to the episcopate, McGuire was granted an audience with Patriarch Meletius IV of Constantinople in New York City,[125]^: 89 but the AOC "never gained the desired recognition from a major Eastern Orthodox Church."[125]^: 90 Bains concluded that McGuire "remained a marginal figure in both the church and predominantly Protestant black America" even with his "claim to apostolic succession that few recognized."[123]

Edward Rufane Donkin[lower-alpha 27] was an infamous impostor with worldwide notoriety.[132] He represented himself, at different times, as D Benedetto, Comte Benedetto Donkin, Lord Cortenay, Benedict Donkin, the cousin of the Earl of Minto, the son of the Duke of Devon. "In the world's long roll of impostors a prominent place must always be found for 'the Right Rev. Edward Rufane Benedict Donkin, Bishop of Santa Croce, and Vicar Apostolic of the Independent Roman Catholic Church'", begins his obituary in Adelaide's The Chronicle, who committed "a series of frauds" resulting in several imprisonments.[133] Vilatte ordained Donkin. Years later, in 1904, while he represented himself as an Old Catholic Church bishop,[lower-alpha 28] Donkin started "what [was] purported to be an Old Catholic Benedictine Oratory" in a house previously "occupied by genuine Benedictines" and "opened almost entirely on credit." By August, "the bubble burst", Warren Fisher, who guaranteed the furnishings, discovered he had been swindled. Donkin "represented that he had been appointed by the Old Catholic Conference as their bishop at Oxford at a salary of £400 a year and that he produced what purported to be the official record of his appointment." Donkin induced him "to guarantee the bill for the furnishing of the Oratory" with a forged check and Fisher was left to pay his guarantee. Fisher then wrote to Vilatte, he responded, and Fisher forwarded his letter to Truth which published it.[134]^: 140 Vilatte wrote that when Donkin came to him in 1896, "he posed as 'The Rev Fr Dominic, OSA, Church of England Missioner, St Augustine's Priory, London,' and as such he was asked by the Protestant Episcopal clergy of Milwaukee to preach in their cathedral." And, as Vilatte wrote, "I was completely blinded and did ordain him to the priesthood" but "[a]bout eighteen months afterwards his true character was discovered, and I deposed and degraded him". Vilatte explained that a member of his clergy, who he noted was also "humbugged and swindled", introduced him to the impostor, the alias Lord Cortenay, son of the Duke of Devon; that "he 'took in' the clergy of Milwaukee"; that "Donkin never belonged to any 'community' in our Church"; but, Vilatte did not explain why he ordained Donkin, who he thought was a CoE cleric. Vilatte wrote that later Donkin "posed as a Bishop in Cleveland."[134]^: 140[lower-alpha 29]

According to Smit "the orders of episcopi vagantes in general, and specifically those of [...] Donkin, [...] and of all those consecrated by them, are not recognized, and all connections with these persons is formally denied" by the IBC.[21]^: 197

Vilatte became acquainted with Lyne on his 1890–1891 tour of North America.

Vilatte first visited Frederick George Lee of the Order of Corporate Reunion. Lee gave Vilatte a letter of introduction to Lyne.[1]^: 114

While Vilatte traveled to Paris to consult with advisers, he interrupted his journey to ordain Joseph Leycester Lyne and another monk at the Anglican Llanthony monastery near Capel-y-ffin, Wales, and the ruins of Llanthony Priory;[11]^: 188 on July 27, 1898, Lyne, an ordained deacon in the CoE but "unable to receive orders in his own church" for over three decades, was ordained priest by Vilatte. Rene Kollar wrote, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, that "for a time" Lyne "dreamed of establishing a British Old Catholic church."[135] Years earlier, in 1890–1891, while Lyne was on his tour of North America raising funds for his work in England,[135] The Cambrian wrote that his order "is not a Catholic Order, nor a Church of England exactly, but an offshoot of the High Church movement associated with the idea of a revival of the [a]ncient British Church"—which Pearson calls a "literary fantasm"[73]^: 26—and his abbey church conducts some services in Welsh. The Cambrian noted that had Lyne addressed the 1889 National Eisteddfod of Wales, in Brecon, on behalf of the Welsh language and of the Ancient British Church and also admitted a Druid, taking the bardic name Dewi Honddu, by the Archdruid David Griffith, also known by his bardic name Clwydfardd; and had spoken for the rights of the Ancient Welsh Church at the English Church Congress held at Cardiff, by the permission of the Bishop of Llandaff.[136] Pearson argues that "concern with ancient, indigenous religions emerging and operating independently of the Church of Rome characterises the heterodox Christian churches of the episcopi vagantes in England, Wales and France" and "was a theme that was to influence the development of Druidry and Wicca."[73]^: 26 She believes, based on accounts published during his tour of him being the "Druid of the Welsh Church" and "belonging to an Ancient British Church, older than any except Antioch and Jerusalem", Lyne may have been part of another episcopus vagans', Richard Williams Morgan,[2]^: 50 recreated Ancient British Church, given its overtones of Welsh nationalism and links to neo-druidism.[73]^: 129It was, according to Desmond Morse-Boycott, in Lead, Kindly Light, his accepting ordination "at the hands of a wandering [O]ld Catholic bishop, who was an adventurer" that discredited him with the CoE which "denied him the priesthood".[73]^: 132[137]

In 1909, after Lyne's death, two surviving Anglican monks, Asaph Harris and Gildas Taylor, were ordained, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where Vilatte was staying during a visit of his missions in that part of North America.[1]^{: 123–124}[11]^: 189 Both monks eventually joined the Benedictines of Caldey Island where Aelred Carlyle was Abbot and later Anson was a member.[1]^: 124

Grafton was a founding member of the Society of St. John the Evangelist who "had strong ideas about the importance of communities of men and their significant contributions to the church" and his "influence on the growth of the religious life", according to Rene Kollar on Project Canterbury, "extended across the Atlantic".[138]^: 2 Charles Wood, 2nd Viscount Halifax, wanted Grafton to install Carlyle as abbot of the monastic community living as guests on Halifax's estate in Painsthorpe.[138]^: 2 On his return travel from Russia in 1903, Grafton visited Halifax in Painsthorpe where he installed Carlyle and ordained him a subdeacon;[138]^: 1–3 and the next year, 1904, Grafton ordained Carlyle a priest during a secret but officially documented ceremony in Ripon, Wisconsin.[138]^: 5

Both Carlyle and Grafton wanted to establish an Anglican Benedictine brotherhood in Grafton's diocese.[138]^: 4 Several men expressed an interest,[138]^: 5–6 but Anson wrote that Brothers was not among a few Americans at Carlyle's monastery.[1]^: 414 It is unclear what happened next but, according to Kollar, Carlyle's involvement stopped in 1904. "Apparently little or no contact existed between Carlyle's brotherhood and his American counterpart", noted Kollar.[138]^: 7 By 1908, Father Herbert Parrish, a PECUSA priest in good standing, was prior of the Anglican Benedictine monastery of St. John the Baptist in Fond du Lac.[139]^{: 158, 369}[lower-alpha 30] Anson wrote, in The American Benedictine Review, that after Parrish left, it "appears that his followers were replaced or displaced by a group of young men who had been formed into a Benedictine brotherhood" by Brothers in Waukegan, Illinois,[141]^: 24 located outside Grafton's Diocese of Fond du Lac.

A "rented-house was named St. Dunstan's Abbey" with Grafton self-appointed as "their absentee Abbot";[141]^: 24 it was not a monastery listed in the Living Church Annual.[lower-alpha 30]

According to Anson, Vilatte ordained Brothers c. 1910 – c. 1911 and later deposed him.[1]^{: 124, 418}

Anson was not certain whether this group was an Anglican religious order, "for by 1911 they were styling themselves 'Old Catholics'".[141]^: 24 Brothers' group, of about five members, was brought into the remaining part of the POCC, then under the jurisdiction Bishop Jan Tichy in 1911.[1]^{: 124, 416–417}[lower-alpha 31]

Brothers was consecrated by Bishop Rudolph de Landas Berghes in 1916 and later deposed by him, for what "appears to have been" to Brandreth, "on the grounds that at the time of the consecration he had not, in fact, received the Orders of deacon and priest."[2]^{: 17, 24, 28}

On June 21, 1907, Vilatte ordained Louis-Marie-François Giraud,[1]^: 123 an excommunicated Roman Catholic Trappist monk, for dabbling in magic and the occult.

Shortly after Giraud's ordination, Cardinal François-Marie-Benjamin Richard, Archbishop of Paris, warned about apostate priests who were celebrating Mass under cover of a religious association directed by Vilatte. Richard said,

this plot hatched in the silence characteristic of masonry will not succeed. Catholics will not let themselves be deceived. Clemenceau and Briand may rob us of our churches, but not our consciences.[1]^: 123

He then excommunicated Vilatte a second time.[1]^: 123

Vilatte operated a private home for the care of homeless children, St John's Home, in Chicago since 1897. Claude Basil, known as "Father Basil", was in charge of this institution until three indictments, charging "crime against nature", were found against him by the Cook County, Illinois grand jury in June 1903. The indictments were based on accusations of three boys who formerly lived in the home. Basil was arrested. An inspector from the State Board of Charities investigated the home on August 6, 1903, after the St John's Home applied to the Illinois Secretary of State for incorporation. According to the report, the inspector went to the given address and found the house vacant but upon inquiry was directed to a different location. A new two story frame building with modern conveniences was found at that address. Vilatte was in charge and assisted by two other men, "Father Francis" and "Brother Panchand"; the signatures of all three men appear on the incorporation application. "He informed me that the home was organized in 1897, and that its object is to help poor children who have no homes, no matter what religious denomination they belong to, and that the institution is supported entirely by donations and collections." They cared for eighteen children—17 boys and a girl, the sister of three boys. The inspector recommended that the girl, probably 7 or 8 years old, should be taken out of the home, which had no provision for the separation of the sexes, and placed elsewhere. Furniture was moved in the day before the inspection, and consequently the home was in disorder, but the inspector noted the floors woodwork walls and ceiling appeared to be clean. Vilatte informed him that a doctor was immediately called in case of sickness. The children wore donated clothing and all those of school age attended the public school. Two boys were locked in rooms and the inspector was told by Vilatte that "they were doing penance for running away".[148]

The report includes part of an 1898 letter from Grafton, about Vilatte's character, published in Diocese of Fond du Lac, a newspaper. Grafton warned about Basil in that letter:

Another co-worker whom he ordained priest under the title of Father Basil, is a renegade from England, having formerly been connected with the Reformed Episcopal [C]hurch, and who fled to America, being accused as his bishop wrote me, of criminal conduct with boys. His name is George Reader, and the authorities of Scotland Yard wrote concerning him, that, while they did not give information to private parties, they would do so to the chief of police of any of our cities.[lower-alpha 32]

To further discredit Vilatte in that letter, which Orzell calls one of his "more vituperative public pronouncements concerning" Vilatte,[87]^: 41 Grafton also asserted "he was morally rotten; a swindling adventurer [...] reported to me for drunkenness, swindling, obtaining money under false pretenses and other crimes, and as a notorious liar" with "somewhat exceptional gifts as an imposter" and associated with questionable people:

He has been surrounded and had for his tools a small body of men, mostly ex-Romans whose equals in crime and debauchery are rarely found. His late secretary is now in the State prison. Another [...] is now the inmate of an insane asylum, [...]
I know of no clergyman in my diocese who has any other opinion of Vilatte but that his proper place is in the penitentiary. He belongs to the low class of criminals governed by inordinate ambition and insatiate greed for money and power. He has no fixed religious principles, as is seen from the course of his life.[lower-alpha 32]

Vilatte stated that Basil no longer had a connection with the home at the time of inspection. The board did not find conditions sufficiently favorable to warrant recommending for the St John's Home incorporation; the board recommended that articles of incorporation be withheld by the Secretary of State. He was tried on one of these indictments and found guilty of a "crime against nature" on September 30, 1903. At the time of the report, he was held in jail while his appeals pended. The Secretary of State declined to incorporate St John's Home.[148] Basil requested "friends and acquaintances" back in Sturgeon Bay to send financial contributions, to Vilatte, for his appeal.[149]

In 1904, diplomatic relations between the French Third Republic and the Holy See were broken.[150]

In 1905, all Churches were separated from the State and authorized to form self-supporting corporations for public worship. Those religious associations (French: associations cultuelles) were designations given to certain "moral persons" or associations which, by the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State, the French Third Republic, wished to incorporate in each diocese and parish to receive as proprietors church properties and revenues, with responsibility of taking care of them.[150] They were based on the principle that the State should only recognize distinct religious associations, having corporate status, formed in each parish for the purpose of worship "in accordance with the rules governing the organization of worship in general".[151] All buildings used for public worship were made over to the religious associations; in the absence of religious associations, buildings remain at the disposal of the clergy and worshipers, but an administrative act must be secured from the prefect or the mayor.[150] By Article 8, it belonged to the Council of State, a purely lay authority, to pronounce upon the orthodoxy of any religious associations; the revenues were to be subject to state regulation.[150]

One such group was the work of Henri Durand-Morimbau, a publicist, better known under his pseudonym of Henri des Houx. Durand-Morimbau, a university agrégé, first worked with Bishop Félix Dupanloup at the liberal newspaper La Défense. Pope Leo XIII realized the need of a papal journal through which he could communicate with the foreign press, and he consequently created Journal de Rome. Journal de Rome, inspired by the French Cardinal Jean Baptiste François Pitra and directed by des Houx, grew critical of Leo XIII's liberal views. The New Zealand Tablet describing Journal de Rome, wrote that, it "distinguished itself for its fierce denunciations of the Italian Government and its equally fierce support, [...] of the Papacy." In 1885, Pitra defended des Houx in an open letter but Journal de Rome did not fulfil Leo XIII's expectations and was closed. Des Houx then returned to Paris, where he became editor of Le Matin, a French daily newspaper, in which he retaliated with articles against the Pope and the Curia. In 1886, his memoir Souvenir d'un journaliste français à Rome was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. But he returned to Leo XIII's favor by publishing, in 1900, Histoire de Léon XIII, Joachim Pecci (1810–1878).[4]^: 53[152][153]

By his August 10, 1906, encyclical, Gravissimo officii munere, Pope Pius X stated that the law threatened to intrude lay authority into the natural operation of the ecclesiastical organization;[150] Georges Goyau explains, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, that the Holy See feared that religious associations would furnish the State with a pretext for interfering with the internal life of the Church, and would offer to the laity a constant temptation to control the religious life of the parish.[151] Gravissimo officii munere prohibited the formation not only of these religious associations, but of any form of association whatsoever "so long as it should not be certainly and legally evident that the Divine constitution of the Church, the immutable rights of the Roman pontiff and of the bishops, such as their authority over the necessary property of the Church, particularly the sacred edifices, would, in such religious associations, be irrevocably and fully secure."[150][151][154] The RCC ecclesiastical authority had forbidden the only kind of corporation which the State recognized as authorized to collect funds for purposes of worship or have the right of ownership for purposes of worship. The State considered previously legally-recognized churches, as no longer existing; and, in cases where no religious associations were incorporated, took over the property of the churches and turned the property over by decree to the charitable establishments of the respective municipality; in such cases, the Church lost this property forever.[151] After the publication of the encyclical, des Houx supported a policy opposed to that which he held twenty years earlier in Rome.[4]^: 53–54

On August 19, 1906, he started a press campaign, in Le Matin, titled: "France for the French" (La France aux Français). He wrote that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church were unable to save either themselves or churches and the faithful French must now do so; des Houx appealed, to all the faithful, for the formation of a "League of French Catholics" (Ligue des Catholiques de France), whose purpose was to preserve traditional worship churches, religious foundations and properties currently threatened by decommissioning of churches; the group mission was to facilitate the formation of religious associations. He wrote that the majority of bishops disguised their opinions and were forced to abdicate their conscience and their control; that priests were treated like dumb and terrified slaves; and, that they did not have the right to abdicate a wealth which was accumulated by the piety of their ancestors. By September 23, 1806, Léon Daudet ridiculed, in Libre Parole, what he calls des Houx's "schismicule".[4]^: 54–55

The large circulation of Le Matin made the failed attempt widely known and drew public attention to the acts and the words of Vilatte; Le Matin and des Houx were unable to get people to take their religious association seriously. Vilatte was involved but could not keep des Houx's "French Catholic Church" viable, which des Houx had established in Paris, in the chapel of a former convent.[155]

By January 1907, des Houx wanted to create a schismatic Church in Paris and recruited Vilatte,[4]^: 65 though Vilatte was believed to be supported by Aristide Briand, the Minister of Cults and one of the leaders of the liberal anti-Roman movement.[156] At des Houx's insistence, Vilatte returned to Paris early in 1907.[4]^: 68 On February 24, 1907, Washington Times-Herald translated Vilatte, from Le Petit Parisien, as saying to the French: "You are suffering, [...] but you do not know why you suffer, because you are not clear-sighted and practical—because you are not Americans. But I am an American, and I am the man you want to set things straight for you."[157]

Vilatte together with a few laymen founded a religious association in the Church Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Paris that filed a demand to receive the church and its possessions. In the meantime he resided in the former Barnabite convent.[lower-alpha 33] A public Mass was partly celebrated in the convent chapel by Roussin, from the diocese of Toulouse, in the presence of Vilatte. Much disorder and tumult followed upon Roussin's appearance in the pulpit, which he was speedily forced to quit by missiles flung at him. Vilatte tried to quell the storm from the sanctuary but was also obliged to retreat.[4]^: 69[7]^: 181 The religious association was "founded at the instigation of the Masonic government officials", according to Kirkfleet.[32]^: 229

Vilatte's June 13, 1900, excommunication by the RCC was renewed on March 6, 1907.[7]^: 269 Roussin eventually returned to the RCC.[7]^: 653

Around the same time, he was involved in another scandal. If Vilatte did not exist, wrote a columnist in Le Rire, he would have to be invented for the lenten vaudeville foolishness played out in his church; he satirized the incident of a bailiff, who, in the name of a woman who loaned 3,000 francs to Vilatte, presented himself at the chapel and seized Vilatte's personal belongings, including his miter and crosier. He wrote of Vilatte's humiliation—not even having a miter to put on his head. While the bailiff searched for property to seize, he also found embarrassment and shame; the church porter had brought a fourteen-year-old girl, whom he had met on the boulevards during Mardi Gras, into his room above the chapel. Snob ended his satire with the sentence: "Desolation of the desolation!"[158]

The law was modified by a law passed January 2, 1907, permitting exercise of religious worship in churches purely on sufferance and without any legal title; and further by a law passed March 28, 1907, classifying assemblages for religious worship as public meetings, and abolishing in respect of all public meetings the anticipatory declaration required by the Law of 1881 which the RCC refused to make.[150] According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, by the end of 1908, the RCC in France, stripped of all her property, was barely tolerated in her religious edifices.[151] Appolis underscores that, ultimately, without the patronage of even a single French episcopate and only a very small number of schismatic priests in service, the "League of French Catholics" completely failed. It is significant that the modernists, active at that time, paid no attention to the religious associations movement, according to Appolis. He concludes that, while Briand was initially hostile toward religious associations, he later only used them for a short time as a "machine of war" against the Holy See but saw little result and abandoned them.[4]^: 87–88 By 1920 diplomatic relations between the French Third Republic and the Holy See, broken in 1904, were resumed.[150] This method was used until 1923 when a new method of administering church properties was inaugurated.[150]

Vilatte was involved in at least three speculative real estate ventures near the Rio Grande. In each venture he sought out customers who would travel to and settle on land purchased from the venture.

In 1906, according to articles published in The Donaldsonville Chief and The Brownsville Daily Herald, settlers could purchase 20 acres (8.1 ha) or 40 acres (16 ha) plots of land from a 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) tract that a venture had planned to purchase near Raymondville, Texas. The Brownsville Daily Herald wrote that Vilatte traveled in a private railroad car with several investors. A. M. Davidson, a general immigration agent at Chicago for the Houston and Texas Central Railway, purchased 50 acres (20 ha) of land and the Brownsville Railroad donated 40 acres (16 ha) more, on which a monastery was planned, at the center of the planned settlement. Vilatte recruited settlers; one article said he would select the settlers and "see to it that no undesirable immigrants are brought in."[159][160] He began calling himself "Archbishop Vilatte, of Texas".[161]

In 1910, with a group of Society of the Precious Blood religious, led by Taylor, who had joined the society after his ordination, Vilatte went to Candelaria, Texas. From there, they crossed the Rio Grande to an area in the vicinity of San Antonio El Bravo in Mexico where they founded, on 18 July, a cooperative settlement called Vilatteville located on 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) in the Chihuahuan Desert.

Vilatte felt it was a blessing to live there. He wrote:

If God sees fit to bless our hard and arduous work of tilling the soil in Vilatteville, our harvest will care for the orphans and cripples, for the friendless and old people, who have no other abode in which to spend the few remaining years of their life, and educate a new generation for the struggle of the world. But our work will not stop there. The land of Vilatteville must be the partage of the people of good will and good fellowship. Be your own master, have your own home, take for your children and yourself a piece of the earth, and under the shadow of our institution, bring up your family, far from the corruption, the degradation and slavery of the great city.

According to an article published in the El Paso Herald, only actual settlers could purchase 10 acres (4.0 ha) or 20 acres (8.1 ha) plots of land along with 1 acre (0.40 ha) in the town of Vilatteville from what was described as a "back to the soil" settlement on land the venture purchased in northern Chihuahua, Mexico.[162] On October 1, 1910, Vilatte sailed to Europe to recruit settlers.[162]

Unfortunately for the settlement, the Mexican Revolution also started in 1910. After Porfirio Díaz was ousted from power and exiled in France, Abraham González, Governor of Chihuahua, redistributed the settlement as part of nationalization and agrarian land reform in Mexico.

Taylor stayed in Chihuahua for a few years where, according to Anson, "he worked with schismatic clergy who were being sponsored by Vilatte as a nucleus of a national church."[1]^: 124 Vilatteville was a precursor of Mexican schisms. Although Joaquín Pérez's 1925 Mexican Catholic Apostolic Church (Iglesia Católica Apostólica Mexicana) (ICAM) was dismissed as a "comic opera reformation" sponsored by Plutarco Elías Calles, Matthew Butler notes, in The Americas, that previously other schisms were attempted such as by Venustiano Carranza's revolutionaries and that Vilatteville was built in Chihuahua about 15 years before.[163]^{: 536–537} It's unclear from Butler if Vilatteville influenced Mexican schisms but Butler wrote that Pérez was consecrated by Carfora.[2]^: 28[163]^: 540

Other groups also conducted operations in Mexico. Cross wrote that before the First Vatican Council, "the American Episcopal Church had supported dissident Catholics in Mexico. The reform mission of the American Episcopal Church, with its links to the ACS, is closely related to the growth of American influence and empire."[15]^: 7

In 1911, another venture was "Uncle Sam City", in Socorro County, New Mexico Territory, with the Ascott Valley Land and Improvement Company of El Paso, Texas. On at least 10,000 acres (4,000 ha). In a full-page advertisement, in the August 26, 1911, issue of the El Paso Herald, the venture dubiously claims, among other things, that it "gives the first investors a 1000 percent profit within a few years" and "only an infinitesimal part of the water applied to lands in this valley is lost to evaporation" as well as "cattle are rarely afflicted with diseases".[164]

Louis-François Girardot and Vilatte originated a pair of OCT groups. The two separately founded OCT orders had the same name but different origins and were combined, although it is not clear what that meant. The San Luigi organization says that the orders were inspired by the Ordre du Genest, founded by King Louis IX of France, and also that "it is not asserted that there is a continuous and historically verifiable link between the present-day Order and these bodies."[183][184]

There are two separate foundation stories for the OCT; one in 1883, the other in 1891. These foundation stories were not believed by some during Vilatte's lifetime; Guénon wrote that "dignitaries of this Church have a mania for titles of nobility as others have for fantastic decorations; thus [... Vilatte] invented the 'Order of the Crown of Thorns'."[180]^: 216 The organization acknowledges the lack of verifiable facts about the monastery but says that some documents were destroyed in a house fire in 1918 and other documents were seized by the Vatican in 1929 after Vilatte's death.[185]

In 1957, Girardot recanted his 1883 foundation story.[186][187]

The OCT was reputedly founded in 1883. According to the San Luigi organization, after the French protectorate of Tunisia was established in 1881, France sought to colonize the Ottoman Empire's Fezzan province as part of the Scramble for Africa. A small group of monks settled in Ghadames in 1883. The organization says that there is no documentation about their past.[185] It is unclear if the monastery was a satellite of a mother abbey, if it was ever considered stable enough and large enough to be elevated to the rank of an abbey, if they had the canonically required number of twelve monks to elect an abbot, if his election received the approbation of their provincial prior, if after his ecclesiastical confirmation he received abbatial blessing from any bishop in communion with the Holy See, or even if any of their actions were sanctioned at all.[189][190][191] Nevertheless, the monks called their monastery the Abbey-Principality of San Luigi and they claimed sovereignty, as a theocracy, over the surrounding secular territory. Disease was endemic; attempts to convert the local Muslim population to Catholicism were rejected; and in less than a year, on August 2, 1884, the monastery was sacked and at least one monk was murdered. Five monks, including what the organization calls their third abbot, José Mendoza, survived and were exiled. Mendoza was somehow elected by less than the canonically required twelve monks. Without mentioning the Sahara and Sahel situated between Ghadames and the Sudd, the organization says that the monks traveled across the Sudd and arrived in the Kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara on March 15, 1885. There, the organization says, Omukama Kabarega of Bunyoro granted territory to the monks to settle and establish a monastery. The organization says that Kabarega conferred a title, Mukungu of the Chieftainship of the Ancient Abbey-Principality of San Luigi, upon Mendoza. In 1888, all the monks died from an epidemic, except Mendoza, who then abandoned the monastery in Bunyoro and returned to Europe. The organization says that "legalization by a French government official established the recognition of the Abbey-Principality by the French state" when Seine-Port Mayor Eugène Clairet was involved in a transfer of titles from Mendoza to Girardot.[185][192] On May 7, 1899,again with Clairet's involvement, Girardot transferred those Mendoza titles to Vilatte.[193]

The organization says that the monastery, of at least seven monks, "was constitutionally independent as a theocratic state" and a "colonising power" under which "the local population had no political rights whatsoever" and "were to be subjugated under the absolute rule" of the monastery.[185] The organization confers reputed titles of nobility[193] The organization also describes itself as an Old Catholic church.[194] The organization believes itself to be the legitimate de jure government-in-exile of its former territory in the Fezzan. "The Abbey-Principality aims ultimately to secure the territorial restoration of the original Abbey-Principality in Libya, but is aware that political and related considerations are likely to preclude this objective for the time being".[185] The organization also believes that it is also theoretically empowered to open embassies although it has not done so as yet.[185]

The OCT was also allegedly founded in 1891 and authorized by Peter IV, Patriarch of Antioch.[185] The ICOC asserts that because "none of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchal Sees possess any type of direct Sovereignty, [...] the decorations instituted by them may not be deemed as equivalent to those bestowed by the Roman Pontiff not only in his Spiritual Capacity but also in his temporal position as Sovereign of the Vatican City State." "Protection is an attribute of Sovereignty, which none of these Sees actually posses", according to the ICOC.[182]

The Valensi affair was a scandal in 1910s France, named after Guillaume Valensi. It resulted in arrests and convictions for fraud and trafficking illegal decorations.[195][196] Documents and blank diplomas of decorations of various orders were seized which included a number of blanks printed in Arabic and others bearing what purported to be, the signatures of living and dead prominent French statesmen.[197] Five men were placed on trial, excluding Valensi, who was judged to be not mentally competent.[198] The investigation was begun after a client became suspicious of the authenticity of the signatures on the diploma of the Tunisian order of Nichan Iftikhar that he purchased and reported the whole affair.[195][197] Valensi and an accomplice were arrested on charges of fraud and trafficking illegal decorations.[197] According to The New York Times, the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger reported that the trafficking in decorations scandal spread as far as Berlin were many well-known persons were decorated.[196] As it spread, searches were carried out against Valensi and his accomplices which led to several arrests and the revelation that duped officials in Lille had been "hoaxed in the most complete and amusing manner" by Valensi and two accomplices into thinking that they were Moorish notables.[197][198]

Vilatte was implicated in the Valensi affair by being identified as the Marie Timothée of the Principality of San Luigi, whose signature appeared on diplomas of the OLBC trafficked by Valensi.[199] Vilatte responded to a Le Catholique Français article about the diploma by saying that the article discredited him by incorrectly identifying him as the signatory. He denied having any thing to do with the published diploma, Valensi, or with the OLBC. He said that his OCT had nothing in common with the diploma from the Principality of San Luigi. Vilatte said that his religious name was Mar Timothéus I and not Marie Timothée.[200]^: 105

In 1913 La Revue critique des idées et des livres printed an article about the Valensi affair based on Maurice Pujo's Pourquoi l'on a étouffé l'affaire Valensi, which connected it to organized crime.[201]^: 81–82 Pujo listed another Vilatte-affiliated group, the Grand Prix Humanitarian of France and the Colonies, networked with a Georges Brassard conglomerate which included the make-believe Free State of Counani.[201]^{: 85–86 : 86}[202] According to seized documents, Valensi was Chancellor to the Consul-General in Paris for the make-believe state.[197] Pujo included an excerpt from a letter written by Collet, secretary of most Brassard companies, to Adolphe Brézet, "president of the Free State of Counani", which stated that Brézet would receive, among several blank diplomas sent to him, a blank "officer of San Luigi" diploma.[201]^: 86

The Holy See had stated twice, first in 1953 and again in 1970, that it does not recognize either of the orders.[185] Guy Stair Sainty wrote that an "increasing number of such bodies" troubled the Holy See which "issued statements condemning such 'Orders'" in 1935, 1953, 1970 and 1976. He noted that the "most complete recent condemnation" was included in Orders of Knighthood, Awards and the Holy See, by Archbishop Igino Eugenio Cardinale.[203] The self-styled orders are described as "originating from private initiatives and aiming at replacing the legitimate forms of chivalric awards."[203][204]^: 231 The statement points out that, they "take their name from" extinct Orders or "which had been planned but were never realized or, ... which are truly fictitious and have no historical precedent at all." While they "style themselves as autonomous", these "private initiatives" qualify their names, according to the statement, with terms to "increase the confusion of those who are not aware of the true history of Orders of Knighthood and of their juridical condition." For example, "these alleged Orders claim for themselves ... such titles as ... Chivalric, ... Sovereign, Nobiliary, Religious, ..." "Among these private initiatives, which in no way are approved of or recognized by the Holy See, one can find alleged Orders such as" The Crown of Thorns and Lion of the Black Cross.[204]^: 232 The statement explains that, "to avoid equivocations ... because of the abuse of pontifical and ecclesiastical documents, ... and to put an end to the continuation of such abuses, entaling [sic] harmful consequences for people in good faith, we ... declare that the Holy See does not recognize the value of the certificates and insignia conferred to the above-named alleged Orders."[204]^: 233