The Orthodox Catholic Church of Christ the King reunites the Eastern and Western Churches, which mutually excommunicated each other at the time of the Great Schism in 1054AD. After the infallibility of the Pope was decreed following the Vatican Council of 1870, a considerable number of Roman Catholics renounced their allegiance to the Pope and sought to form a separate valid Church. However, as they had no Bishops, no one could be confirmed or ordained.

Contact was established with the Old Catholic Church of Holland, which through a curious series of political events had become disassociated from the Roman Catholic Church of Holland, and yet had retained valid Orders. Meanwhile, in Goa and Ceylon (Sri Lanka), another large group of Roman Catholics broke away from the Papacy, under the leadership of a Priest named Francis Xavier Alvarez. To obtain consecration, he turned to the Syrian Christians, whose Bishops on the Malabar Coast were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch  of Antioch.

Thus the Old Catholics obtained two distinct lines of Consecration and Ordination – one from the Western Church and so back to Rome via Saint Peter, and the other from the Eastern Church back to Antioch, this line of succession being via Saint Peter also. (It is customarily acknowledged that Saint Peter founded the Church in 30AD). These lines of succession were received by consecration of the founder of the Orthodox Catholic Church of Christ the King.

POINTS OF INTEREST

The Orthodox Catholic Church of Christ the King:

•  also known as the Abbey Church, is an inclusive Church that welcomes all people through its doors.
• believes and acknowledges that we are all children of God and equally loved and valued by the Maker of us all.
• holds to the tenets of the Christian Faith as enunciated in the Nicene Creed.
• preaches the imminent Second Coming of Christ the King.
• accepts and acknowledges all other World Faiths, believing that each has a role to play in leading people to the Divine.
• deems that the Holy Spirit is the feminine aspect of the Godhead.
• believes that the journey of each Soul encompasses many lives to complete its journey back to God.
• affirms that some services and the hymn book are derived from teachings compiled by the founding members of the attached Order, the Confraternity of the Kingdom of Christ.

 

The Church Today

On a 135.2 hectare property, which they called St. Michael’s, the members of the community built the Church which was dedicated to Christ the King in 1967 and named The Abbey Church of Christ the King.

This was erected largely out of recycled timber from a fish and chip shop, and eventually enlarged in 1978.

The Abbey Church is the repository of many beautiful historical stained glass panels, which are currently undergoing restoration as well as the paintings. Some of the windows contain the oldest glass in the Southern Hemisphere, including fragments from Winchester Cathedral.

Within our beautiful grounds the Abbey Church of Christ the King not only houses artifacts that are part of Wards original collection, but provides a sacred space for many Church services, weddings, funerals and baptisms each year. Regular congregation and visitors from all over the world enjoy the ambience of the Church and its antiquities.