Joris August Odilius Ludovicus Vercammen (born 14 October 1952) served as the
Old Catholic
The terms Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics, Old-Catholic churches or Old Catholic movement designate "any of the groups of Western Christians who believe themselves to maintain in complete loyalty the doctrine and traditions of the undivide ...
Archbishop of Utrecht
List of bishops and archbishops of the diocese and archdioceses of Utrecht.
Medieval diocese from 695 to 1580
Founders of the Utrecht diocese
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of the
Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands
The Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands ( nl, Oud-Katholieke Kerk van Nederland), sometimes known as the Dutch Roman Catholic Church of the Old Episcopal Order, the Church of Utrecht (Ultrajectine Church), or Jansenist Church of Holland, is an ...
from 1 July 2000 to 11 January 2020.
Life and career
Vercammen was born in
Lier,
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, in 1952. In 1979, he was ordained a priest for the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Antwerp
The Diocese of Antwerp is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Belgium. The diocese was restored in 1961. It is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brusse ...
. In 1988, he left the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and joined the Old Catholic
Diocese of Utrecht.
Vercammen was serving as director of the
Old Catholic
The terms Old Catholic Church, Old Catholics, Old-Catholic churches or Old Catholic movement designate "any of the groups of Western Christians who believe themselves to maintain in complete loyalty the doctrine and traditions of the undivide ...
seminary when clergy and laity of the archdiocese elected him as the 83rd
Archbishop of Utrecht
List of bishops and archbishops of the diocese and archdioceses of Utrecht.
Medieval diocese from 695 to 1580
Founders of the Utrecht diocese
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Bishops
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. He was consecrated on 1 July 2000 at
St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht
St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht, or Dom Church ( nl, Domkerk), is a Gothic church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours, which was the cathedral of the Diocese of Utrecht during the Middle Ages. It is the country's only pre-Reformation cathedral, ...
, once the see of
Willibrord
Willibrord (; 658 – 7 November AD 739) was an Anglo-Saxon missionary and saint, known as the "Apostle to the Frisians" in the modern Netherlands. He became the first bishop of Utrecht and died at Echternach, Luxembourg.
Early life
His fathe ...
and his successors, but in the hands of the
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...
since 1580.
In 2006, the ninth Assembly of the
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...
in Porto Alegre made Vercammen a member of its central committee.
Official Report of the WCC 9th Assembly
Appendix IV (p. 437)
On 19 September 2019, Vercammen announced that he would resign as Archbishop of Utrecht effective 11 January 2020.
Vercammen is married and has three children.
References
External links
Archbishop Joris Vercammen
(WCC)
1952 births
Living people
Dutch Old Catholics
Dutch Old Catholic bishops
People from Lier, Belgium
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