The independent sacramental movement (ISM) refers to a loose collection of individuals and

Christian denomination A Christian denomination is a distinct Religion, religious body within Christianity that comprises all Church (congregation), church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadersh ...

s which are not part of the historic sacramental Christian denominations embodying

catholicity Catholicity (from , via ) is a concept pertaining to beliefs and practices that are widely accepted by numerous Christian denominations, most notably by those Christian denominations that describe themselves as ''catholic'' in accordance with th ...

(such as the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops via ...

, and Anglican churches) and yet continue to practice the historic sacramental rites independently. The term was used in 2005 by John Plummer, in ''The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement'', and was used earlier, in 2002, by

Richard Smoley Richard Smoley is an author and philosopher focusing on the world's mystical and esoteric teachings, particularly those of Western civilization. Early life and education Smoley was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1956. He attended the Taft Sch ...

in his ''Inner Christianity''.

Terminology

The movement's name is an expansion of an earlier term: the Independent Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican Movement. This earlier term was used extensively during many years when many of these groups cooperated, although they were not in formal communion with one another. The majority of these groups' holy orders and sequences of apostolic succession are derived through mutually-common sources, especially

Arnold Harris Mathew Arnold Harris Mathew, self-styled of Thomastown (7 August 1852 – 19 December 1919), was the founder and first bishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church in the United Kingdom and a noted author on ecclesiastical subjects. Mathew had been bot ...

, Aftimios Ofiesh, Carlos Duarte Costa, and

Joseph René Vilatte Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

. It remains difficult to define the ISM as an entity and to distinguish it from the closely-related

Independent Catholic Independent Catholicism is an independent sacramental movement of clergy and laity who self-identify as Catholic (most often as Old Catholic or as Independent Catholic) and form "micro-churches claiming apostolic succession and valid sacramen ...

movement; the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, seemingly to refer to the same reality.

Characteristics

Many denominations within the movement originated from

schism A schism ( , , or, less commonly, ) is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization, movement, or religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a split in what had previously been a single religious body, suc ...

s with the historic sacramental Christian denominations, and they claim to have preserved the

historic episcopate The historic or historical episcopate comprises all episcopates, that is, it is the collective body of all the bishops of a church who are in valid apostolic succession. This succession is transmitted from each bishop to their successors by the r ...

apostolic succession Apostolic succession is the method whereby the ministry of the Christian Church is held to be derived from the apostles by a continuous succession, which has usually been associated with a claim that the succession is through a series of bisho ...

, though such claims are frequently disputed or rejected outright by the historic churches of

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

, the

Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches The Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches, most commonly referred to by the short form Union of Utrecht, is a federation of Old Catholic churches, nationally organized from schisms which rejected Roman Catholic doctrines of the First Va ...

, and the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

. Groups within the independent sacramental movement are alternatively known as

, "Old Catholic" (though not to be confused with the Union of Utrecht of Old Catholic Churches), Liberal Catholic, Autocephalous Orthodox, Free Sacramental, or, sometimes pejoratively, as micro-churches, parallel churches, or ''

episcopi vagantes In Christianity, an ''episcopus vagans'' (plural ''episcopi vagantes''; Latin for 'wandering bishops' or 'stray bishops') is a person consecrated, in a "clandestine or irregular way", as a bishop outside the structures and canon law of the estab ...

'' in the case of their bishops. p 152

References

External links

Independent Sacramental Movement Database
Christian movements

Terminology

Characteristics

See also

References

Further reading

External links