Catholic Apostolic Church

Catholic Apostolic Church. This millennialist denomination, notable for its liturgy and aristocratic tone, derived from meetings held from 1826 at Albury Park, the Surrey home of the London banker and Tory politician, Henry Drummond (1786–1860). Their intention was to explore the implications of biblical prophecy. Among those attending was Edward Irving, minister of Regent Square Scottish Church, London, then at the peak of his wayward genius, but increasingly suspect for his views on the human nature of Christ and further isolated when speaking in tongues broke out among his people in 1831. Excluded from Regent Square in 1832, and from the Church of Scotland in 1833, Irving established a congregation in Newman Street. This became the first Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, but Irving was not its leader for, though its adherents were popularly known as ‘Irvingites’, he was not held to possess apostolic gifts. Liberally supported by Drummond, the new body developed a hierarchy of apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors, with deacons to superintend material needs. Its remarkable liturgy drew on Church of Scotland, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox elements, aptly reflected in the architecture of its main London church, Christ the King, Gordon Square (1854), which remains, though unfinished, one of Britain's finest expressions of the gothic revival. Since only apostles could ordain, the Church, which claimed 6,000 members in 30 congregations in 1851, lost its impetus after the last apostle's death in 1901.

Clyde Binfield