Edward Irving

Edward Irving 1792-1834, Scottish preacher, under whose influence the Catholic Apostolic Church was founded; its members have sometimes been called Irvingites. He was tutor to Jane Welsh, later the wife of Thomas Carlyle , and became the friend of Carlyle. After serving as assistant (1819-22) to Thomas Chalmers in Glasgow, Irving was called to the Caledonian Church, London, where his oratory brought him great popularity; he and his congregation moved to the larger Regent Square Church in 1827. As his preaching began to emphasize the supernatural and the imminence of the second coming of Christ, criticism arose, especially over his views on the human nature of Christ. In 1832 he was debarred from the Regent Square Church; in 1833 he was deposed from the ministry of the Church of Scotland. Irving had, from 1826, been meeting with a group gathered together by Henry Drummond to study the prophecies of the Scriptures. From this "school of the prophets" was developed the Catholic Apostolic Church, of which Irving was an "angel," or bishop.

Bibliography: See biography by M. O. W. Oliphant (1864); H. C. Whitney, Blinded Eagle (1955).

Irving, Edward (1792–1834), Scottish minister associated with the origins of the Catholic Apostolic Church (q.v.). In 1822 he became minister of the Caledonian chapel in Hatton Garden, London. He turned to millenarian ideas and came into contact with the circle of H. Drummond. In 1830 the London Presbytery removed him from its fellowship; after disturbances of a revivalist character at the church in Regent Square, where Irving was now minister, he was expelled in 1832. His supporters moved to a building in Newman Street which, until 1853, was the centre of the Catholic Apostolic Church in London. Irving was deprived of his orders by the Church of Scotland, but ordained to the episcopate in the Catholic Apostolic Church in 1833.

Irving, Edward (1792–1834). Religious leader. Born in Annan, educated at Edinburgh University, Irving was successively master of Kirkcaldy Academy, assistant at St John's, Glasgow, and minister at Hatton Garden chapel, London (1822), where his extravagant preaching moved many. Convinced of Christ's imminent second coming, he encouraged ‘speaking with tongues’ and translated a Spanish Jesuit's The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty (1827). After returning to Scotland (1828), he was charged with heresy and removed from Regent Square (1832). His congregation mostly followed him to found theCatholic Apostolic Church (or Irvingites).