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Union of Utrecht (Old Catholic)

The Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches, most commonly referred to by the short form Union of Utrecht (UU), is a federation of Old Catholic Churches, nationally organized from schisms which rejected Roman Catholic doctrines of the First Vatican Council in 1870; its member churches are not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.[2]

For the union of the northern provinces of the Netherlands, see Union of Utrecht.

Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches

The 1889 Declaration of Utrecht is one of three founding documents together called the Convention of Utrecht.[2] Many provinces of the Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches are members of the World Council of Churches.[1] The UU is in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Sweden;[3] the Anglican Communion through the 1931 Bonn Agreement; the Philippine Independent Church, the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church, and the Lusitanian Catholic Apostolic Evangelical Church through a 1965 extension of the Bonn Agreement; and, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church through the 2024 Thiruvalla agreement.[4][5]


As of 2016, the UU includes six member churches: the Old Catholic Church of the Netherlands (OKKN), the Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany, the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland, the Old Catholic Church of Austria, the Old Catholic Church of the Czech Republic, and the Polish Catholic Church in Poland.[a][6]

Organization[edit]

Individual Union of Utrecht member churches maintain a degree of autonomy, similar to the practice of the Anglican Communion. Each diocese of the member churches has a diocesan bishop, and countries with more than one diocese have a bishop who is appointed as "bishop in charge" or a similar title. The primate (primus inter pares leader) of the union is the Archbishop of Utrecht (not to be confused with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht). From 2000 to 2020, the archbishop was Joris Vercammen, a former Roman Catholic who served on the central committee of the World Council of Churches.[12][13] In 2020, Joris Vercammen was succeeded by Bernd Wallet.[14][15][16][17][18]

Theology and practices[edit]

The Old Catholic churches reject the universal jurisdiction of the pope, as well as the Roman Catholic dogma of papal infallibility (1870), which was used to proclaim the Roman Catholic dogmas of the Assumption of Mary (1950). While Old Catholics affirm the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, they do not emphasize transubstantiation as the sole dogmatic explanation for this presence. Old Catholics of Utrecht generally refrain from using the filioque[19] and deum de deo clauses in the Nicene Creed and also reject a dogmatic understanding of Purgatory; however, they generally do recognize a purification by Christ's grace after death and include prayers for the dead in their liturgy and devotions. They maintain such basic western Catholic practices as baptism by affusion (pouring of water) and the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist. Additionally, they have many aspects in common with the Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican churches, such as optional clerical celibacy.[20][21] Utrechter churches accept the doctrines of the Christian Church prior to the Great Schism of A.D. 1054.[21]

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