The independent sacramental movement (ISM) is a loose collection of individuals and Christian denominations that are not part of the historic sacramental Christian denominations embodying catholicity (such as the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, the Scandinavian Lutheran churches and Anglican churches) and yet continue to practice the historic sacramental rites independently. [1] [2]
The term was used in 2005 by John Plummer, in The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement, [3] and was used earlier, in 2002, by Richard Smoley in his Inner Christianity. [4]
The movement's name is an expansion of an earlier term: the Independent Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican Movement, which 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, Aftimios Ofiesh, Carlos Duarte Costa, and Joseph René Vilatte. It remains difficult to define the ISM as an entity and to distinguish it from the closely related Independent Catholic movement; the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, seemingly to refer to the same reality. [5] : 152
Many denominations within the movement originated from schisms with the historic sacramental Christian denominations, and they claim to have preserved the historic episcopate or apostolic succession, [1] though such claims are frequently disputed or rejected outright by the historic churches of Rome, Constantinople, the Union of Utrecht of the Old Catholic Churches, and the Church of England. [6] [7] [5] : 202–208
Groups within the independent sacramental movement are alternatively known as Independent Catholic, "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 the case of their bishops. [8] [5] : 152
One relatively underreported segment of the incredible spiritual mosaic which is Western religious life today is the large number of small independent churches of sacramental, Catholic style and practice. Mostly of Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic derivation and character, they emphasize the importance of the sacraments, and generally claim authentic apostolic succession.
[T]here are corners of Christianity where there is more interest in the esoteric dimension of the sacraments than others. For the most part they tend to be on the fringes of Christian denominationalism, such as the "independent sacramental" movement, which is part of a larger group of denominations known as Old Catholics. These trace their origins to Roman Catholic bishops who have, for various reasons, split from the church over the centuries without losing their right to consecrate their successors. (Catholic doctrine, articulated by Augustine, holds that a bishop may still hold valid apostolic succession even if he disagrees with the papacy on doctrinal matters.) One of many such branches traces its origins to the Dutch Old Catholics, founded in the seventeenth century; an older branch, in southern India, claims to go back to the Apostle Thomas, who is said to have settled in that region. Around the turn of the twentieth century, two bishops in these lines began to consecrate a number of men in the same lineage, giving rise to many tiny independent sacramental movements. Some of these have laid claim to a Gnostic heritage, including the French Église Gnostique Universelle, led by Papus, and in contemporary America, the Ecclesia Gnostica in Hollywood, California, led by Stephan A. Hoeller, an independent bishop whose teachings combine the insights of C. G. Jung with those of the ancient Gnostics.
It would fall to her, then, she decided. She sought a bishop to ordain her in the Independent Sacramental Movement, a network of self-sustaining faith communities that operate outside the structures of mainstream churches, but that retain the same apostolic succession of these same mainstream churches. As with the Rev. Bingle, the mainstream church hierarchies generally do not recognize the ordinations of clergy in the Independent Sacramental Movement, even though the lineages of these clergy – who ordained whom ordained whom ordained whom – can be traced back to the same foundational ministers.