The fantasy of reunion : Anglicans, Catholics, and ecumenism, 1833-1882

"This book discusses the different understandings of 'catholicity' that emerged in the interactions between the Church of England and other churches - particularly the Roman Catholic Church and later the Old Catholic Churches - from the early 1830s to the early 1880s. It presents a pre-history of ecumenism, which isolates some of the most distinctive features of the ecclesiological positions of the different churches as these developed through the turmoil of the nineteenth century. It explores the historical imagination of a range of churchmen and theologians, who sought to reconstruct their churches through an encounter with the past whose relevance for the construction of identity in the present went unquestioned. The past was no foreign country but instead provided solutions to the perceived dangers facing the church of the present. Key protagonists are John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey, the leaders of the Oxford Movement, as well as a number of other less well-known figures who made their distinctive mark on the relations between the churches. The key event in reshaping the terms of the debates between the churches was the Vatican Council of 1870, which put an end to serious dialogue for a very long period, but which opened up new avenues for the Church of England and other non-Roman European churches including the Orthodox. In the end, however, ecumenism was halted in the 1880s by an increasingly complex European situation and an energetic expansion of the British Empire, which saw the rise of Pan-Anglicanism at the expense of ecumenism"--Jacket Cover 1 The Fantasy of Reunion: Anglicans, Catholics, and Ecumenism, 1833–1882 4 Copyright 5 Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 Abbreviations 9 Introduction 12 1: The Oxford Movement and Ecumenism 20 PUSEY 30 RIVAL VERSIONS OF CATHOLICITY 34 2: Romantic Ecumenism 38 MEDIEVALISM 38 THE FORMATION OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF THE UNITY OF CHRISTENDOM 47 THE FOUNDING OF THE ASSOCIATION 52 THE CONDEMNATION 59 CONCLUSION 73 3: Doctrinal Ecumenism: Pusey, Newman, and the First Eirenicon 79 PUSEY’S EIRENICON 84 THE RECEPTION OF THE EIRENICON 91 PUSEY AND NEWMAN 97 NEWMAN’S OPEN LETTER TO PUSEY 105 CONCLUSION 110 4: Pusey, Newman, and the End of a ‘Healthful Reunion’: The Second and Third Volumes of Pusey’s Eirenicon 111 NEWMAN’S LETTER 114 THE SECOND EIRENICON 116 THE RECEPTION OF THE SECOND EIRENICON 122 THE THIRD EIRENICON 124 THE RECEPTION OF THE THIRD EIRENICON AND THE VATICAN COUNCIL 136 CONCLUSION 140 5: An Ecumenical Front Against Liberalism: Bishop Alexander Penrose Forbes of Brechin and An Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles 142 AN EXPLANATION OF THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES 146 FORBES, PUSEY, NEWMAN, AND INFALLIBILITY 152 CONCLUSION 158 6: Forbes, Pusey, and the First Vatican Council 161 THE RUN UP TO THE VATICAN COUNCIL 161 FORBES 165 TESTING THE WATERS 169 PRESSING THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND’S CASE 171 OMNIBUS PROTESTANTIBUS 176 CONCLUSION 178 7: Forbes, Victor De Buck, and the Progress of the Council 180 FORBES AND DÖLLINGER 180 VICTOR DE BUCK 181 GERARD COBB 193 PRESSING THE ANGLICAN CASE 199 CONCLUSION 211 8: Redefining Ecumenism in the 1870s 214 THE EASTERN CHURCHES 219 THE CONTEXT OF ANGLICAN—OLD CATHOLIC RELATIONS 224 FREDERICK MEYRICK (1827–1906) AND THE ANGLO-CONTINENTAL SOCIETY 231 CONCLUSION 234 9: Henry Liddon and the Bonn Conferences 235 DÖLLINGER AND THE OLD CATHOLIC MOVEMENT 235 THE CONFERENCE OF 1874 238 PREPARATIONS FOR THE SECOND CONFERENCE 249 THE 1875 CONFERENCE 252 THE AFTERMATH OF THE 1875 CONFERENCE 262 THE END OF THE BONN CONFERENCES 269 10: Eduard Herzog and the ‘Anglo-American’ Church 274 THE LAMBETH CONFERENCE OF 1878 278 HERZOG’S TRIP TO AMERICA 288 HERZOG’S 1881 VISIT TO ENGLAND 298 CONCLUSION 306 Epilogue 308 Bibliography 314 Unpublished Sources 314 Newspapers and Periodicals 314 Published Sources and Dissertations 315 Index 336 This book discusses the different understandings of 'catholicity' that emerged in the interactions between the Church of England and other churches-particularly the Roman Catholic Church and later the Old Catholic churches-from the early 1830s to the early 1880s. It presents a pre-history of ecumenism, which isolates some of the most distinctive features of the ecclesiological positions of the different churches as these developed through the turmoil of the nineteenth century. It explores the historical imagination of a range of churchmen and theologians, who sought to reconstruct their churches through an encounter with the past whose relevance for the construction of identity in the present went unquestioned. The past was no foreign country but instead provided solutions to the perceived dangers facing the church of the present. Key protagonists are Edward Bouverie Pusey and John Henry Newman, the leaders of the Oxford Movement, as well as a number of other less well-known figures who made their distinctive mark on the relations between the churches. The key event in reshaping the terms of the debates between the churches was the Vatican Council of 1870, which put an end to serious dialogue for a very long period, but which opened up new avenues for the Church of England and other non-Roman churches including the Orthodox. In the end, however, ecumenism was halted in the 1880s by an increasingly complex European situation and an energetic expansion of the British Empire, which saw the rise of Pan-Anglicanism at the expense of ecumenism. Book jacket This book presents a pre-history of ecumenism. It discusses the different understandings of 'catholicity' that emerged in the interactions between the Church of England and other churches, particularly the Roman Catholic Church and later the Old Catholic Churches, from the early 1830s to the early 1880s.