Hugh George de Willmott Newman

Hugh George de Willmott Newman (17 January 1905 – 28 February 1979) was an Independent Catholic or independent Old Catholic bishop. He was known religiously as Mar Georgius I and bore the titles, among others, of Patriarch of Glastonbury, Catholicos of the West, and sixth British Patriarch. He was the head of the Catholicate of the West from when he became a bishop, in 1944, until his death in 1979.

Newman was first consecrated bishop by occultist William Bernard Crow—the leader of the Order of Holy Wisdom—in 1944. Willmott Newman is notable for having subsequently undergone numerous ceremonies of conditional consecration, thereby laying claim to numerous different lines of historic apostolic succession. Over a ten-year period between 1944 and 1955, there were nine (or ten

On 23 October 1938, at the age of 33, Newman received from Bishop James Columba McFall, who had come from Belfast to perform the following sacraments: baptism under condition, confirmation, the four minor orders, the subdiaconate and the diaconate, and the priesthood. the OCR had become a part of the Apostolic Episcopal Church in 1933. Newman's jurisdiction was limited to the 5 miles of St. Albans, but in cases of members of the OCR it extended over the whole Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Four days later, Newman was also appointed archpriest and Vicar-General of the Old Catholic Orthodox Church in Europe, with an unlimited jurisdiction. Anson notes that "o far as is known, this was the first occasion that a lawfully married priest in England had ever been raised to the status of Abbot-Nullius".

Dissolution and continuation of the Catholicate In 1953, Newman held a synod at Glastonbury; the synod decided to dissolve the Catholicate of the West. The dissolution was done in order for the Indian law to accept the dissolution of the Indian Orthodox Church that had been under the Catholicos from 1950 until 1951–3. To replace the Catholicate of the West, an organisation was created called the United Orthodox Catholicate, still headed by Newman. He was succeeded as the head of the Apostolic Episcopal Church by William Henry Hugo Newman-Norton (Mar Seraphim) "who served as patriarch of Glastonbury from 1979 to 1994. In 1994 he was consecrated as a bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church and resigned all affiliation with the Apostolic Episcopal Church". At the time of Mar Seraphim and the Catholicate of the West joining the Coptic Orthodox Church to form the British Orthodox Church, some congregants did not follow him and formed part of the Celtic Orthodox Church.

Consecrations, re-consecrations

After his consecration as bishop and patriarch in 1944, Newman "was convinced that his first duty was to establish and secure a legitimate and validly ordained ministry in the full Catholic sense". In order to do so, he decided to receive as many lines of episcopal succession as he could through reconsecration. By doing this, he hoped he would have an episcopate which would not be questioned by any theologian and that he would create a link between the Eastern and Western Christianity. Newman claimed that since the day of his first consecration until 1955 included, he had received a total of 23 lines of succession and a total of at least 10 episcopal consecrations.

On 20 May 1945, Newman consecrated Bishop W. J. E. Jeffrey, so as to provide the Evangelical Catholic Communion with a new ruling bishop after the passing of Bishop Vernon Herford. The consecration ceremony took place at the Chapel of St John in Pembridge Castle. Newman had four bishops co-consecrators for the ceremony: bishops Mar Hedley of Siluria, Mar Francis of Minster, Mar John of Verulam, and Mar Adrianus of Deira (the latter was also abbot of the Order of Rielvaulx and protosynkellos of the Catholicate of the West). Before the ceremony took place, the five consecrator bishops consecrated each others under condition. At his consecration, Jeffrey took the name of Mar Johannes; he also took the titles of titular bishop of St Marylebone, Auxiliary of the Patriarchal Throne of Glastonbury, and General Moderator of the Evangelical Catholic Communion.

Works

– about Basil Maurice George Stannard

Renamed "The Ecclesiastical Underworld" Seraphic Press. 2017. a 98-page book, reproduction of articles first published (in serialised form) in 1935