Welcome
on the English language pages of this website!

All christians, regardless of their denominational affilication, are welcome to worship with us and to receive communion.

We live in full communion with the Anglican and Episcopalian Churches.

We emphasizes catholic liturgy, biblical preaching and both traditional hymns and gospels.

Old-Catholic

Our parish is part of a independent catholic reform church: our name acknowledges the diversity and the essential teaching and institutions of the christianity during the first millenium, the german called “old church”.

Parish

As a part of the “Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany” we arrange our ecclesiastical life within the given rules in own responsibility. We take especially care for the services, for a lively community and for the deepening and for the pass on of the faith, which is based in Jesus Christ and his act of reconciliation.

Reformcatholics

Based on critical examination of the historical witness of early Christianity, the leaders of the Old Catholic Church developed an episcopal, synodal church structure, which incorporates the apostolic episcopal and priestly offices into democratic structures at all levels.

To make our catholic renewal visible, we add the completion “Reformcatholics” in brackets to our name, because many people misunderstand “Old Catholic” as very conservative.

History of the congregation

After the First Vatican Council (1870), congregations of Catholic Christians formes through German-speaking countries, whose conscience prevented them from accepting the new dogmas of the Pope’s infallibility and his jurisdictional primacy and who retained their previous beliefs.

After a prelude as a ”Committee for supporting the catholic reform movement” our parish was founded in 1873 through Rev. Otto Hassler (Erlangen), Friedrich Niedermaier and Adolf Streng (both Nuremberg).

1885 parish with own priest-in-charge in Nuremberg.

1921 acknowledgement as a public corporation by bavarian government.

1872 - 1944 service in St. Martha (reformed Church) and in St. Moritz (Lutheran Church)

1945 - 1950 service in different places in the destroyed city

1950 - 1975 service in St. Peter’s lutheran Chapel

1975 - 2006 service in a house chapel combined with a hall, errected with the generous help from St. Brelade’s Anglican Church on Jersey

2006 service in Landauerchapel in city centre

History of the Church building “Landauerchapel”

construction started 1506 (Architect Hans Beheim the older) with original equipment from Dürer, Riemenschneider and Hirsvogel, seated for 80. 1507 consecrated as All Saints Chapel of a charity foundation of Matthew Landauer for twelf poor craftsmen combined with house and workshop. 1806 used as art exhibition room and later as part of a school, 1944 damaged in Second World War, 1956/ 57 restored with modern furniture next to the new Rudolf-Willstätter-School, and sometimes used for small school prayer meetings and little concerts. Since 2006 on sundays in use as parish curch for our congregation.

We live in full communion with the churches of the anglican communion.

The Anglican church is a large, world-wide communion. Thirtyseven independent churches are united in the Lambeth Conference, which meets every ten years under the leadership of the Primate of England.

The first ecumenical dialogue between the anglican and old catholic churches was started by Ignaz von Döllinger 1871 to 1875.

In 1883, the Synod of the German Old Catholic Church passed a resolution inviting Anglicans to partake of Communion in Old Catholic Eucharists.

In 1925, Anglican orders were recognised by the Church of Utrecht and the International Bishop’s Conference.

The agreement of Bonn between the Church of England and all Old Catholic Churches belonging to the Union of Utrecht was proclaimed in 1931.

The theological discussion between the two partners revealed agreement in all essential articles of faith: the four points of the “Lambeth Quadrilateral” from 1888 were decisive: Holy Scripture, the principal sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, the Nicene Creed and the Historic Episcopate.

After that the Bonn Agreement is based on three statements:

1. Each Communion recognizes the catholicity and independency of the other and maintains its own.

2. Each Communion agrees to admit members of the other Communion to participate in the Sacraments.

3. Full Communion does not require from either Communion the acceptance of all doctrinal opinion, sacramental devotion or liturgical pratice characteristic of the other, but implies that each believes the other to hold all essentials of the Christian faith.

All churches belonging to the Union of Utrecht are now in full church and sacramental communion , including mutual recognition of orders, with the 37 churches of the Anglican Communion.

The Union of Utrecht is represented in the Lambeth Conference and in the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC).

The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholic in Germany is as well Honorary Assistant Bishop of the Anglican Diocese Gibraltar in Europe (CofE)

The Bishop of the Anglican Diocese Gibraltar in Europe (CofE) is as well Honorary Assistant Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholic in Germany

The form and content of this agreement is an ecumenical model, which shows how mutual open invitations to Communion can lead on to full intercommunion between churches.