The Wandering Bishops: Apostles of a New Spirituality - Home Temple

WANDERING BISHOPS 22
Abraham's Covenant was transmitted to his son Isaac, the only-begotten, and was assumed to
go to Isaac's elder son Esau. However, through trickery Jacob obtained the Blessing so that his
line would become the true Israel of God. He caught Esau in a weak moment and bought his
birthright for a mess of lentils or "pottage" as the King James says. Then with the help of his
mother, he deceived Isaac, old and blind, into transmitting the divine Blessing of Abraham to
him--standing cloaked in a goat-skin to simulate Esau's hairiness. Later he deceived Laban,
who had tricked him into seven years of labor for love of Rachel, and made off with two wives
and a large estate. For this he used fertility magic.
Who was Jacob, the blessed and mysterious Israel of God? He was a clever, self-reliant man
who was able to finesse a trick and make his way by wits alone. He literally "stole" the
Abrahamic Covenant from its rightful heir because that heir was unworthy of it. He is the
legendary counterpart of Hermes, the thief.
Whether this was the case with Bishop Mathew and the Old Catholic Episcopate, as some have
said, claiming that Mathew misrepresented his number of followers to the European Bishops--I
don't know.
However, it seems possible that the Syrian-Malabar succession was "finessed" by an interesting
and devout missionary named Joseph Rene Vilatte. He is the fountainhead of a major series of
valid successions which have been dispersed all over the world, especially in Canada and the
United States.
Vilatte was brought up an orphan, the rejected son of a Parisian butcher, who traveled to
Canada in the later 19th century. Upon returning to France he refused induction into the Army,
escaped to Belgium, and answering a call to the secular ministry sailed back to Canada. Under
the Bishop of Montreal he studied for three years at Saint-Laurent. A renegade Priest who had
turned Presbyterian minister had a great influence on him, and suffering religious doubts he
entered McGill University for two more years of study. His friendship with Chiniquy, the
Presbyterian minister, led him into Protestant evangelism. In 1884 he began work as a freelance
Presbyterian lay minister to the Belgian communities in Green Bay, Wisconsin. With the
help of J. H. Hobart Brown, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Fond du Lac, Vilatte was raised
through diaconate and ordained a Priest by Herzog, an Old Catholic Bishop of Switzerland.
Vilatte continued under Bishop Brown's protection until the old man died. Vilatte found it difficult
to get along with his successor, Bishop Grafton.
Father Vilatte asked for his own Episcopate, for the sake of his independent congregations who
did not want to be assimilated into the Episcopal Church. Grafton was almost ready to agree,
but found that Vilatte had been seeking the same favor from another Roman Catholic, Russian
Orthodox and Old Catholic Bishop simultaneously, and this put him off. On May 29, 1892,
Vilatte was Consecrated by Bishop Julius Alvarez, Primate of the Independent Catholic Church
of Goa and Ceylon, India. Alvarez was an ex-Roman Priest who had been raised to the
Episcopate by Mar Paul Athanasius, Syrian-Antiochene Bishop of Kottayam, India. With the
alleged permission of Ignatius Peter III, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, Vilatte was Consecrated
"Mar Timotheas, Archbishop of the Old Catholic Church of America."
I say it was with the "alleged" permission of Peter III, for later the accusation was made that
Vilatte had forged or otherwise falsified a document which led the Indian Bishops to believe that
he had come with the blessings of the Patriarch of Antioch. This may have been true (again, not
altering the validity of his orders), or it may have been a case of Mar Peter trying to cover his
tracks when Vilatte's career became notorious. In any case, Vilatte went after the Episcopate
and he managed to snatch the best-attested and most unquestionably valid line of succession
there was-- the Syrian-Malabar.