OVERBECK AND HIS VIEW OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

OVERBECK saw no possibility of unity with the Church of England. Such a union was impossible because the Orthodox Church required, as conditio sine qua non, entire agreement with the Orthodox faith from any body seeking unity with her. The Established Church not only did not profess the Orthodox faith, it authoritatively tolerated "all shades of belief from a mitigated Unitarianism to a slightly disguised Roman Cath0licism." Such a medley of creeds within the English Church generated indifference in doctrinal matters even among those of the greatest Catholics zeal. In Overbeck’s opinion the English Church was ruled by a Protestant subjectivism which affected even the Anglo-Catholics. In endeavoring to nourish themselves with better doctrinal food than their Bishops could give them, the latter tried to reconstruct Catholic antiquity privately without the guidance of authority and their efforts were simply the work of subjectivism.

Dr. Overbeck felt, however, that there was a class of Anglican High Churchmen, the younger Anglo-Catholics or Ritualists, whose zeal for unity, if directed properly, could result in unity with the Orthodox Church. This group must, however, (1) formally separate and cease communion with heretics; (2) entirely abandon any idea of union with Rome since it had lost its claim to Catholicity; (3) accept fully and without reservation all the dogmas and canons of the Orthodox Church; and (4) apply to the Orthodox Church in order to be reconciled and received into the Church. If the Catholic-minded High Churchman followed these steps, the Orthodox Church would give them Bishops to form a Holy Synod of the Orthodox Anglican Church in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchs and the whole Church. The new Orthodox Catholics would retain a Western Liturgy ("not that of the Prayer Book, but the revised Roman or Sarum Mass"), and "Canonical hours, rites, ceremonies, vestments." The Orthodox Anglicans should expect to be deprived of their livings and have their churches confiscated by the Establishment. They would have to depend on their parishioners for their livings. The Dissenters did it; Overbeck was confident that the Anglo-Catholics who were not in the Establishment because of the "loaves and fishes" could do as well. (19)

Unlike the Roman Church, Overbeck said that Orthodoxy did not ask for a secession from the English Church "but only for a return to the old English ante-schismatic Church – to the Church of St. Alban, the Venerable Bede, St. Edmund…" That the contemporary Church of England was not identical with or a lawful continuation of the Old Church could be seen from the fact that Baptismal Regeneration could be denied and denounced, the "Real Absence" taught in regard to the Eucharist, and Holy Orders considered not as a Sacrament conferring supernatural grace but, as Dr. Frederick Temple (1821-1902), the Bishop of Exeter put it, "simply a human matter of expedience." (20) Overbeck believed that the "Church of England had made herself essentially Protestant at the Reformation, that she could not ‘unprotestantise’ herself. Moreover, there was no synodal authority which could speak for her in regard to Reunion, her Episcopate being only on paper and her real authority being the Privy Council and the Court of Arches." (21)

Overbeck ridiculed the Anglican Branch Theory of the Church and had little enthusiasm for "Anglican Intercommunionists." He was not even certain if the Establishment could even be called a Church. He often stated that he would much rather have dealt with Roman Catholics or Dissenters "than with variformed Anglicans playing in all colours of the rainbow." With Roman Catholics one dealt with fixed tenets and knew where one stood, whereas with Anglicans "many a doctrine is simply a fata morgana, a delusive mirage, which vanishes as soon as you catch at it." He found, however, that there were among the Anglicans those who agreed with his views simply because the "elasticity and indefiniteness of their faith" was abhorrent to them and they aspired after a firm dogmatic basis. (22) There was a real body of friends of the Orthodox Church among the Anglicans but these were not to be found in the Eastern Church Association or among holders of the Branch Theory. However, these "Philorthodox" were the only individuals and Overbeck did not expect any large gains from the High Church.

Despite his aversion for the Established Church, Overbeck wanted to do it a service in his own way. He said that an Orthodox Western Catholic Church ought to be welcomed by the Establishment because it would remove some of the hypocrisy hovering over it. Those who were merely nominal members of the Establishment would quit it for the Orthodox Church. Moreover, a Western Catholic Church would prevent the continual strengthening of the Roman Church in England by ex-Anglicans. Would it not be better if those who were leaving the Establishment in "crowds" for "Popery and Jesuitism" entered the Orthodox Church with her entirely different attitude towards the state? Nine out of ten converts to Rome would prefer the Roman Church without the Pope and Ultramontanism, yet they would rather accept Rome and all its trappings rather than become members of an Eastern Church. (23)

(19) OCR, III, No. 1-6 (January-June, 1871), 8-14.

(20) Quoted by J.J. Overbeck, The True Old English Church (London, [1880]), p. 3.

(21) Papadopoulos, The Validity of Anglican Ordinations, p. 33n.

(22) OCR, V, No. 4 (October-December, 1876), 279.

(23) Ibid., 286.