The Nature of Our Community

“This is the meaning of the call to the consecrated life: it is an initiative coming wholly from the Father, who asks those whom he has chosen to respond with complete and exclusive devotion. The experience of this gracious love of God is so deep and so powerful that the person called senses the need to respond by unconditionally dedicating his or her life to God, consecrating to him all things present and future, and placing them in his hands” (Vita Consecrata 17).

Order of the Most Holy Mary Theotokos

"Benedictines of Mary, Old Catholic Marianists"

We are an ecumenically minded, self-governing religious community and independent autocephalous Catholic jurisdiction in the tradition of the Old Catholic Church. We are his people, united together from a variety of rich traditions and backgrounds bringing his love in timeless truth to this generation, across the street and around the world.

To include as brothers and sisters those with greatly diverse convictions in certain theological areas is not a weakness but a strength and in harmony with Biblical truths. The founders and architects of the Order of the Most Holy Mary Theotokos labored for the freedom to be ruled by God. This means that Jesus Christ alone is head of the Church and Lord of the conscience. He directs His Church through Scripture and Tradition, speaking in this manner to those in positions of ecclesiastical oversight as well as individual members of the Order.

This freedom requires an environment of unity and liberty, cultivated in the context of honestly differing theological viewpoints. Thus we must seek continually to maintain a true balance. To this end, we recognize that as Old Catholic Christians we do not have to agree on everything to achieve Biblical respect and spiritual health. In the spirit of Acts 15, we seek to promote maximum freedom for the rule of God in our Community. This is the merit of the Old Catholic conscience.

We do not claim that the theological breadth of our Community today is a precise extension of all that is contained in the Fourteen Theses of the Old Catholic Union Conference at Bonn in 1874 or the 1889 Declaration of Utrecht. But we do consider it sufficient.

Consequently, we believe that the Biblical fellowship offered by us today meets a need for fellowship among independently governed churches of the historic Old Catholic faith tradition and is the outgrowth of the Old Catholic principles of those who have gone before us. If those principles are seen as Biblical, then our current relationships deserve the name Old Catholic, for they appeal to the same ecclesiology. And, how relevant this is: we offer real freedom at a time when it is being lost almost everywhere else.

There is freedom in O.SS.T. today to believe and practice the strictest Catholic theology of our early fathers, as well as other essentially Christian theology which differs in certain ways from the Old Catholic perspective. Should either be denied in a forced unity, contrary to the ecclesiology of the original founders, we would no longer be fully Catholic.

Conclusion:

Today we are faced with lawlessness and legalism not only in our society but in many Christian churches. To maintain both freedom and unity is difficult, but worthwhile. The task of being a true Old Catholic was never easy but always a source of blessing.

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God is on the move! O.SS.T. is staying on the cutting edge. See how you can participate!

Exciting things are happening in O.SS.T. See what God is doing and rediscover his timeless purpose!