About Andrew Cusack
Writer, web designer, etc.; born in New York; educated in Argentina, Scotland, and South Africa; now based in London. read more
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Liverpool’s Irvingite Church
The soi-disant “Catholic Apostolic Church” was one of the strangest but most fascinating Protestant sects the Victorian world brought forth. It was entirely novel — perhaps outright bizarre is a better description — in its combination of millenarian theology, evangelical preaching, and inventive ceremonialism. They were often referred to as Irvingites as a shorthand, owing to their origins amongst the followers of the Rev. Edward Irving, a Church of Scotland minister who led a congregation in Regent Square, London.
The Irvingites — after the death of Irving, it must be said — invented an elaborate hierarchy of twelve “apostles”, under whom served “angels”, “priests”, “elders”, “prophets”, “evangelists”, “pastors”, “deacons”, “sub-deacons”, “acolytes”, “singers”, and “door-keepers”. Coming from a very Protestant, low-church background, they curiously concocted elaborate liturgies influenced by Catholic, Greek, and Anglican forms of worship.
Another unique aspect of this group was its lack of denominational thinking: the Catholic Apostolic Church did not demand any strict or exclusive communion but was happy for its members and supporters to continue to be members of other churches or denominations.
One of the founding “apostles” of the Irvingite Church, Henry Drummond, married his daughter off to Algernon Percy, later the 6th Duke of Northumberland. That duke and his two immediate successors were known to be supporters of the Catholic Apostolic Church without disowning their established Anglican affiliation.
Despite this aristocratic land-owning connection, socially the Irvingite church spread most rapidly amongst the well-to-do mercantile classes, which meant they had congregations in places like Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and even Hamburg. They were also very strict about tithing, which — combined with their mercantile status — meant they had a fair amount of money to spend on church building.
In Liverpool their church was built on the corner of Canning Street and Catherine Street in 1855-56. The design by architect Enoch Trevor Owen was influenced by Cologne Cathedral, with a nave more than 70 feet high.
Owen later moved to Dublin where he was employed as architect to the Board of Works, though he also designed the Catholic Apostolic Church in that city as well. (Today that building serves as Dublin’s Lutheran Church.) There’s some indication he designed the Catholic Apostolic Church in Manchester, so he might very well have been a member of the sect himself.
Another centrally important fact about the Irvingites: they didn’t believe that their original “apostles” could appoint further apostles. So when the last living “apostle” ordained his last “angel”, no further angels and so forth could be created. It endowed the clergy of this unique branch of Protestantism with an effective end date, but you have to give them credit for sticking with it. The last “apostle” died in 1901, the last “angel” in 1960, and their last “priest” in 1971.
Gone are all their elaborate inventive liturgies, and unsurprisingly the congregations have tended to fade away as well. The last clergy often recommended the lay people in their charge attend Church of England services when their own services stopped. The body continues to exist, and beside paying for the maintenance of its properties also makes annual grants to mostly Anglican but also Catholic and Eastern Orthodox bodies. In some very rare places, like Little Venice, prayer services are still held.
Indeed they still own their great central church in Gordon Square in Bloomsbury, though its chief use in the past decades has been being rented out first to an Anglican university chaplaincy, and now to the use of High-Church Anglicans as well as an Anglican evangelical mission.
In Liverpool their church was given Grade II listing protection in 1978, possibly when prayers services were still being held. By 1982 the church was up for sale, but without a buyer it succumbed to a fire in 1986.
The church lingered in ruins until the late 1990s when it was demolished and a nondescript block of flats erected on the site.
Elsewhere: Liverpool: Then and Now | Velvet Hummingbee
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When I say “you have to give them credit for sticking with it” I should probably point out the Hamburg branch disagreed and downloaded a prophecy which allowed them to call new apostles.
This schism created the New Apostolic Church, which kept to the low-church millenarian evangelicalism Irving propounded and now has around eight million adherents in Germany, Africa, and elsewhere.
The Society of St Pius X was seriously considering buying this church when the 1986 fire (a suspicious one) put paid to their hopes.
They’ve since purchased the Liverpool church built by the also deeply odd Comtean Positivists, which I also intend to write about!
I watched the Liverpool church burn down on Saturday 16th October 1986. Later, when it was boarded up, roof gone but walls still standing, I squeezed in through the hoard to have a look. There were loose encaustic floor tiles so I liberated a few.
Being a “born and bred” member of the Catholic Apostlic Church and my grandparents being the gate keepers for this church (Grandfather until 1955 and Grandmother until 1960’s) I remember this church well.
Henry Drummond (1786-1860) purchased Albury Park in 1819 held the earliest meetings between 1826 and 1830 and with his associates discussed the teachings of Edward Irving and by 1836 he delivered a statement to King William 1V and continued at Albury Church.
I presume when you mention Little Venice as the address for the Paddington Church – although by the canal – it is in fact in Maida Avenue, Paddington.