Catholic Apostolic / New Apostolic

The Irvingite revival of apostolic offices, surviving chiefly as the New Apostolic Church.

Not Stone-Campbell restorationism and not Oneness Pentecostalism, despite "apostolic" in the name.

The nineteenth-century revival of apostles and prophets in a liturgical church, surviving today chiefly as the New Apostolic Church.

Heritage

London in the early 1830s: circles around the preacher Edward Irving expected the restoration of spiritual gifts and offices, and by 1835 twelve men had been set apart as apostles, forming the Catholic Apostolic Church — richly liturgical, expecting the Lord's near return. Holding that no new apostles could be called, the church could ordain no clergy after its last apostle died in 1901 and its public worship slowly ceased. A German branch that continued calling apostles became the New Apostolic Church (from 1863), today the family's living body, led by a Chief Apostle and organized in districts worldwide, including congregations across the United States.

Theological family

Trinitarian and sacramental, with restored apostolic office as the distinctive; the New Apostolic Church teaches three sacraments, including Holy Sealing administered by an apostle, and keeps a strong expectation of Christ's return.

Who decides what

Apostles: the Chief Apostle and district apostles lead the New Apostolic Church; congregations are served by priests and deacons, a ministry that is largely voluntary and unsalaried.

What a first-time visitor would find

An ordered liturgical service — prayer, sermon, and Holy Communion — quiet, reverent, and centered on preparation for Christ's return; choral music holds a treasured place.

What it has always cared about

The nearness of Christ's return; the apostolic office; orderly, devoted congregational life; music.

Its gift to the wider church

A rehearsal, from within a liturgical and catholic frame, of themes Pentecostalism would later make global — restored gifts and restored offices — decades before Azusa Street; and a study in how a movement survives its own timetable.

Commonly confused with

Not Stone-Campbell restorationism, and not Oneness Pentecostalism, despite the word "apostolic" in all three vocabularies — the collisions are purely verbal. The historic Catholic Apostolic Church and the New Apostolic Church are also distinct bodies within the one family.

Range of views inside it

A small family: the New Apostolic Church is centrally ordered and internally uniform; remnant Catholic Apostolic trusts survive without public worship.

A note from the mapmakers: Deliberately brief: a small US footprint and a thin public record. Name collisions with "Apostolic" Pentecostal congregations make identification from data unreliable — assert nothing of a specific congregation. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "New Apostolic congregations typically…"

Sources: Gathered Under Apostles: A Study of the Catholic Apostolic Church (Columba Graham Flegg, Oxford University Press) · Handbook of Denominations in the United States (Abingdon Press)

Where Catholic Apostolic / New Apostolic churches are on the map

20 Catholic Apostolic / New Apostolic congregations appear on The Church Map, across 15 states.

Bodies and networks in this family

  • New Apostolic Church — hierarchical — 187 US congregations (RCMS 2020 (ARDA national table), 2020)

Read The American Church Story · Find these churches on the map