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Who We Are and What We Do

The Holy Celtic Church in Canada is developing as a collection of monastic, home-based, churches and small parish or community churches, much as the early church developed. Some churches choose to start or join with us denominationally, others by way of intercommunion.  To us, it is not about exactly how you serve, but that you choose to do so as you are called. Our particular calling is to teach while using our resources to help others learn and live a life of faith in light of Celtic cultural holistic ways of being, letting others use their resources to ornament great cathedrals as they wish. The way of the Brehon Laws was of community cooperation peace and social justice, not money making things right.  We want to help people and our communities grow, not to build brick and mortar edifices. We are like-minded people who support the ways of the early Christian church, the preservation of a sacramental and apostolic faith, Apostolic Succession, the seven ecumenical councils, Grace in the sacraments and that the Holy Eucharist is more than a symbol--it is the Body and Blood of Christ as repeated and emphasized in John, chapter 6.   We do so within our Celtic heritage and communities, the ways of the early Church in the Celtic nations dating back to the first century AD.  We believe what the whole church has believed in all time before the great schisms, without Roman additions or Protestant subtractions even as we support people to follow the denomination to which they feel most called.  We do not expect nor want people to leave their mother church, believing the divisions were created to serve God's purposes and the different backgrounds and approaches of people coming to His light, His Word, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. While spreading the Word, we merely choose to worship, praise, live, and love in our cultural uniqueness, the ways of our ancestors.  Our growth is based in our shared culture, we do not ask anyone to leave their mother denomination, nor do we wish to culturally appropriate the ways of other Nations.  This is our clan.  We seek, ourselves, to focus on what came first before such differences that divided us. We do not argue over Crucifix versus Cross, letting your heart tell you that which calls to you.  If it is with us, we welcome you.  If it is not, we still love you and will break bread with you.  We believe the church belongs in our homes, not in diverse or distant institutions.  Even our liturgical seminary is based in a home, a monastic residence where people can come to re-energize their faith, or to learn the skills needed to lead their own home-based church.  We simply do not see the need for spending the tithes of hard-working people on buying or maintaining massive ornate structures because things made with the hands of man cannot match the beauty of God's Creation. We believe gold ornamentation and high church spires are a bad use of funds consecrated to serving God's will, when Canadian church attendance is at an all time low, while people are suffering and starving in our streets.  We choose to invest in people, in helping those called to preach and teach to be able to do so.

 Our vision is to bring churches and our faith into our homes and communities instead of distant buildings we visit on Sundays, or once or twice a year, akin to going to a dentist's office.  Christianity is a way of being, not a chore done on special occasions. We preach God as He is, Ipsum Esse Subsistens, (St., Thomas Aquinas), not God as we want Him to be, for such distortions are the ways of contemporary men and women who seek power and not the ways of the early Christian Church.  Our goal, God permitting, is to bring the church back into our homes and lives where she started--the Church is not a place to go, it is a way to live, the spirit in which we live.

Lines of succession:  Only one line of Apostolic Succession is needed for valid Apostolic Succession. We have more than 40-- known.

Most Revd Daniel Dürrnberger was consecrated to the episcopate on February 19th, 2022 by Bishops Alistair Bate and Bruno Padrini who carried more than 40 lines of successions from the historic churches of both East and West.  He therefore is 115th in direct Apostolic Succession from the Apostle St. Thomas through the Chaldean Catholic succession and 138th in Apostolic Succession from the Apostle St. Peter through the Syrian-Orthodox Antiochian succession (263rd through the Petrine succession via the Roman Catholic Church). Of note to the Celtic Church, he is 134th in Apostolic Succession from St. Patrick, (consecrated in 432AD), through the early pre-Roman Catholic denominated church in Rome and 65th in Apostolic Succession from Donagh, Archbishop of Dublin, (consecrated 1028). He is also 7th in Apostolic Succession from St. Tugdual-Celtic via Antiochian Succession where Bishop John Nicholas Collins of the Old Roman Catholic Church of Canada consecrated Peter Cockburn Distin of the Holy Celtic Church which is a line of Alistair Herrick Bate of the Holy Celtic Church International, who consecrated Daniel Dürrnberger giving new life to the Holy Celtic Church in Canada.

There are also further Roman lines where Daniel Durrnberger is 5th in line from Roman Catholic Bishop, (in Botucatu in 1924 and Maura in 1937), Carlos Duarte Costa, who was excommunicated by the Vatican after criticizing its support of the Nazi regime, who then founded the Brazilian National Catholic Church in 1945, and there are Liberal Catholic lines via James Ingall Wedgewood to the Holy Celtic Church International to the Holy Celtic Church in Canada.  Other lines include to Eastern Orthodox via Syrian Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic churches. 

Please contact us for further information or directions to links for supporting documentation.

How we serve

We promote and advance the Christian faith, not institutional denominationalism, but that early faith before the power struggles of men;  we do so through a 3 in one model:  counselling, discernment, and outreach; clergy training; administration of the sacraments.

Bible
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Christian counselling, discernment, and outreach

More than counselling people struggling with issues of life and faith, we offer a place to discover if you are truly called to Holy Orders or how you may best serve those in need according to your gifts.   Discover and explore your calling, your gifts.  Click here to get in touch.

Clergy training

For those seeking ordination to the diaconate or the priesthood with the Holy Celtic Church, we offer both onsite and virtual liturgical demonstrations and practical experience.  If you are already clergy, we do not ask you to leave your denomination in order to learn our ways or receive ordination, incardination and  letters of faculty; you are called as you are called.  Let's talk and see if we are a fit with shared beliefs.  Click here for further information about our beliefs from our international church.  On that link you will also find our authority through 40 lines of succession tracing through Polycarp and the apostles as the earliest church required.  We share Petrine, Celtic, Irish, Scottish, Anglican/Episcopal , Eastern Orthodox and other lines, including lines through such notables as St. Patrick, Samuel Seabury, Thomas Becket, Thomas Cranmer, William Laud, John Morton, William Falconer, John Hopkins, and MANY more.  Our authority comes from Jesus through apostolic succession, (John 20: 21-23) while denominational differences are based on the schismatic arguments of men with power.  We are concerned with living as Christians, as One in the Spirit, not as divided denominationalists, thus we teach what the whole church believed in all time, starting with the earliest teachings.

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Administration of the Sacraments

We are a full service sacramental ministry in full Apostolic Succession tracing through many lines. We believe in Grace in the Sacraments, that the Lord's Supper is more than a performance done in mere remembrance, but is required as Jesus said, (John 6:51-56).  We believe that without Apostolic succession passed on from Jesus, tracing back through Polycarp who was taught by the Apostles there is no authority, (John 20:21-23; Acts 1:21-26; 1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15; 1 Tim. 1:6, 4:14, 5:22 and the early church fathers: Clement 1, ((80 AD)); Hegesippus, ((180 AD)); Irenaeus, ((189 AD)); Tertulian, ((200 AD)); Cyprian of Carthage, ((253 AD)); and Augustine, ((397 AD)), by which time the early Celtic Church was well established  with three bishops attending the council of Nicea).  If you believe in Grace in the sacraments, in the need for teaching what was taught to the apostles, and feel called to ministry in the ways of the early church, you are who we were created to serve.  Click here for contact information!

Monastic residence & training centre

We offer everything needed to live and learn: accommodation, meals, full service chapel, experienced instruction, internet access, library, a home like setting.  Contact us to find out more!

Contact Us

1 (780) 934-0456

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