Wallace David
de Ortega Maxey

The vignettes on the life and times of Wallace David de Ortega Maxey, a historic figure in the evolution of Independent Catholicism in North America, which appear below, were written by Bishop Donald Pierce Weeks, of the Holy Angels Christian Community in Oakland, California. They are reproduced here with the permission of Bishop Weeks. You may contact Bishop Weeks directly at the following addresses:

 

Bishop Donald Pierce Weeks
Holy Angels Christian Community
9424 International Boulevard
Oakland, CA 94603
Telephone: (510) 553-0900 
 
Bishop DW@aol.com
bpweeks@nothingbutnet.net

 

PART 1

WALLACE DAVID DEORTEGA MAXEY (RIP)

I received several requests about Archbishop Wallace David deOrtega Maxey. Maxey was a personal friend of mine. He started his ecclesiastical carrier as a priest of the American Catholic Church, ordained by Archbishop Joseph René Vilatte. He told me, at my residence in San Francisco, in 1975, that he was that "boy servant" mentioned - that accompanied Vilatte to retirement in France. Of course, I have no way of proving this, but as a friend, I knew Maxey to be truthful and if he says that he was the "boy servant" then I believe it.
 
I first found out about Maxey through Bishop Karl Pruter, one of those directories. Maxey lived on Grant Street in Fresno, California (1975). I went to his house and we talked for hours. There is a box in the back of his bedroom were all of his documents, signed by various prelates of honor, from the beginning of his priesthood in 1923 to the days just prior to his resignation in 1953.
 
We visited often. He would take the Greyhound Bus from Fresno to San Francisco and stay a few days at my home. There we talked and he related the early history of the Old Catholic and Independent Catholic Movement in the United States. I saw and at one time was in possession of "Maxey Documents" signed by Vilatte, Brown, Brooks, Newman and others. They hung on my wall, until I was foolish enough to allow a southern Californian borrow them to make copies. Now they are hidden away in his closet, damaged by trying to forge his name in the place of Maxey. The old prelates of the "movement" suffered because of wandering clergy with a good story. Maxey was no exception.
 
In his latter years, Maxey became an alcoholic. Most people do not like for me to mention this part of his life. Men would show-up in Fresno with bottle of wine and return with some fancy ecclesiastical title. I talked with his sister-in-law just after his death and she mentioned how several prelates would visit and get "the old man drunk - then produce documents for him to sign".
 
Maxey had a great ecclesiastical life. He attended seminary, was an author, published a newspaper and was active in the political arena.
 
Below is a page about Maxey from 'Independent Bishops; An International Directory' followed by a piece from an article he wrote, the Ancient Christian Fellowship Review, and some of his personal correspondence.

PART 2

Wallace David deOrtega Maxey was born on February 22, 1902. His parents worked on a commercial ship and eventually settled in Los Angeles, California. He became a Benedictine in Saint Dunstin's Abbey, Waukeegan, Illinois and from there he met Archbishop Joseph René Vilatte, who ordained him to the priesthood in 1923, for the American Catholic Church. On January 2, 1927, he was consecrated to the Bishopric by Bishop William Montgomery Brown, the resigned Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Arkansas, who at that time was serving as an auxiliary bishop for the Old Catholic Church in America.
 
( Editor's Note: Maxey says that he went to France with Vilatte, as a priest, however there is a consecration certificate signed by William Montgomery Brown. It could be that the event took place in 1929 rather then 1927).
 
On March 24, 1927 (or 29) Maxey was consecrated sub-conditione by Archbishop William Henry Francis Brothers, assisted by Bishop Jozef Zielonka of the Old Catholic Church in America. The reason for the sub-conditione consecration was: Bishop Brown had espoused communism and was deposed by the Protestant Episcopal Church.
 
Maxey was ordained and consecrated sub-conditione again on February 29, by Bishop George A. Newmark of the American Old Catholic Church, assisted by Bishop Edwin W. Hunter of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church. He was again consecrated by Bishop Hunter on march 24, 1929, assisted by Gregory Lines and Francis Walker.
 
In 1930, Maxey returned to California. There he attended the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. He received a Master of Sacred Theology and in 1934 he was ordained an Episcopal priest by Bishop Edward L. Parsons. In 1936, he left the Episcopal Church and established The Ancient Christian Fellowship, Old Catholic Church in America, in Los Angeles. This Church was officially incorporated in the State of California in 1944.
 
On August 23, 1945, he exchanged consecrations with Antoine J. Aneed, Charles Hampton, Joseph Kleefish and Lowell Paul Wadle.
 
He was consecrated in the Abbey Church of Christ the King in New Barnet, England on June 6, 1946, by Archbishop Hugh G. de Willmot Newman of the Catholic Apostolic Church and Catholicate of the West, assisted by Bishops, John S. Ward; Richard K. Hurgon; John Seyer; Charles L. Saul; and Frank Langhelt. He was given the title of Mar David, Patriarch of Malaga, Apostolic Primate of the Iberians, and Supreme Hierarch of the Catholicate of the Americas.
 
After this multi exchange of consecrations, Maxey returned to the United States and visited Archbishop Arthur W. Brooks of the Apostolic Episcopal Church, who once again sub-conditione consecrated Maxey on July 13, 1946. The following day he enthroned Maxey as the Archbishop of The Province of the West.
 
When Brooks died on July 7, 1948, Maxey became the head of The Apostolic Episcopal Church, but resigned on August 23, 1949 from that Church and the Catholicate of The West. He was succeeded briefly by Bishop Matthew N. Nelson and then Bishop Lowell Paul Wadle.
 
In was in 1949, that Maxey left Independent Catholicism and joined with Universalism. In 1954 he moved from Los Angeles to Fresno, CA. There he pastored the Liberal Universalist Church until 1957. What he did from 1957 to 1970 is not well known. He lived in Fresno, CA.
 
In 1970, he resumed his Episcopal role and founded the Catholic Christian Church along with Bishop Alan S. Stanford. A few years later he reestablished his role with the Apostolic Episcopal Church. His last known consecration was of Bishop Bernard Alioto, the founder of the Ancient Tridentine Catholic Church. Maxey died in Clovis, CA in 1992.
 
(Editor's Note: Most of the above material was taken from "Independent Bishops: An International Directory.)

PART 3

There isn't a great deal of written information in books or newspaper articles about Archbishop Wallace David de Ortega Maxey. However he was a great man and an important figure in the history of the Old Catholic and Independent Catholic Churches in America. Most of his ministry was spent in the Los Angeles area and his headquarters were at 4205 West Third Street, Los Angeles, California. There he had a small chapel, The Cathedral Chapel of the Holy Spirit. He was assisted at the Cathedral by Rev. Matthew N. Nelson, Archpriest and Deaconess Erie C. Hall. Other clergy of the Province of The West were: Revs. Clarence Powell; Hamilton Kutch; Patrick Amick, OSB; Irving Bocckler; George Boeckler; George Armenko, MD; George Manion; Jean Rincon; Raymond F. Bartholomew; R. Reid (Corporate Treasurer); Bishop Frederick Pyman; Garth Hughs.
 
Prior to any association with The Apostolic Episcopal Church, Maxey, in 1933, founded in Los Angeles, The Ancient Christian Fellowship/Old Catholic Church in America. On January 1, 1946, Maxey began the short term publication of The Ancient Christian Fellowship Review. Here is a place where we can learn a part of the history of the Old and Independent Catholic movement in the United States. These are articles written by Old Catholic prelates and priests and not by Roman or Episcopal Catholics wanting to disprove the Old Catholics Churches in the United States.
 
The following section is an article written by Archbishop de Ortega Maxey. Articles such as this tell of the thinking, polity, policy and other thoughts of some of the outstanding prelates of the mid 1940's.

PART 4

THE ANCIENT CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP
by Wallace David de Ortega Maxey

The Ancient Christian Fellowship does not represent a new religious organization, much less a new church. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, there existed an the continent of Europe a body of people whose limbs stretched into almost all of the countries, who were greatly concerned about the departures from the True Faith certain persons within the Universal Church were making. This body was generally known as Northern Catholics in contrast to their fellow members now generally termed Latin Catholics.

 
The primary interest and concern of the Northern minded group was the flagrancy with which certain Latins were changing not only the teachings of the One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic Church, but the flexibility of their interpretations of the True Faith to meet their own ends. It was easily discernible that the Latin hierarchy was fast becoming a new organization, getting further and further from the True teachings as given by the founder of the Christian Ecclesiam its Master, Jesus the Christ.
 
Contrary to the first Council of Jerusalem and the succeeding Oecumenical Councils, these very councils were no longer being held. Dogmaas were being in an erroneous light, and even at times complete new doctrines of controversial nature in faith and morals were being issued by the Bishop of Rome.
 
The Northern Universal Christians accepted the teachings and ecclesiastical procedure arrived at in the gradual development following and interventing the Seven Oecumenical Councils, namely: The First of Nicaea AD 325; The First Council of Constantinople AD 381; that of Ephesus AD 431; Chalcedon AD 451; the Second of Constantinople AD 680, the Second of Nicaea AD 787.
 
The First Apostolic Council in Jerusalem had served as a prologue to the following councils. We can hardly fail to be struck by the confident language of this first council in which the Apostolic Church claims for its decisions the full weight of Divine Authority. Though it differed from the later Universal Councils in that it was presided over by Saint James, the first Bishop of Jerusalem, and inspired men, yet we may well believe that to those general councils which really deserved the name, the Holy Spirit vouchsafed such a special measure of its guiding power as might suffice to preserve their decisions from error, and enable them to handed down unblemished the deposit of Truth which the master, Jesus the Christ left with His Church.
 
This Northern body within the undivided church withstood the revolutionary methods of reform, initiated by the leaders of the Reformation, especially those closely allied with martin Luther best expressed in the writings of Erasmus, the scholarly and inspired mind of this particular period of ecclesiastical chaos and confusion. However the constant strain of witnessing the subordination of the undivided church to Jesuitical casuistry and its final and schismatic pronouncement of the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome as a "new dogma" of faith in 1870 brought unavoidable action.
 
This dogma was decidedly an innovation, as the only Voice of Infallibility within the Church is the Holy Spirit. It being present through invisible, guides her bishops gathered together in General Council, into the way and the Truth as it did in the first Councils. Unfortunately, the vast majority of mentally tired and spiritually cooled members of the Church accepted the decree with considerably little objection.
 
This was not true for those who were spiritually and mentally alert, not those who were not befogged by the excitement of the new adventures and exploration of science, and the success of the system of capitalism, just outgrowing its infants clothes. The True Word was again spoken and those who were able to hear met in conference assembled at Munich in 1871, three hundred delegates being present. These delegates decided to identify their rejection of the "new Catholicism" under the general term of Old Catholic, holding the ancient Faith and Truth . They affirmed that they were not leaving the One, Holy, Universal and Apostolic Church.
 
Space will not allow for a complete history of the whole succeeding movement and its many conferences which met at Cologne in 1872 and elected Joseph Reinkens Bishop. Consecration was sought from Bishop Heycamp in Rotterdam, he being the Bishop of Deventer. Bishop Heycamp's Apostolic line of succession was traceable in a holy manner to Archbishop Barbarini, nephew of Urban XIV, who was Archbishop of Reims. As an outgrow of this concerted action, churches of the whole catholic persuasion are located in Holland, Germany, Austria,Czechoslovakia,Yugoslavia, Mexico, Switzerland, Poland, South America, as well as in the Antipodes, India Asia Minor(near east) and North America.
 
In England, Dr. Arnold Harris Mathew Sought Consecration from Gerardus Gul. Archbishop of Utrecht, in 1908. The same was granted Bishop Mathew representing and shepherding The Ancient Celtic Church which was established in the first century of Glastonberry Somersett. The church had been Gallican in its origin rather that Roman. With the Foundation of this ancient church are the associated names St. Joseph of Arimathea. St. Paul and Simon Zelotes and St. Aristobulous, first Bishop of the Britons. This group withstood all kinds of methods of persecution and finally emerged as the Old Catholic Orthodox Church of Great Briton and Northern Ireland. It is not to be confused with the Church of England.
 
For Jurisdictional reasons and matter of policy, the British church severed itself from that of Holland in 1910. Dr., Mathew was elected Archbishop and Metropolitan and in 1912 was received into union with the Most Reverend Gerassimos Massara, Syrian Archbishop of Beruit, at the patriarch of Antioch on August 5th 1911. Patriarch Photios of Alexandria acknowledge and recognized by an official Communiqué February 26, 1912 thus restoring the unity of the eastern and western Ecclesia.

The Anglican Communion holds The Mathew Line of Holy Orders are invalid. They gave us the reason filled with conditional intentions. Of course this is their own verdict. In an article referred to me bye a prominent Catholic Authority, one of the Co-Consecrators of Mathew disagrees with these Anglican divinities. He holds the Old Catholic Church does not approve of consecrating a man who has no pastoral charge. This argument would never had been upheld by the undivided Oecumenical church. Practically all the missionary Bishops sent to convert Europe had no charge at the time of their consecration . St. Patrick is a very good example. However Mathew did ordain some four hundred Anglican Priest, and consecrated seven Bishops. Perhaps this would not be fair to suggest that this might have stirred the Anglican divinities.

 
Another Catholic body and one of English speaking constituents would naturally not be cherished by The Church of England. To many Anglicans have been and are today seeking valid orders from Rome and submitting to that jurisdiction. Archbishop Mathew performed a great service for the English speaking world, and because he was so successful, many of his line have been unfairly treated. We of the movement in Europe and America are aware of this fact. It was the Protestant Episcopal Church Authorities who denies the Validity of the time of Holy Order of another great soul Archbishop Vilatte who was also looked on as a menace when he returned to consecrate Bishop in the Syrian Jacobite line from Goa, India to finish the Great work he had started in America.
 
Those bodies in America who possess this valid claim line of Holy Orders derive the same through Archbishop Matthew's Delegate to the United States. The most Reverend Rudolph E. E. de Landes Burges et de Roche. The latter was invited to participate in the Co-consecration of Bishop Huse , Episcopal Bishop of Havana Cuba.
 
For reasons various and barely explainable , several separate bodies have come into existence in the United States, each maintaining complete Autonomy. It is to be hoped that someday in the near future these true ancient and oecumenical groups can be united. There can be no doubt in the mind of the earnest inquirer as to the validity of the Old Catholic line of Holy Orders. Even the schismatic Latin Churches admits the Validity orders may be passed down for generations by some sects not in communion (Rome) with the ordainers in good conscience and providing the proper matter, form and intention are present and those sects have kept the valid orders. The Holy Orders are Valid through irregular to those who are of another jurisdiction.
 
The Ancient Christian Fellowship is a direst and continuation of this Branch of the Universal Church. Differing in ritual, ceremonial, and customs but not in any essential sense departing from the one Holy, Universal and Apostolic Ecclesia as it was formed in the gradual decisions handed down at the Oecumenical Councils. It has received and perpetuates in succession the first Apostle the three Major Orders of Bishop. Priest and Deacon as does the Eastern Churches. These constitute the divinity inspired and instituted hierarchy.
 
Women are not admitted into the Order of Priest or Deacon but may become ordained Deaconesses and as such are delegated to perform the duties of minister. These include carrying of the reserved sacrament to the sick and infirm, Baptizing, blessing marriages: teaching and provide divine healing, also counseling and providing guidance to people in need of spiritual help.
 
The Ancient Christian Fellowship feels that its members can consistently wear the badge of The Peace of Christ and at the same time bear arms with the intention of killing their fellowman. We champion the cause of religious bodies which forswear that war is politically unnecessary, morally and spiritually abhorrent.
 
Special emphasis is laid on the ancient functions of the Apostolic order. The art of preaching and teaching is stressed and above all else the gift of divine healing thought we do not at any time oppose medical science. Neither is the true prophetic office lost sight but rendered effective through the sacramental interpretation and modern wisdom -science and psychiatry.
 
The Holy Eucharist is the central service of the Fellowship given proper place however for the divine offices and administration of the whole sacramental life.
 
Great emphasis is laid upon the the study of the works of the Early Church Fathers . Full Respect is laid for the sanctity of the bible but equal respect is maintained for the students intellectual integrity. In as much as no single bible is accepted Christendom universally is felt all versions of apocryphal books must be studied examined and accepted in the clear light of higher criticism scientific inquiry and under the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit.
 
Its priest and Deacons as well as Deaconesses may marry. we have no objections to persons taking the monastic vows should they have their Bishops approval and truly show by their life and work such procedure will benefit themselves and the church as a whole.
 
The Ancient Christian Fellowship has its own Liturgy. Men and women of other denominations may become members of the Fellowship. Ministers of other denominations which are not of Apostolic succession may receive the same from the fellowship in order that they may celebrate a valid Eucharist, provided they have the proper training and education as well as letters of consent from their superior or their congregation. It is the intention of the Ancient Christian Fellowship to bind not to separate Christ's fold universal on Earth.
 
Notes of Bishop Weeks:
 
From 1933 to 1976, Archbishop Maxey held in tact the California State Non Profit Corporation, The Ancient Christian Fellowship/Old Catholic Church in America. While he retired from The Apostolic Episcopal Church, he managed to keep this corporation going. On October 26, 1976, at Saint Adan's Episcopal Church, San Francisco, CA, Archbishop Maxey turned this corporation over to Bishop Donald Pierce Weeks. At the present time, The Ancient Christian Fellowship operates the Holy Angels Housing Program in Oakland, CA for men and women who are in recovery from drug and alcohol abuse.

Return to

Archbishop Joseph René Vilatte Page