Johannes Heykamp
(Johannes Heijkamp) served as the sixteenth
Archbishop of Utrecht
from 1875 to 1892. A learned theologian, Heykamp is most remembered for summoning the conference that led to the
Declaration of Utrecht
.
Early Ministry
[
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]
Before serving as
Archbishop of Utrecht
, Heykamp served as a parish priest in
Schiedam
.
Following the death of
Henricus Loos
,
Archbishop of Utrecht
, on 4 June 1873, Heykamp was consecrated
Archbishop of Utrecht
by Bishop Gaspardus Johannes Rinkel of
Haarlem
and Josef Hubert Reinkens of
Bonn
.
Heykamp immediately nominated and consecrated Cornelius Diependaal as
Old Catholic
bishop of
Deventer
, so that the three
Old Catholic
sees of
Utrecht
,
Haarlem
and
Deventer
were all filled for the first time since Bishop Lambertus de Jong’s death in 1867.
C.B. Moss described Heykamp as “a learned and saintly divine of the old school, still living in thought within the
Roman Catholic
world, the gates of which had been closed upon him.”
[1]
Theology
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]
Among
Old Catholic
bishops, Heykamp was notable for his theological works. In 1870, he wrote an attack on
papal infallibility
, under the
pseudonym
of Adulfus. He also penned a protest against a petition by Roman Catholic bishops in the
Netherlands
to
King William III
, for the restoration of temporal power to the
pope
. In 1880, he replied to an
encyclical
by
Leo XIII
that suggested that the civil marriage of Roman Catholics was not valid. Drawing from scripture, the decrees of
ecumenical councils
, and the work of the great canonist-pope
Benedict XIV
, he argued that marriage is of natural right and can exist for Catholics outside the blessing of the
sacrament of marriage
.
The Declaration of Utrecht
[
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]
C.B. Moss writes that “Archbishop Heykamp performed his greatest service to the
Old Catholic
cause by summoning the conference which led to the
Declaration of Utrecht
.”
[2]
The conference convened on 24 September 1889 and consisted of five
Old Catholic
bishops, as well as theologians from the Dutch, German and Swiss
Old Catholic
churches. Heykamp chaired this conference, which took steps to unite the various
Old Catholic
churches. Most notably, the
Declaration of Utrecht
asserted that the
Council of Trent
had no infallible authority, except insofar as its teachings represented the Primitive Church, thus clearing a path to union for the
Old Catholic
churches with the
Eastern Orthodox Church
and the
Anglican Communion
.
Death
[
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]
Heykamp died on 8 January 1892, after a brief illness.
References
[
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]
- ^
Moss, p. 279.
- ^
Moss, p. 279.
Moss, C.B. (1948).
The Old Catholic Movement: Its Origins and History
. Berkeley, CA: The Apocryphal Press.
ISBN
9780976402596
.
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