Joseph Leycester Lyne

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Father Ignatius, by Carlo Pellegrini, 1887.

Joseph Leycester Lyne, also called Father Ignatius (born November 23, 1837 in London; died October 16, 1908) was a preacher.

He was educated at St Paul's School and Glenalmond College; commenced a movement to introduce monasticism into the Church of England, and built a monastery for monks and nuns at Capel-y-ffin a few miles above the mediaeval Llanthony Priory in the Black Mountains, Wales near Abergavenny. Members of the movement followed the rules and wore the garb of the Order of St. Benedict.

[edit] Context

In the 19th century, private individuals with wealth and resources sometimes tried to re-create a pre-Reformation Catholicism in England by the establishment of religious orders or grand building projects. Fr. Ignatius is an example of such a personal attempt to build up the Catholic faith, although Fr Ignatius did not have the resources of other Anglicans who wished for a return to an older Catholicism. Equally, in his work and ministry, Fr. Ignatius links us with both +Joseph Rene Vilatte and with + Eduard Herzog (Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland)(1841-1924) who all have a pivotal role in the developmental of a non-papal Catholicism. Fr. Ignatius tried to build an abbey in Norwich (UK) prior to the establishment of the monastery at Capel-y ffin, although this Benedictine establishment failed.

Fr Ignatius was heavily ridiculed by many of his contemporaries. Despite this, an eminent Anglican, the Rev’d Francis Kilvert (d.1879), describes Fr Ignatius in his Diary as "a gentle man of simple manners - a very fine head and brow and entirely possessed by his one ideal." In that one ideal Fr Ignatius was not alone but remains an example of a poor Anglican with a great ideal.

[edit] Contemporaries

Despite his being characterized as 'mad' and 'dangerous', Fr Ignatius is an example of an English Catholic who was ultimately failed by the Anglican Church that he sought to serve. Although Fr Ignatius soes not appear to have met +Arnold Harris Mathew (1852-1919), it is +Mathew whom Fr. Ignatius seems to resemble in his numerous failed attempts at rebuilding a Catholic faith in England and in his Old Catholic ministry. Fr Ignatius eventually sought holy orders outside of Canterbury, Rome or even Utrecht at the hands of +Rene Joseph Vilatte.