Charles Isaac Stevens
Charles Isaac Stevens (1835–1917), was the second patriarch of the Ancient British Church from 1889 to 1917 and also was primus of the Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England from 1900 to 1917.[1]
He was born on 28 November 1835 at Clerkenwell, London, to Isaac Thomas and Anna (née Morgan) Stevens and was baptised in the Parish of St. Luke's, London on 5 June 1836. Stevens was a Reformed Episcopal Church of England presbyter until the year 1879.[1]
He was consecrated on 6 March 1879 by Richard Williams Morgan,[2] of the Ancient British Church, with the assistance of three Order of Corporate Reunion (OCR) bishops: Frederick George Lee, John Thomas Seccombe, and Thomas Wimberley Mossman, and Stevens took the religious name Mar Theophilus I.[1] "It is very unlikely, however, that any of the OCR bishops performed a consecration" of Stevens, according to Henry Brandreth, in Episcopi vagantes and the Anglican Church.[2]
On 4 May 1890, Stevens ordained Leon Chechemian (Mar Leon), bishop of the joint Free Protestant Church of England/United Armenian Catholic Church in the British Isles, as the Ancient British Church's archbishop of Selsey.[1] On 2 November 1897, Chechemian, Stevens, and other bishops, founded the Free Protestant Episcopal Church with Chechemian as primus. Chechemian resigned as primus in 1900 and Stevens succeeded him in that office. In 1881 Stevens married Eliza Elizabeth Galloway at Islington, London. She died in 1900 in the Hackney district of London, where the Stevens had lived for many years and where the pro-cathedral of the Ancient British Church/Free Protestant Episcopal Church was located. Stevens died on 2 February 1917 in London.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Block". encyclopedia.jrank.org. This is a tertiary source that clearly includes information from other sources but does not name them.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Brandreth, Henry R. T. (1 September 2007). Episcopi vagantes and the Anglican Church. Wildside Press LLC. pp. 50, 65. ISBN 978-0-89370-558-9. Retrieved 10 November 2012.