Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland

Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland
Classification	Catholic
Theology	Ultrajectine
Governance	Episcopal
Leader	Harald Rein
Associations	International Old Catholic Bishops' Conference
Region	Switzerland
Headquarters	Bern
Branched from	Roman Catholic Church
Congregations	33
Members	13,312[1]
Ministers	44

Christian Catholic bishop's church, Ss Peter and Paul in Bern

Church with Bernese Alps in the background

The Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland is the Swiss member church of the Union of Utrecht of Old Catholic Churches. The Union of Utrecht was originally founded by some Jansenists with a later influx of discontented Roman Catholics following their disappointment with the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). The church is a national Swiss church and recognised (as are the Evangelical Reformed and the Roman Catholic churches) in 11 cantons by the government. Since 1874, the University of Bern has had its own Christian Catholic theological faculty, which is now one part (as the Christian Catholic section) of the Faculty of Theology. The strongest concentration of Christian Catholics lies in the cantons of Solothurn, Aargau, Zurich and Geneva.

In 1841 the Zürich Catholic community planned to build a church to commemorate the 1270s Augustinian abbey church. As the whole community was expelled from the Catholic church, the Augustinerkirche at the Münzplatz became its present parish church. Ferdinand Stadler (1813–1870), an architect born in Zürich, was charged with the construction of a new church building.^[2]

In 2009, Bishop Harald Rein was elected to be head of the church. Prior to this, he served as a parish priest and as vicar general of the church. On September 12, 2009, he was consecrated in Zurich by Archbishop Joris Vercammen of Utrecht.^[3]

References

1. Bundesamt für Statistik: Religionslandschaft in der Schweiz.
2. "Augustinerkirche Zürich" (in German). Augustinerkirche Zürich. Retrieved 2015-01-20.
3. Bischof Harald Rein