"The Old Catholic Church is unique in that it holds to the Catholic faith, is in union with the Eastern Orthodox Church, represents the Catholic Church in the western world, but disavows the administrative peculiarities of the Latin (Roman) Church.

"Truth, unlike words, remains unchanging. What was truth in the Apostolic Church is truth today. All Christians should readily admit that the test of any principle of the Christian faith is to present it to the mind of the early Christian Church. It is certain that for the first nine hundred years at least, the Christian world was united in a common bond of faith. We know that the Church was one, that its faith was Catholic in the sense best described by St. Vincent of Lerinz, ‘Such teaching is truly Catholic as has been believed in all places, at all times, and by all the faithful.’ By this test of universality, antiquity, and consent, all controversial points in belief must be tried.

"Until the year 1054 AD when the first unhappy division took place, the Church was as it should be, ‘One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.’ What happened after the division of course appears differently to the mind of every individual and the truth becomes hard to discern. It is safe to say then, that the only way of proving the truth of any contemporary interpretation of Christianity, is to submit it to the examination of the common mind of the Christian Church before its division took place. Was it believed by all Christians everywhere, at all times before the year 1054 A.D.? -- is the test every question of faith should meet.

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