Catholic Apostolic Church
Christian denomination founded in the 1830s
The Catholic Apostolic Church (CAC), also known as the Irvingian Church or Irvingite Church, is a denomination in the Restorationist branch of Christianity. It originated in London around 1831 and later spread to Germany and the United States. The traditional groups of the Catholic Apostolic Church with the revisionist movement, the character of which include elements of historic liturgies and charismatic gifts, are sometimes referred to as Irvingism or the Irvingian movement after Edward Irving (1792–1834), a clergyman of the Church of Scotland sometimes credited as organising the movement.
The church was organised in 1835 with the fourfold ministry of "apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastors". The denominations in the tradition of the Catholic Apostolic Church teach "the restoration to the universal church of prophetic gifts by the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost."
As a result of schism within the Catholic Apostolic Church, other Irvingian Christian denominations emerged, including the Old Apostolic Church, New Apostolic Church, Reformed Old Apostolic Church and United Apostolic Church; of these, the New Apostolic Church is the largest Irvingian Christian denomination today, with 16 million members as of 2008.
Irvingism has elaborate liturgies and teaches three sacraments: Baptism, Holy Communion, and Holy Sealing.
History
Edward Irving
Edward Irving, also a minister in the Church of Scotland, preached in his church at Regent Square in London on the speedy return of Jesus Christ and the real substance of his human nature.
Irving's relationship to this community was, according to its members, somewhat similar to that of John the Baptist to the early Christian Church. He was the forerunner and prophet of the coming dispensation, not the founder of a new sect; and indeed the only connection which Irving seems to have had with the Catholic Apostolic Church was in fostering spiritual persons who had been driven out of other congregations for the exercise of their spiritual gifts.
Around him, as well as around other congregations of different origins, coalesced persons who had been driven out of other churches, wanting to "exercise their spiritual gifts".
“Catholic Apostolic Church” enters the record as christian denomination founded in the 1830s. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Catholic, Apostolic and Church can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q204405. VIAF identifies the subject as 7584151172710339210000. The Library of Congress control number is n50064927. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1831, 1792, 1834 and 1835.
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This entry incorporates text from “Catholic Apostolic Church” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.