Consecration of Mgr. Raphaël Steck

steckconsecration

On 28 May 2013 the Prince-Abbot issued a Charter and Apostolic Mandate (no. 58/2013) to the Mission Gallicane d’Alsace. This Charter, issued by the Abbey-Principality in its capacity as one of the senior extant Vilatte-succession jurisdictions, served to regularize the position of the Mission as a canonical jurisdiction that is recognized among the descendants of the Eglise Gallicane of which Prince-Abbot Joseph III served as Primate. Several subsequent Primates of the Eglise Gallicane served as Prelats-Commandeurs of the Order of the Crown of Thorns and the Prince-Abbot stands in their episcopal lineage.

The Apostolic Mandate provided for the consecration of a bishop for the jurisdiction in the person of Canon Mgr. Raphaël Steck, who was duly consecrated on Saturday 29 June 2013 at the Eglise Luthérienne de Wolfisheim by the Most Reverend François Marie Fournier de Brescia OA assisted by other bishops (see photograph above). Mgr. Steck additionally becomes Prior of the Order of St. Columban. He has been appointed to the titular See of Hohenbourg and Honau and has taken the episcopal name of Raphaël-Magnoald.

In consequence of this, an Instrument of Intercommunion has been executed between the Order of Antioch and the Mission Gallicane d’Alsace and Bishop Raphaël-Magnoald has been admitted to membership in the Order of Antioch in the Second Class.

The connexion with the Order of St. Columban is noteworthy. The Order declined in the ninth-century after Christ and was revived by St. Tugdual I (Jean-Pierre Danyel, 1917-68), Primate of the Sainte Eglise Celtique, from whom both Bishop Raphaël-Magnoald and the Prince-Abbot are in succession, the Prince-Abbot having been ordained in an English branch of this Celtic jurisdiction.

>>Mission Gallicane d’Alsace website