Talk:Jules Ferrette

Dubious election as bishop
In 1947, Henry Brandreth wrote, in Episcopi vagantes and the Anglican Church, that Ferrette claimed to have been consecrated by "Bedros, Bishop of Emesa (Homs) of the Syrian Antiochene Church and later Patriarch of Antioch under the title of Ignatius Peter III." Yet, Brandreth explained that, "Ferrete produced no evidence of this consecration beyond a printed document which purported to be a translation of his certificate of consecration, at the bottom of which the name of the British Consul at Damascus is printed in testimony." The attestation only certified that Ferrette's consecrator Julius was "resident in Homs" and had "entirely written by his hand and sealed by himself with his episcopal seal" the certificate of consecration. Edward Bouverie Pusey, a leader of the Oxford Movement, believed that it was "a prima facie improbability that he was consecrated." At least one ritualist claimed in 1866 that Ferrette was recognized as a bishop by the Catholic Church. In 1866, some High Church clergy who appeared at first to be favourable to Ferrette's claims had, by January 1867, indicated that they viewed him with at least considerable suspicion and an angry correspondence had taken place about the validity of his consecration. Peter Anson noted, in Bishops at large, that the version Anson wrote about in 1964 was "[a]ccording to a fascinating story, which was told nearly eighty years later, for which no documentary evidence has been produced so far as is known." Anson cited The man from Antioch by Hugh George de Willmott Newman as his source for that story. "No proof of his consecration has ever emerged, the only evidence being a printed document which he claimed was a translation of his certificate of consecration," according to Joanne Pearson, in Wicca and the Christian Heritage.

According to the Pall Mall Gazette in 1866, George Williams, who had been in Syria, stated that "Julius who is Peter the Humble is not Peter the Humble, nor anybody else, nor anybody at all, for he has no existence in Homs." Other readers questioned the details about Ferrette's consecration. Ferrette responded to the Pall Mall Gazette article with a letter to its editor. The Pall Mall Gazette commented that Ferrette's response letter was "utterly frivolous and vexatious" and that it was"without the slightest reference to the details of the criticism of which he complains, or [...] whether he quotes them correctly [...] The only translation of the consecratory letter [... was] communicated by [...] Ferrette [...] to the Guardian, which is [...] identical with the one [...] sent us, [...] The remarks appended to it by the Museum Orientalists, [...] relate to typography alone, [...] The account [...] of the attestation [...] is [...] the same as [...] we gave ourselves. [...] Ferrette, [...] with a reference to the original, never vouchsafed [...] to see what we really did say. [...] we shall not reproduce this absurd document, [...] which [...] Ferrette says a British consul is [...] witness without being licensed to read."

According to The Christian Remembrancer, "We cannot deal more fairly [...] than by taking [...] his own estimate [...] given [...] in a letter [...] published in the Church Times. The Christian Remembrancer reported in 1867 that Ferrette"[...] has received, under unexplained and obviously irregular, if not clandestine, circumstances, the single imposition of hands of an ill-identified Bishop in Syria, who, by a process of reduction, must, [...] be a bishop of [...] the Jacobites. [...] Ferrette [...] acknowledges as much in his letter, clouded [...] by [...] incomprehensible words and unproven assertions. [...] Syrians tell us in the newspapers, one of their regulations is that a 'Syrian' or Jacobite bishop must be elected by three-fourths of the male inhabitants of his diocese, and then consecrated by the patriarch and two bishops. It is certain that three-fourths of the male inhabitants of [...] the county of Argyll, Iona, did not elect [...] Ferrette to be their bishop, never having heard of him; and it is nearly as certain that Iona is equally unknown to the 'Syrian' episcopate; while in the third place, there is an absence of proof, and even of assertion amounting to proof [...] that 'Peter the Humble' was not the Jacobite patriarch whose residence is Mardin in the province of Diarbeker, [...] while, as [...] Ferrette [...] proclaims, his was a single-handed consecration. Finally, it is indisputable that at Homs [...] there is no resident Jacobite bishop at all, [...] the nearest see of that sect being that of the village of Kuryetein, [...] about [...] sixty miles, from Homs,—of which, by the way, the diocesan is credibly reported to have been in Rome some few years since, and to have engaged for a consideration to conform with his flock to the Papal Supremacy."

The Christian Remembrancer also commented that"Ferrette's statement, [...] is nothing materially impossible, [...] and we assume that some Jacobite prelate, [...] was induced to go to Homs, and [...] to violate the canons of his church by a consecration, single-handed and clandestine, of [...] Ferrette to a see in the remote Hebrides, [...] prompted and enlightened [...] by the urgency and instructions of [... Ferrette]. Such—to take the touchstone of what he is, and not what he was, either as Romanist, Presbyterian, or assistant in London to Mr. Marchmont, the dissenting sham clergyman—is the Bishop of Iona, who is thrust upon us by the creme de la creme of ritualists, as a chosen instrument in the restoration of Western Christendom to the purity of catholic faith and practice."

By January of 1867, Ferrette was staying at a Church of England vicarage and he openly criticized for his activities in letters to newspapers. There were claims that Ferrette and Ferrette's consecrator were each single member churches, in other words, they had no congregations. His "pretensions" and offers to consecrate others were discussed in Anglican newspapers. Some questioned whether some details about his consecration may have violated the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851. In 1867, his mission was considered a failure and he left Great Britain for the United States. Ferrette was ephemeral, and by 1869, it seemed that "the Bishop of Iona" no longer existed.


 * Was Ferrette elected?
 * Who elected Ferrette?
 * Was there a "resident Jacobite bishop" in Homs?
 * Is there a different translation of Julius, Metropolitan of the World, who is Peter the Humble?
 * Was Ferrette's consecrator an impostor who pretended to be somebody else?
 * Who was "Mr. Marchmont, the dissenting sham clergyman" that Ferrette assisted?
 * When was the time frame? What did Ferrette and Marchmont collaborate in?
 * What was Ferrette's relationship to the "ritualists"? Who were these "ritualists"?
 * Did Ferrette travel to the United States because of a potential violation of the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851?
 * Did Ferrette return to Great Britain because the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851 was repealed by the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1871?

I think a scholarly source about the who was at Homs in 1866 is a start to verify some of the claims above. Unfortunately, I think that kind of source will not be in English.

—BoBoMisiu (talk) 23:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)