Cambrian Rite
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Some very early thoughts on the particular form of Uniate Catholicism found in Kemr, Ireland, Arvorec Isles, Brittany and parts of America and Australasia:
[12-JAN-1998]
As for Ray's concern that I am retrofitting the Protestant Reformation into
the Church of Kemr, I firmly believe that, given the warmer reception afforded to women of power in Celtic lands, the Church of Kemr could have evolved differently. Also, the dogma of the exclusivity of Christ has had its challengers within the Church throughout its history. I'd like to think that those who weren't burnt at the stake found refuge within Kemr.[P. C. Skye]
[13-JAN-1998]
The Church in Kemr is based on reading that I have been doing for a long
time now in the field of so-called Celtic Spirituality or Celtic
Christianity. Celtic Christianity always identified itself with the
universal (catholic) church, but where the universal church innovated in
practices, the Celtic church, out of communication with the rest of the
church, did not. The tensions this caused were resolved by the Roman
practices rendering the Celtic practices by sheer dominance. The Synod of
Whitby played an important role in this by giving Roman practices royal
patronage in northern England. Slide over into Kemrese history during
this period and you will find a Kemrese/Mercian coalition dominant in
northern England up until the eve of the Viking raids. The question of
when to celebrate Easter never occurred because everyone observed Celtic
practice. But in a more communicable age both Rome and Glastonbury sought
to restore/create the unity of Christendom. The model they chose was
based on the Council of Florence, an attempt to avoid schism between Rome
and Constantinople, the Kemrese acknowledged the Patriarchy of Rome, but
continued in their own practices, including their own spiritual government
at Glastonbury. They avoided some of the excesses of the Catholic Church,
but not all, this is the history of the Kemrese, not the history of the best
of all worlds.
The Kemrese have been in contact with the Eastern Orthodox for a very long time. The princes of Kemr always acknowledged the emperor in Constantinople their overlord after the end of the western empire. Most social fringe groups do not take any hopes of the restoration of the imperial throne of the east seriously any more. Orthodox historians see Celtic Christianity as an example of 'Western Orthodoxy' in its pre-Whitby form. Some modern Celtic Christian groups indentify themselves as Orthodox. I don't know what the Orthodox would think of the Cambriese Rite. Most likely the Orthodox Church was too remote to consider serious union with it, and Catholicism too immediate.
I suspect the Reformation had a weaker impact on the British in Kemrese history. If Kemr and England had remained separate the Plantagenet dynasty might have remained in power and not broken with Rome. Nonconformity/Lollardism would exist but not the Anglican Communion. The Wars of Religion on the continent may have been acted out in Britain also. [A. Smith]
Listen to the carillon that strikes on the quarter hours from the Patriarchal Abbot's cathedral at Glastein.
