Holy Roman Episcopal Lutheran
Concrete results are to be seen at the forefront of Protestant-Catholic relations, particularly between the Catholic Church and the more traditional of the Lutheran churches. Since the establishment in 1789 of the Holy Roman Episcopal Lutheran Church, much work has been done to foster amity between Catholics and traditionalist Lutherans. The net effect has been the rapid growth in the number of Episcopal Lutheran parishes not only within the HRE but abroad as well wherever Germans have settled.
Not sure if life imitates art or verse visa... Looks like their foundation predates the conception of the HREL by only a year or so.
This is largely what I had in mind when I came up with the HREL Church: a group of traditional liturgical Lutherans who have long felt themselves to be "non-Roman Catholics" and at the same time "not Protestants". And here there is a group of real life Lutherans who are seeming in the process of doing the same thing. See ALCC for a pretty good overview. The main difference between the ALCC and the HREL is that the latter are formally as well as functionally Catholic, being a Uniate church like the Kemrese or Isidorians, while the former are, at the present time, not formally Catholic. But neither are they Protestant. ;))
I think the major point of departure in this case is the date of establishment. I have the feeling that the HREL is quite old, perhaps dating back to the xviij century some time (a century or more after the CC's own internal reforms had been brought into effect, which either restated essential Catholic belief or fixed what it thought of as legitimate Protestant complaints), though perhaps as late as the xviiij century. Somewhere along the line, the excesses that "Father Luther" was protesting got resolved, and thus the reasons for any schism disappeared. Hence, there was no longer any real need for the "protest" aspect of the movement, and nothing further barred traditional Lutherans from re-entering full communion with Rome. Presumably the distinct rite was established due to the prevalence of Lutheran tradition and practice in the HRE. Much like the historical Anglican Use *here*.
There is an ALCC parish not far from here -- would be interesting to see exactly what they get up to...
[PB]
