Julian Joseph Overbeck

Julian Joseph Overbeck (1820-1905) was a Roman Catholic priest who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy and became a pioneer of Western Rite Orthodoxy.

The modern re-emergence of an Orthodox Western Rite begins in 1864 with the work of Overbeck, a former Catholic priest. Overbeck had left the priesthood, converted to Lutheranism and married, though it is uncertain whether he ever functioned as a Lutheran pastor. He immigrated to England in 1863 to become professor of German at the Royal Military Academy, where he also undertook studies of the Church of England and Orthodoxy. Convinced that both the Papacy and Anglicanism were on the verge of collapse, Overbeck was received into the Orthodox Church at the Russian Embassy in London by Fr. Eugene Poppoff in 1865 as a layman because he had married following his ordination.

As a part of his conversion to the Orthodox Church, Overbeck had requested permission from the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church to begin a Western Orthodox Church in England. Initially, Metropolitan Philaret was hesitant about Overbeck's request, but did not rule out the idea entirely. Overbeck outlined his rationale for a Western Orthodox Church in his book "Catholic Orthodoxy and Anglo-Catholicism," a largely polemical work describing why the established Western churches should be rejected. In 1867 Overbeck also began to publish "The Orthodox Catholic Review," a journal for the advancement of Western Orthodoxy.

Overbeck had also begun to convince others of the feasibility of a Western Orthodox Church and was ultimately able to submit a petition of 122 signatures (mostly Tractarians) to the Holy Synod in 1869 asking for the creation of a Western Rite. A synodical commission was established to investigate the question, and Overbeck was invited to state his case before the commission in St. Petersburg in 1870. Overbeck's idea received the approval of the commission and he was instructed to present a revised Western Liturgy for evaluation by the commission, which he did in December of that year which was subsequently approved. At the same time as Overbeck was making his overtures to the Russian Church, another anonymous individual was making a similar plea to High church elements within the Anglican Church.

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