Arnold Harris Mathew, self-styled de jure 4th Earl Landaff of Thomastown[a] (7 August 1852 – 19 December 1919), was the founder and first bishop of the Old Roman Catholic Church in Great Britain and a noted author on ecclesiastical subjects.

[13] Major Arnold Nesbit Mathew was allegedly the son- born only five months after his parents' marriage- of the 1st Earl Landaff, sent to live with an uncle in light of the circumstances of his birth.

Arnold Mathew's father and grandfather having originally been named 'Matthews' rather than 'Mathew', has been considered to cast sufficient doubt on the claim to descent from the Earls Landaff as to render it invalid.

He had met Hyacinthe Loyson in France,[22]: 159  while Mathew was, c. 1888 – c. 1889, a missionary-rector in Bath where he apostatized in 1889 and sent an announcement to his congregation that having ceased to believe in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity he could no longer act as a priest.

[26] Mathew, under the name Povoleri, married Margaret Florence, fifth daughter of Robert Duncan,[3] at St Marylebone Parish Church, London, on 22 February 1892.

[7][29] While his wife was listed in the 1897 Royal Blue Book as la Contessa Povoleri di Vicenza,[30][b] he stopped using the title of Count in 1894.

[29] In 1897, Mathew had met Father Richard O'Halloran[32][failed verification] and became curious about the suggestion of an Old Catholic Church in Great Britain.

"[38] Mathew was consecrated in St. Gertrude's Cathedral, Utrecht, on 28 April 1908, by the OKKN Archbishop Gerardus Gul of Utrecht, assisted by two OKKN bishops, Jacobus Johannes van Thiel of Haarlem and Nicolaus Bartholomeus Petrus Spit of Deventer, and one Catholic Diocese of the Old Catholics in Germany bishop, Josef Demmel of Bonn.

[35]: 346  Within weeks, van Thiel wrote that the IBC "had no reason to suppose that we were mistaken in complying with" O'Halloran's request and stated that their "confidence in Bishop Mathew remains unshaken, after carefully perusing a large number of the documents bearing upon this matter," and they "earnestly hope that his ministrations will be abundantly blessed by Almighty God, and that he will receive the cordial support of the British people and Church in the trying circumstances in which he has been placed.

"[22]: 176 The 1908 Lambeth Conference "deprecate[d] the setting up of a new organised body" and requested that Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, notify the IBC bishops about the resolution.

[42] This was a protest against the consecration and although it was not publicized at the time,[43] Gul replied with explanations and promised "that in future they 'would take care not to make trouble by encroaching on the order of a friendly Church'.

[46]: 303  Mathew expressed fears that the trend of Continental Old Catholicism was towards Modernism, perhaps because of the growing association with Anglicans and Lutherans, and hoped for a return to the traditional principles of the Church of Utrecht.

In October 1909, Mathew assisted Gul at the consecration of Jan Maria Michał Kowalski as archbishop of the Old Catholic Mariavite Church.

[39]: 13 A claimant successor to the Order of Corporate Reunion alleged that Mathew was conditionally consecrated in November 1909 by Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare.

[50] In August, van Thiel declared that Old Catholics "could not be considered responsible for [...] Mathew's eventual particular attitude or opinions, because he only represents his own clergy and himself in England."

[51] Although the Holy See usually did not respond to notifications about episcopal consecrations,[25] in this case, on 11 February 1911, Pope Pius X excommunicated Beale, Howarth, and Mathew.

[52][53][i] Mathew sued The Times for libel, on the grounds that the newspaper was apparently endorsing the Pope's characterization of him as a "pseudo-Bishop" who had given aid to a "wicked crime".

[l] "It is hard to believe that an Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch would have been prepared to accept a married prelate into communion with his Church," Anson wrote.

It is my firm resolve, which nothing will ever alter, to obey the commands of the Holy Father, whose word I am perfectly willing to await, and I shall do nothing whatever, whether publicly or privately, in any ecclesiastical matters without the permission of Superiors.

Mathew retired to South Mimms, a village in the English countryside in Hertfordshire, and contented himself with assisting at services in a CoE parish church.

[73]: 278  Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke wrote, in Constructing Tradition, that the identification of Christ as Maitreya was Charles Webster Leadbeater's "innovation, closely linked to his assimilation of Christianity to Theosophy.

[22]: 200, 342  Instead, within weeks, they had separated from Mathew and elected Rupert Gauntlett, secretary of the Theosophical Society's Order of Healers, and Robert King, a consulting psychic and astrologer, to the episcopate.

[77]: 3–5 [o] Goodrick-Clarke wrote that the LCC was used for "the assimilation of Catholicism and its sacraments into the Theosophical Society" as a subsidiary movement of a diversified second generation Neo-Theosophy which emphasized "the acquisition and practice of psychic and occult powers, notably clairvoyance, explorations of the astral plane, past lives research.

[81]: 160 [q][r] Leadbeater and Wedgwood revised The Old Catholic Missal and Ritual, c. 1916 – c. 1918, by "eliminating references to fear of God, everlasting damnation, the insistence on sinfulness and appeals for mercy," according to Joanne Pearson, in Wicca and the Christian Heritage.

[75]: 33 [77]: 6–8  Later that year, before the end of World War I, the schism which separated from Mathew's group was renamed the Liberal Catholic Church (LCC) and Wedgwood became the first presiding bishop.

Mathew declared autonomy from the UU on 29 December 1910,[51] and asserted of canonical rights and prerogatives for the continuation and perpetuation of the Old Roman Catholic Church from Utrecht.

[86] In 1913, Fleming testified in Mathew v. "The Times" Publishing Co., Ltd. about the OKKN that, "The Holy See or the Pontiff has never condemned these orders as invalid; but he has never explicitly recognized them.

[89] Discussions about union with Utrecht had been taking place since the end of the 19th century, such as the conferences of reunion in Bonn in 1874 and 1875 convoked by Johann von Döllinger.

[90][page needed] By June 1925, Davidson stated that the OKKN had "after lengthy investigations and serious discussions" arrived "without any reservation (to recognise) that the apostolic succession was not interrupted in the Church of England"[41] and in 1931 the Bonn Agreement was signed and intercommunion agreed between the UU and the Anglican Communion.

[92]:  [letter]  [v] The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec, in a public statement, which included an apology made for miscategorizing Father Claude Lacroix, acknowledged the validity of Lacroix's holy orders and stated that OCCBC's certificates of baptism "may be accepted for the inscription of children to First Communion and Confirmation program" in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec.