[1]: 23  Established as an Anglo-Papalist society to continue the work of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom,[2] its founders sought to restore an apostolic succession recognized by the Catholic Church through reordinations as a means for reunion.

[1]: 24–26  Prominent members and leaders of the revived order were believed to have included Arnold Harris Mathew, Hugh George de Willmott Newman, and Peter Paul Brennan.

[5] Following the dissolution of the Association for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom, the OCR was established in response to Apostolicae curae, which declared all Anglican ordinations "absolutely null and utterly void".

Most of these OCR ordinations occurred in secret, though information about some became public; Richard Williams Morgan and Charles Isaac Stevens were both consecrated within the Order of Corporate Reunion on 6 March 1879.

One notable OCR group has been based in the United Kingdom and led by John Kersey, a claimant successor to the defunct Catholicate of the West and dispenser of the Vilatte orders.