"[9] "He claimed to have succeeded in 1907, to prince dukedom, of de Berghes, on letters approved by" King Leopold II of Belgium and Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, according to his obituary in the Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger.
[1]: 24 Notably, months before Berghes' consecration, a London jury found that "the words were true in substance and in fact" that Mathew was, among other things, a "pseudo-bishop",[14] and, months after Berghes' consecration, according to Peter-Ben Smit, in Old Catholic and Philippine Independent Ecclesiologies in History, "ties of the IBC with Mathew were formally severed.
"[15]: 197 When, according to Anson, "they issued a formal statement that [...] Mathew had ceased to be an Old Catholic on December 29, 1910, and that after that date they recognized none of his episcopal actions.
"[2]: 184 He was, according to Anson, "an Austro-Hungarian subject" who was liable to capture and internment "as an enemy alien" for the duration of the war, so "with the connivance of the Foreign Office" Berghes left, and arrived in the United States on November 16, 1914.
[18] In this way, it was asserted, there could be no doubt about the apostolic succession of Hulse or the validity of his orders from the Roman Catholic point of view in light of Pope Leo XIII's Apostolicae curae.
It was reported on a society page a few days later that Berghes "is to be assigned as rector" of a PECUSA parish in New York City and that Greer "announce[d] that the appointment will be made.
[3][h] Cunliffe-Owen "wrote that if" Berghes was McLaglen then "he had been exposed several times" in London newspapers for "religious and philanthropic swindles.
[1]: 24 [20]: 111 William Wolkovich-Valkavicius called Mickiewicz, in Polish American Studies, a "major figure in the Lithuanian separatist movement.
"[20]: 110 Mickiewicz, a Lithuanian, emigrated from the Russian Empire, worked in a Chicago, Illinois, "meat market for a short time."
"[20]: 110 "Unimpeded," Mickiewicz "sped off to Lawrence, Massachusetts, drawn by" another parish conflict in a Lithuanian community with a "high proportion of socialists and freethinkers.
"[20]: 110 "To upgrade his status," Mickiewicz "summoned a lay synod in June 1917, and arranged to be elected bishop by popular acclaim."
Mickiewicz "then persuaded" de Landas Berghas, according to Wolkovich-Valkavicius, "to set up a mini-seminary in Lawrence, teaching and ordaining a half dozen Lithuanians.
[...] Intimations of 'heresy, impurity, drunkenness and falsehood' led" de Landas Berghas, "as Metropolitan of the Old Roman Catholic Church of America, to banish" Mickiewicz in 1918, "stripping him perpetually of orders and jurisdiction, according to the" Lawrence The Evening Tribune "account.
[20]: 111 Smit wrote that after World War I, the Old Catholic International Bishops' Conference (IBC) "distanced itself more from the 'episcopus vagans' Mathew and those ordained and consecrated by him.
[12][citation needed] He converted to the Catholic Church, "renounced his titles", and entered the Augustinian St. Thomas Monastery in Villanova, Pennsylvania as a novice where he "died during his probation," several months later on November 17, 1920.
He made "the claim," according to his obituary, "that through his efforts the American branch of the Old Catholics number[ed] in 1920 about 120,000 in Canada and the United States.
[1]: xvi Smit wrote that, "the orders of episcopi vagantes in general, [...] and of all those consecrated by them, are not recognized, and all connections with these persons is formally denied" by the IBC.