You say that the Order of the Most Holy Mary Theotokos is an independent jurisdiction in the tradition of the Old Catholic Church. What does that mean?
A. Monastic practices and structures in the early Church were very different from what they are today where considerable divergences have developed in practice and organization. In the early Church, monasteries played a much more important role with abbots regarded as de facto leaders of the Church.Maintaining simplicity, we are neither institutionalized nor bureaucratic. Given our monastic orientation, we appreciate God through the eyes of the early Church rather than an institutional church. As such, we are an independent autocephalous Catholic jurisdiction of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
