Hugh George de Willmott Newman

Who is Hugh George de Willmott Newman?

Hugh de Willmott Newman, Mar Georgius I, Patriarch of Glastonbury, Catholicos of the West, Sixth British Patriarch, was the bishop of an independent Catholic church. He is most notable for seeking multiple consecrations.

On April 10, 1944 Newman was consecrated a bishop by William Bernard Crow, whose own consecration derived from the Armenian Catholic Church. Over the ten years 1945 to 1955, Newman engaged in cross-consecrating, where he and another bishop would consecrate each other to give each the other's lines of succession.

Newman consecrated, or shared cross-consecration with, at least 32 bishops. Today, there are hundreds of bishops around the world, perhaps thousands, with a lines of succession deriving through Hugh de Willmott Newman.

One of the jurisdictions that stands in succession to Newman is the present-day British Orthodox Church. The British Orthodox Church is now canonically part of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, a status that it achieved in 1994. Hugh de Willmott Newman's nephew, William Henry Hugo Newman-Norton has led the British Orthodox Church since 1979. Refer to website of British Orthodox Church.