Welcome to The Avalonian Catholic Church News Page!
With struggling steps we impatiently traverse up the Tor, but with Christ's and Our Lady's help, the climb won't be too hard. With ev'ry patterned pace we take, we learn more hidden lore. With pride we take our place with Him who's scented with spikenard.
--from a song, copyright 1999 Jon Ryner
September 5, 2005
We're shipping two CD-ROM books now, including Anson's (in)famous Bishops at Large. For more info, go to the Library.
July 2, 2004
1) We have added the Avalonian Catholic chatroom.
April 29, 2004
1) We have a candidate for Holy Orders at headquarters who has been studying. More info will be posted as it becomes available.
2) The main Website will be undergoing some major overhauling soon. We have too many pages, some info can be hard to find, and (most importantly) we just discovered it's exceeding bandwidth allotment, leaving some seekers unable to access the information they want. We'll fix broken hyperlinks and remove some files to make room for more material.
April 20, 2004
1) Work continues to prepare the cathedral at headquarters for semipublic regular workshops, liturgies and other events. We now have more than one exit to the outside.
April 3, 2004
1) Our first electronic book is now available, The Independence of the Celtic Church in Ireland by W. S. Kerr which has been long out of print. This classic exposes the evil machinations of the Roman Catholic Church in attempting to stamp out all vestiges of the Celtic Church. You can read most of chapter 2 here. If you would like info on obtaining a copy, contact us, removing "nospam" before sending.
December 4, 2003
1) We have set up a new Website called The Glories of the Celtic Church. It will be devoted to the history, liturgy, art, architecture, music and devotional practices of the Celtic Church. We're moving many files from this main ACC site to Celtic Glories and simultaneously working to update the look and function of ACC main with Java applets, Java scripts and new material.
2) We have decided to discontinue publication of Green Paths to concentrate on other printed materials, Web ministry development and physical parochial development. Our Websites are giving out most Green Paths material anyway, and with music and other files that aren't possible in a printed format.
October 23, 2003
1) We are proceeding with the establishment of a publishing ministry, and have begun coding the first electronic book we intend to offer for sale on CD-ROM, Ceremonial for the Use of the Catholic Churches in the United States of America, published by Order of the First Council of Baltimore, with the approbation of the Holy See, to which is prefixed, An Explanation of the Ceremonies, extracted from the works of The late Right Rev. John England, Bishop of Charleston. This work was published in 1852 in Baltimore, and is a classic guide to the Tridentine liturgy. This work should be available for purchase within a few weeks.
We're also laying plans to release Bishops at Large, the famous weighty tome, a work detailing the Divine Liturgies of the various Eastern recensions, and the Liturgy of the Catholic Apostolic Church, otherwise known as the Irvingite Church.
June 2, 2003
1) We've got 100 Megs of server space at http://www.avalonians.150m.com. There's just the index page right now, but we'll be adding more unique, controversial and exciting material there this week. Our daily bandwidth allotment is 20 Megs, with 600 per month. We have the option of forcing popup ads instead of banners, which we plan to exercise to keep the pages clean.
2) We also have 50 more Megs at Misty Tor. There we have 1 GB bandwidth, but they are quite a bit more paranoid about what is posted. This is a good start, as we now have space to add 10 times the amount of material we already have on the Internet for free.
April 29, 2003
1) A most important announcement: We are currently putting most of our energy into working on this site. The plan is for the site to become a phenomenal resource for research into several areas: secret societies, Independent Catholicism and Orthodoxy, practical magic, etc. (Bishop Ryner isn't overly enthused about more work and having to learn new coding techniques, though.) The idea is that people coming to research will be exposed to our Work. (You may have noticed we're getting more exposure on the search engines.) Of course, this will require much more server space than we are currently alloted and greater bandwidth, as well.
Another advantage is that having more material will give us more fodder for newsgroup and e-list participation (to also refer more people to our site).
Yet other advantage is that continual expansion of the site will continue to clarify our teachings as we research more material for the site. More teachings will lead to a better seminary program and audio cassette ministry.
The final advantage is that we'll need to get a new computer to do all this. Of course, Bishop Ryner is overjoyed at that prospect! ;) We are projecting installation of the new computer within a few weeks, as it will require obtaining a loan.
Please contact us if you would like to make a donation of money or goods, or if you are willing to help type material.
2) A secondary emphasis is to expand the chapel at headquarters and start serious promotion to build up a good-sized local congregation. This will give us a valuable resource to create many other valuable resources, from live Webcasts, group music albums for purchase, etc. It also will give us a larger pool of participants to test our liturgical theories and hypotheses.
March 19, 2003
1) As of today, we have an About Me page on eBay. Hurray! Our auctions should begin soon, and we'll keep you updated.
January 7, 2003
1) Yesterday we reserved the domain name avalonianchurch.org, and it was approved that day. We'll be working on pointing it to a server this week.
2) Post office box rental has been paid, but we're still deliberating about whether to reactivate OneBox, as they had the technical and administrative problems, and there was almost no use. There's also the distinct possibility that were we to offer a toll-free voicemail again, too many people would expect us to pay for their inquiries, a peril we'd rather avoid at this time, as so many people want something for nothing!
3) The track list for the first Avalonian Catholic music album has been selected. You can read more about it on the Chantbook page.
September 6, 2002
1) We have selected most of the required reading material for the seminary program, and are finalizing all plans (marketing, regulations, costs, etc.) as our first priority. We should be updating the Seminary Page sometime next week with more details. The reason we are working on this first is that it develops what The Avalonian Catholic Church believes, teaches and practices. This is not only vital in presenting our message, but, as some churches have found over the years, can even be necessary for secular state authorities to agree that an institution is a church!
2) Headquarters is still having problems with the ancient computer. It is at present not possible to print, but we're looking into that problem, as well as getting another computer yet this year for publishing, live and recorded Webcam broadcasts, etc. We'll keep you updated on this page.
3) Bishop Ryner is preparing to start a new business which should raise some serious capital to fund some great new church programs, some of which will provide jobs and aid to poor and homeless people worldwide.
4) We have vestments, vessels, etc. to proceed with Avalon Rising. If you are willing to help schedule one in your area, please let us know.
5) Some preliminary research into the feasibility of obtaining, preserving and using ancient religious sites has been done. There are a number of areas where no serious research has been done because of political (read "theological") correctness. Since Bishop Ryner is a lifetime courier, if everything still looks good, next year we'll actually checking out some sites!
February 22, 2002
1) In an exciting development, a first draft of a research paper detailing a powerful and radical improvement to the old Liberal Catholic Church building schema is almost complete. This new approach is more consistent with both Old and New Testament symbolism and recorded events, Celtic symbolism, and utilizes a totally different philosophy of energy transmission. Active seminarians will, of course, be the first to get their hands on this material, but we will post some info on this site as time and space allow.
2) A couple more books have been added to our seminary reading list. We should be able to outline an entire curriculum fairly soon.
January 12, 2002
Our new magazine, GreenPaths is almost ready for its first publication and distribution. You can check it out by clicking here.
November 29, 2001
Avalon Rising
Avalon Rising will be tested in the Quad Cities (which includes Davenport, Iowa; Moline, Illinois; East Moline, Illinois; Rock Island, Illinois), Des Moines, Iowa and Chicago, Illinois in the Spring of 2002. Depending on what transpires, it may well be held again in many other major metro areas, including Denver, New York City, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Orleans and Milwaukee.
Each event should include the following: 1) Solemn Avalonian Vespers with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, 2) praying the Star of the Sea Rosary, 3) workshop(s), 4) a sung Avalonian Mass, 5) a healing liturgy, 6) an inquirers' meeting, 7) a music concert, 8) a lecture at a local college about the early history of the Celtic Church, 9) a book-album signing, and 10) a sung Grail Mass of the Ordo Arcanorum Gradalis.
If you would like to help organize an event in your nearest metro city, please zap us an e-mail!
November 27, 2001
1) As part of our fundraising efforts, we've added 4 stores to our site. You can save up to 90% on your books, magazines, videos and music albums; search for your ancestors and relatives on our search engine; buy florals that are guaranteed to remain fresh for seven days; or check out an Internet Service Provider. Anything you buy also automatically donates a little to help us continue and expand our ministries. Thank you!
November 22, 2001
1) Work proceeds very well on the chant book. You can read about it at chantbook.htm
2) The jeweled Orthodox "wine reserve" did arrive. Check out the Ard Caim's page at mich-altar.htm to see it.
September 16, 2001
1) We should have a stunning Celtic praise service, which will be something like Taize, put together soon.
2) There has been some discussion about starting an audio cassette ministry. If you would be interested in hearing some new music, homilies, classes, rituals, etc., before they're more formally available for distribution, let us know.
3) Work is still underway to produce illuminated versions of liturgial material now, before the full ceremonial is ready. This will make it easier to simply collate the works into the book, instead of having to do everything at once. It should also make updates to liturgies (as needed) easier. Since we have access to 1.2 million images online, including some fabulous color Celtic ones, to craft illuminated pages for Holy Order certificates, baptism and confirmation certificates, bulletins, ceremonials, etc., it should be quite nice. ;)
4) We hope to have preliminary regulations done within the next week or two.
5) The course on truth is ready for students to undertake it. The one on the magical use of sound is still in preparation.
6) Rosary prayer packages are being developed. The music for the first one (much of which is on this site) is a cross between traditional Celtic folk and modern praise chorus sound.
7) Ray jewel "reliquaries" will soon be available. Watch this space for more details about these unique products, which will only be available from The Avalonian Catholic Church. All written material in this site is copyrighted by the Most Rev. Jon Ryner, except where noted.