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→The Nineteenth Century
In 1864, 44-year-old [[Joseph Julian Overbeck]] was [[chrismation|chrismated]] into the [[Orthodox Church]]. Overbeck was a former [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] priest from Germany who had left the priesthood after becoming disillusioned with papal supremacy. He became Lutheran and married before joining the Orthodox Church. In 1866, he published ''Catholic Orthodoxy and Anglo-Catholicism'', which contained the groundings for his work for the next twenty years. A year later, be began publishing a periodical, ''Orthodox Catholic Review'', aimed at putting forward Orthodoxy and rejecting Catholicism and Protestantism.
The year 1867 saw Overbeck, with 122 signatures from the Oxford Movement, petition the Church of Russia for the establishment of a Western Rite church in full communion with the Eastern Rite. A seven-member synodal commission was then formed, and invited Overbeck to attend. The idea was approved, and Overbeck set about submitting a draft of the proposed Western liturgy, which added an epiclesis and the Trisagion hymn to the so-called "Tridentine" [[Mass]]. This rite was submitted in 1871, and was examined and approved by the commission. Overbeck focused his efforts on the Old Catholic movement, who had rejected Papal Infallibility. He continued to engage in polemics with Catholics, Anglicans, and Orthodox converts using the Byzantine Rite.
In 1876, Overbeck issued an appeal to the various Holy Synods, traveling to Constantinople in 1879. There he met the Ecumenical Patriarch, who authorized him to deliver sermons and create apologetical material. In 1881, he had some success when the Ecumenical Patriarchate agreed that the West had a right to a Western church and rite.
However, his successes did not establish the Western Rite. Overbeck's marriage after his Catholic ordination was a canonical impediment to his ordination the Orthodox priesthood; the Holy Synod of Greece vetoed his scheme amongst Orthodox Churches, pressuring Constantinople to retract its previous endorsement; the ''Orthodox Catholic Review'' ended its run; and by 1892, he admitted failure. Overbeck reposed in 1905.
One Western Rite parish briefly entered communion with the Orthodox Church in the Nineteenth Century. In 1890, a Swiss Old Catholic parish in Wisconsin pastored by Fr. Joseph Rene Vilatte approached Bp. Vladimir (Sokolovsky) about being received into Orthodoxy. Bp. Vladimir received them on May 9, 1891; however, Fr. Vilatte got ordained as an archbishop by the Syrian Orthodox ("Jacobite") church on May 29, 1892, and eventually led his parish back into Old Catholicism.
===The Twentieth Century===
