The Most Reverend Karl J. Barwin, Th.D. 

Bishop/Primate 

The Evangelical Catholic Church

 The Most Reverend Karl J. Barwin was born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 1943. He was confirmed in the Lutheran faith 1957 and graduated from Detroit Lutheran High School West in 1961.

 In 1963 he graduated from Concordia Collegiate Institute (a Lutheran Junior College) in Bronxville, New York, and then from Concordia Senior College in Fort Wayne, Indiana with a Bachelor of Arts (Philosophy and Classical Languages) in 1965. He earned both the Bachelor of Divinity (1969) and the Master of Divinity (1975) degrees in Church History from Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield, Illinois (now in Fort Wayne, Indiana). On December 16, 1992, he received the Doctor of Theology degree from Saint Ephrem’s Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

 Bishop Barwin served his diaconate in 1967-68 under the Reverend Edmund Bentrup in Grand Rapids, Minnesota; he was ordained in to the Holy Ministry at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in 1969. From then through January 1973 he served as Pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church and as Lutheran Campus Pastor at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa. In 1973 (then) Father Barwin accepted the Call to become Pastor of Saint Martini Lutheran Church and School (K-8) in Chicago, Illinois. He served  as Pastor at this church on Chicago’s Southside until his election as Bishop of the Synod of the Evangelical Catholic Church in Peoria, Arizona, in 1976.

 It took eight years to locate Bishops with valid Apostolic Lines who were willing to impart this gift to the Evangelical Catholic Church and their Lutheran trained Bishop. In 1982 Father Barwin’s Lutheran orders were regularized (to the deaconate and priesthood), by Abbot Jon of the Missionaries of Saint John the Beloved. Finally, on the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels in 1984, the gift of Apostolic Succession was restored to the Evangelical Catholic Church with Bishop-elect Barwin’s consecration in Scottsdale, Arizona, to the episcopacy by three bishops with valid Orders. Bishop Barwin elected to the office of Primate of the Evangelical Catholic Church and a fellowship was declared between the Evangelical Catholic Church and the Apostolic Episcopal Church (Archbishop Bertil Persson of Solna, Sweden) on August 5, 1989 in Glendale, California.