their branch of the church l'Église Catholique Gnostique (the Gnostic Catholic Church). It was announced as being a fusion of the three existing “gnostic” churches of France: Doinel's Gnostic Church, Vintras's Carmelite Church, and Fabré-Palaprat's Johannite Church. In February of 1908, the episcopal synod of the Gnostic Catholic Church met again and elected Bricaud its patriarch as Tau Jean II. After 1907, in order to clearly distinguish the two branches of the Gnostic church, l'Église Gnostique of Fabre des Essarts became generally known as l'Église Gnostique de France.

The 1908 Paris Conference

On June 24, 1908, Encausse organized an “International Masonic and Spiritualist Conference” in Paris, at which he received, for no money, a patent from Theodor Reuss (Merlin Peregrinus, 1855-1923), head of O.T.O., to establish a “Supreme Grand Councilof Martinism in 1911.



The E.G.U. and the Antioch Succession

After assuming the Patriarchate of the Universal Gnostic Church, Bricaud became friendly with Bishop Louis-Marie-François Giraud (Mgr. François, d. 1951), an ex-Trappist Monk who traced his episcopal succession to Joseph René Vilatte (Mar Timotheos, 1854-1929). Vilatte was a Parisian who had emigrated to America early in life. He was a lifelong religious enthusiast, but he was unable to find fulfillment within the strictures of the Roman Catholic Church; so, in America, he began a quest for a religious environment more congenial to his personality and ambitions. He wandered from sect to sect, serving for a time as a Congregationalist minister, later being ordained to the priesthood within the schismatic “Old Catholic” sect. He ultimately obtained episcopal consecration in 1892 at