The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Czerski, Johannes

CZERSKI, chĕr'skḗ, (1813-93). A German divine, one of the founders of German Catholicism. He was born at Warlubien, West Prussia, and was educated at the Priests' Seminary at Posen. Sentenced to penitential confinement for contracting a secret marriage in 1844, he resigned his vicariate in Silesia, and founded an independent community of Catholics, known as the &lsquo;Christlich-Apostolisch-Katholische Gemeinde.&rsquo; Although he maintained his own views, he participated in the struggles of the German Catholics, and upon their downfall devoted himself to quiet religious activity. His most important work is the Nachlass des sterbenden Papsttums (12th ed., 1870). He defended his defection from the Orthodox Church of Rome in the work entitled Rechtfertigung meines Abfalles von der römischen Hofkirche (1845).