Christian Catholic Church of Zion

The Christian Catholic Church, also known as the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church (1904-1906), was a Christian Restorationist denomination founded by John Alexander Dowie (1847-1907), a Scottish faith healer, at Chicago, Illinois in 1896 before settling in the newly-established and church-owned town of Zion, situated north of Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, in 1901. Five years later, in 1906, Wilbur Voliva (1870-1942) took over the executive leadership of the church, through which he exercised temporal authority over the entire township of Zion for the next three decades.

By the 1930s, the church had begun to fall into decline and bankruptcies forced reorganisation, including a redistribution of church-held land and holdings, which worked to unravel its authority. Following Voliva's death, the greatly diminished church was led by Michael Mintern into the 1960s. The remnants of the original Dowie-Voliva church would ultimately become the Christ Community Church, still based in Zion, Illinois.

Reading

• Harlan, Rolvix (1906), John Alexander Dowie and the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion, Evansville, Wis.: Press of R. M. Antes, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001593575/Home