Welcome to the website of The Western Orthodox University. The Western Orthodox University was originally founded in 1945 as a private international ecumenical Christian university without walls. Celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary in 2020, it continues to deliver its programs around the globe by correspondence study and in certain cases, through validating programs on the campuses of affiliated colleges. As a university without walls, the University maintains no physical facilities and has no physical presence in any jurisdiction. The University is an intentionally small and select institution, open to students worldwide (regardless of denominational affiliation) and dedicated to the Western intellectual tradition. Its study programs at associate, bachelor, master and doctorate level are academically rigorous while allowing a high degree of individual customization.

The University was founded on 1 August 1945 by the Prince-Catholicos of the Catholicate of the West. Today, the University is owned and controlled by the Apostolic Episcopal Church, a church founded in 1925 in New York as an ecumenical mission by a bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church, an Eastern church in communion with the Holy See. The character of the Apostolic Episcopal Church has elements of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Anglicanism. It is an intentionally specialized communion, and for many years has been engaged in ecumenical dialogue and work with other churches. The Apostolic Episcopal Church is a member church and in union with the he Catholicate of the West, an ecumenical federation of historic Western Orthodox communions. The educational programs of the Western Orthodox University represent and are based on the principles of the Apostolic Episcopal Church, although they are open to all people without denominational requirements.

The University offers religious degree programs through its Faculties of Theology and Church Music. The programs are designed to prepare individuals for religious vocations. They are offered from an initial postsecondary level through to research and practice-based doctorates. There is also provision for the award of honorary degrees. The University does not award secular degrees.

The degree-granting authority of the Western Orthodox University comes from the State of Hawaii, USA, where the University is an integrated auxiliary of the Apostolic Episcopal Church nonprofit religious corporation, which owns, controls, operates, and maintains the University. The University is a religious exempt postsecondary degree-granting institution in Hawaii. It is not accredited by an accrediting agency recognized by the United States Secretary of Education and is not required to seek such accreditation in order to operate and grant degrees. As a fully independent religious institution, the University greatly values its status as a private body controlled by a Church which has since its inception presented a distinctively Western Orthodox viewpoint and a determinedly ecumenical Christian witness.

The University has a relationship of affiliation with the Regional Institute for Training and Professional Support Consortium Saint John Revelation (IREFAP) in Togo, West Africa, which prepares students for programs validated by the University.

The other principal function of the Western Orthodox University is as a research institution and archival repository. The University has an overall mission to collect information and resources concerned with the smaller Catholic, Orthodox and Continuing Anglican churches during the post-1866 period. This embraces a general scholarly interest in the modern independent sacramental movement both historically and in terms of theology and practice, and ongoing programmes of research conducted through the Arnold Harris Mathew Centre and the J.S.M. Ward Society. The European-American University Press provides the main means for the book publication of the University’s research output while the Orthodox Catholic Review serves as its occasional journal.

The Western Orthodox University has many agreements of recognition with other institutions. It has a full relationship of reciprocal partnership, recognition and accreditation with the historic Pontificia Accademia Tiberina in Rome, Italy, founded in 1813 and recognized by the Sacred Congregation of Studies under Pope Leo XII in 1825. The Western Orthodox University is also accredited by the Anglican Association of Colleges and Schools, the umbrella body for the educational institutions of the Catholicate of the West and the Apostolic Episcopal Church, and holds a number of other recognition agreements. It is affiliated to European-American University (France, Bunyoro-Kitara) with which it shares administration and faculty.