Are there any Easter Catholic Churches in the FL Panhandle?

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Ad_Gentes

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I have never visited or attended an Easter Catholic Church and would like to have the experience. I have read the Divine Liturgy is very beatiful and inspiring.

Are there any Easter Catholic parishes within the Florida Panhandle area? Thank you.
 
Ad_Gentes said:
I have never visited or attended an Easter Catholic Church and would like to have the experience. I have read the Divine Liturgy is very beatiful and inspiring.

Are there any Easter Catholic parishes within the Florida Panhandle area? Thank you.
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I think you mean “Eastern” as we are all “Easter” Catholics 🙂

My husband is Eastern Catholic, and, to our knowledge, the closest parish to us (southern Alabama) is either in Birmingham or Orlando. There may still be one in New Orleans (mission parish - St. Nicholas) but I’m not sure of its status after Katrina.
 
My husband is Eastern Catholic, and, to our knowledge, the closest parish to us (southern Alabama) is either in Birmingham or Orlando.

**There are Melkite and Maronite parishes in Birmingham.

Oddly enough, there is no Antiochian Orthodox Church.

However, while we’re at it, there are three Orthodox Churches–Moscow Patriarchate, Greek, and OCA.**
 
bpbasilphx said:
My husband is Eastern Catholic, and, to our knowledge, the closest parish to us (southern Alabama) is either in Birmingham or Orlando.

**There are Melkite and Maronite parishes in Birmingham.

Oddly enough, there is no Antiochian Orthodox Church.

However, while we’re at it, there are three Orthodox Churches–Moscow Patriarchate, Greek, and OCA.**
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FWIW, Jacksonville has both a Maronite and a Syriac parish. There is also a Maronite parish in Orlando, and a mission in Tampa-St Pete.
 
There’s Ruthenian and Ukrainian parishes in the St. Pete area as well–but that’s a bit far from the panhandle :o

As an aside, that is including St. Therese of Lisieux Byzantine Catholic church!–you don’t often see EC churches named for modern Latin saints–although we’re all Catholic so we all share the same saints–maybe there needs to be a St. Sharbel Roman Catholic church!🙂
 
FWIW, Jacksonville has both a Maronite and a Syriac parish.

Malphono, is this a Syriac Orthodox or Syriac Catholic parish?
 
bpbasilphx said:
FWIW, Jacksonville has both a Maronite and a Syriac parish.

Malphono, is this a Syriac Orthodox or Syriac Catholic parish?
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I was originally pointing out Syriac Catholic, but I believe Jacksonville also has a Syriac Orthodox parish as well.
 
Thank you all for your replies. I was hoping to find a Eastern church closer to the Pensacola/Fort Walton Beach area. It seems that most of the ECC are located in the mid Florida area; about a 7 to 8-hour drive from where I live.
 
Ad Gentes: I understood exactly what you meant by the Panhandle and no, I don’t think there are any near you…or me for that matter. There was a Byzantine Catholic mission in New Orleans. Given the state of the city three years after Katrina in which the archidiocese is shutting down historic Catholic churches (including two of my ancestral churches)…your guess is as good as mine.

There is an eastern Catholic church but I don’t know which rite here in Baton Rouge, three blocks north of Our Lady of Mercy Parish. I believe they are from one of the Oriental Rites. They were featured in our diocesan newspaper but I can’t “google” anything about them.

The Greek Orthodox have a cathedral in New Orleans and a mission here in Baton Rouge. The Russian Orthodox also have a mission here. I have attemded what we would call the Holy Saturday Vigil at the Greek Orthodox cathedral in New Orleans at the behest of one of my class mates who invited all of us Roman types to the Divine Liturgy and thence to the Paschal feast at her folks home. I believe that they were one of the earliest (if not the earliest) communities planted in the US.

Our history in this part of the world does not lend itself to Eastern Europeans. Our history is far too Western European. I didn’t even know that there were Eastern Catholics until I discovered these forums.

Our part of the world got immigration from western and southern Europe. I’m as at as much as you in terms of loss .
 
There are Greek Orthodox churches in Tarpon Springs, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg. quite a bit to the south, but still on the west coast…
 
George14 said:
There are Greek Orthodox churches in Tarpon Springs, Clearwater, and St. Petersburg. quite a bit to the south, but still on the west coast…
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Yeah, Tarpon Springs is pretty much a colony of Greece!😃 They do a wonderful Epiphany celebration there–the EP was there a couple years back for it and he may have even thrown the cross in the water (and then the young men dive for it 🙂 )!
 
Ad_Gentes said:
Thank you all for your replies. I was hoping to find a Eastern church closer to the Pensacola/Fort Walton Beach area. It seems that most of the ECC are located in the mid Florida area; about a 7 to 8-hour drive from where I live.
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I’m not suprised by your findings, as the original Greek Catholics were Ukrainian and Rusyn folks who immigrated to America to work in mining and industry at the turn of the 20th century.

Of course since then, immigrations out of the Rust Belt down to Florida and elsewhere has occurred. The problem the eastern Catholics have in establishing parishes in sunbelt communities is finding each other to organize the new parish.

Sometimes, they’ve been successful, so keep your eyes peeled. Although there isn’t one today real close to you, in a few years that circumstance may change.
 
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