Assyrian Bishop, Five Priests and Thousands of Faithful Celebrate Reception into the Catholic Church

[marymol]

Apologies to all who might have been hurt by any insensitivity in the comments on Syriac and esp. to those fathers who have seen the merits in struggling to keep up such traditions under Godly guidance …

Today , Feast of St.Alphonsa, happened to catch a glimpse of a rerun on her life and it was about her miraculous gift of being able to read and sing in Tamil, after the trial of a bout of illness …( Tamil , the dailect of the neigboring Madras state where St.Thomas was martyred and unsure how favored that too is …)

The difficulties with Portugese Church Missionaries ( who seemd to have good intentions , to rid the native Church of what they percieved as possible heresies ) also had a central part around use of Syriac …

May the prayers of St.Alphonsa be with us all, with all struggles and divisions , esp. in the area of language and customs , with all the suffering in silence , in loving trust of the ways of our loving Father !

Peace !

 

[bkovacs]

josethomas2005,

I came across this diagram in a pamphlet called: A Brief Explanation of the Eastern Catholic Churches, published by the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma:

http://i31.tinypic.com/e6tw83.jpg

This diagram shows the perspective of our Churches of the East, Chaldean/Assyrian/Ancient/Malabarese, which shows that our apostolic succession, origin, and tradition comes directly from the mother and apostolic Church in Jerusalem, by way of the Persian Empire and the See of Celeusia Ctesiphon, and not by way of the Roman Empire and the See of Antioch.

I realize that the Antiochene perspective is a little different from us, and that’s fine, but with respect to our Antiochene brethren, we must insist that the above is how we view ourselves. We do not consider Antioch as our mother Church, rather, Jerusalem is our mother and the origin of our Churches of the East.

God bless,

Rony

Actually the Ukranian Orthodox Church is much larger than the Ukranian Catholic Church. So your diagram is off a bit. 67 percent, adheres to Eastern Orthodoxy in alliance with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church or the Ukrainian Autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church. Currently the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church has 3317 parishes which makes it the third largest denomination in Ukraine.

 

[josethomas2005]

Apologies to all who might have been hurt by any insensitivity in the comments on Syriac and esp. to those fathers who have seen the merits in struggling to keep up such traditions under Godly guidance …

The difficulties with Portugese Church Missionaries ( who seemd to have good intentions , to rid the native Church of what they percieved as possible heresies ) also had a central part around use of Syriac …

Peace !

Oh! nice… the Portuguese had done a lot of nice things the Malabar church in Kerala. They burned all the ancient syriac documents. Specifically they burned the Peshitha bible or old syriac bible. Is it nice that somebody burns a bible. Portuguese destroyed all the churches and rebuilt all of them in Portuguese style, even the churches like Manarcaud which remains with the Syriac orthodox. How nice it is.

 

[antgaria]

I remember when this post was about the exciting news of us entering into the Catholic Church. I guess even among us Catholic brethren, we can still dispute and argue… as brothers and sisters do.

I don’t think what Marymol was saying regarding the good intentions of the Portuguese should be misconstrued. There were a lot of things in the past that zealous missionaries did, some of which include trying to make people conform to their own liturgical practices and look like them. Despite the consequences, the majority had good intentions which are in line with the Church teachings even now. The difference is a greater understanding of the uniqueness and contribution of each to the Catholic Church, the idea being union is unity rather than uniformity.

To look at alternate intentions as the main aspect, or to look at the results of actions as such, is a grievous precedence for doing something similar across the board, and where do we stop? Do we blast St. Cyril for his personal zealousness, or the Council of Ephesus for the split it caused within the Church? How about Chalcedon? How about all the book burnings that took place after many councils?

Rather than blasting Marymol about the intentions of the Portuguese, perhaps this dialogue would benefit more if I could ask about the accuracy of the statement that their actions had a central role in the usage of Syriac. I unfortunately do not know much about this subject, so perhaps someone else can clarify about that aspect.

 

[malphono]

I remember when this post was about the exciting news of us entering into the Catholic Church.

To quote Maurice Chevalier in GiGi, “ah yes, I remember it well.”

Perhaps it would be best at this point to close this thread and if anyone wants to pursue the tangent that has taken over, they are free to create a new thread. Just an idea.