Basic Books about Eastern Rites

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Little_One0307

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Hi,

I was wondering if you guys could recommend any basic books that would serve as an introduction to the Eastern Orthodox Rites [those in communion with Rome of course.] I know there’s a Catholicim for Dummies, I was wondering if something like that existed for the EC.

I would like to learn more so that I could understand what is going on in this part of the forum. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

God bless.

Little One0307
 
  1. There is only one “Eastern Orthodox Rite”, and its Byzantine.
  2. There are no Eastern Orthodox in communion with Rome. Those in communion with Rome are called Eastern Catholics, although Eastern Catholics would refer to all those who came from the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East.
You can try these books:

amazon.com/Eastern-Catholic-Churches-Introduction-Spirituality/dp/0814620477/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1306044875&sr=8-7

amazon.com/Questions-Answers-Eastern-Catholic-Churches/dp/0809144417/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1306044875&sr=8-10
 
ConstantineTG said:
  1. There is only one “Eastern Orthodox Rite”, and its Byzantine.
  2. There are no Eastern Orthodox in communion with Rome. Those in communion with Rome are called Eastern Catholics, although Eastern Catholics would refer to all those who came from the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East.
You can try these books:

amazon.com/Eastern-Catholic-Churches-Introduction-Spirituality/dp/0814620477/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1306044875&sr=8-7

amazon.com/Questions-Answers-Eastern-Catholic-Churches/dp/0809144417/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1306044875&sr=8-10
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Do the Maronites fall under category 2? Thanks. I will try out those books. Wow it sounds really confusing already. :confused:
 
Little_One0307 said:
Wow it sounds really confusing already. :confused:
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It might be less confusing if you consider the Eastern and Oriental Catholic churches as being Rome-affiliated churches that came out of communion with various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches which are not in union with Rome. This is true in all cases except for the Maronites, the Italo-Albanians, and the Chaldeans. It’s not true for the Maronites or the Italo-Albanians because they never an Orthodox counterpart (some Orthodox writings I have read say that the Maronites were originally Syrian Jacobites, but in deference to the fact that I am on Catholic Answers, I won’t get into that), and it’s not true for the Chaldeans because the church they previously belonged to, the Assyrian Church of the East, is not Orthodox. For the rest, the correspondences are usually pretty intuitive:

Syriac Orthodox Church —> Syriac Catholic Church
Romanian Orthodox Church —> Romanian Catholic Church
Armenian Orthodox Church —> Armenian Catholic Church
Coptic Orthodox Church —> Coptic Catholic Church

There are a few others for whom the correspondence is not quite so clear (Syro-Malabars, for instance), but for the most part you can tell what type of Eastern or Oriental Christian you’re dealing with by just looking at the name of their church. And you should be able to find information on those churches by looking for books or articles or websites with those names. I haven’t checked it out myself, but I would be shocked if each of these churches didn’t have some sort of official web presence. (For example, here is the website of the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkerke, Lebanon.)

Happy hunting!
 
Little_One0307 said:
Hi,

I was wondering if you guys could recommend any basic books that would serve as an introduction to the Eastern Orthodox Rites [those in communion with Rome of course.] I know there’s a Catholicim for Dummies, I was wondering if something like that existed for the EC.

I would like to learn more so that I could understand what is going on in this part of the forum. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

God bless.

Little One0307
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You can try Monsignor Appleyard’s “Light of the East”, which discusses chiefly the Byzantines.
 
dzheremi said:
It might be less confusing if you consider the Eastern and Oriental Catholic churches as being Rome-affiliated churches that came out of communion with various Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches which are not in union with Rome. This is true in all cases except for the Maronites, the Italo-Albanians, and the Chaldeans. It’s not true for the Maronites or the Italo-Albanians because they never an Orthodox counterpart (some Orthodox writings I have read say that the Maronites were originally Syrian Jacobites, but in deference to the fact that I am on Catholic Answers, I won’t get into that), and it’s not true for the Chaldeans because the church they previously belonged to, the Assyrian Church of the East, is not Orthodox. For the rest, the correspondences are usually pretty intuitive:

Syriac Orthodox Church —> Syriac Catholic Church
Romanian Orthodox Church —> Romanian Catholic Church
Armenian Orthodox Church —> Armenian Catholic Church
Coptic Orthodox Church —> Coptic Catholic Church

There are a few others for whom the correspondence is not quite so clear (Syro-Malabars, for instance), but for the most part you can tell what type of Eastern or Oriental Christian you’re dealing with by just looking at the name of their church. And you should be able to find information on those churches by looking for books or articles or websites with those names. I haven’t checked it out myself, but I would be shocked if each of these churches didn’t have some sort of official web presence. (For example, here is the website of the Maronite Patriarchate in Bkerke, Lebanon.)

Happy hunting!
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And a few not so obvious for the Byzantine:

Orthodox Church of America → Byzantine or Ukrainian or Russian Catholic
American Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox → Byzantine or Slovak Catholic
Serbian Orthodox → Krizevci Catholic
Greek Speaking Eastern Orthodox → Hellenic Greek Catholic
Arabic Speaking Eastern Orthodox → Melkite Greek Catholic
 
I appreciate you guys taking your time out in responding to this thread. Thanks guys for recommending the sources. I will definetly check them out.

And thanks for the run down on the rites and divisions, that was most helpful. That wikipedia article was just a bit too complicated for me.

If you guys run into any more books that are really basic, please do by all means continue to post them in this thread.

God Bless.

Little One0307
 
Vico said:
And a few not so obvious for the Byzantine:

Orthodox Church of America → Byzantine or Ukrainian or Russian Catholic
American Carpatho-Rusyn Orthodox → Byzantine or Slovak Catholic
Serbian Orthodox → Krizevci Catholic
Greek Speaking Eastern Orthodox → Hellenic Greek Catholic
Arabic Speaking Eastern Orthodox → Melkite Greek Catholic
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Properly, the Sui Iuris church referred to as “Byzantine” should be “Ruthenian”, “Byzantine Catholic Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh” or “Metropolitan Church of Pittsburgh”…

Byzantine alone technically refers to the Rite shared by all of the above.
 
What would be a good introductory book like “The Orthodox Church” by kallistos Ware
but for the Oriental and Assyrian Traditions? Thanks!
 
There really isn’t one, as far as I know. For the Coptic church, there are the voluminous writings of HH Pope Shenouda III, but they are frequently poorly translated (I haven’t read his book, “Have You Seen the One I Love”, but I have heard it is better than the translations of most of his pamphlets). In lieu of a Kalistos Ware-level text, I bought a copy of the liturgy of St. Basil (since it is their most commonly celebrated liturgy) and Fr. Tadrous Y. Malaty’s “Introduction to the Coptic Orthodox Church”. These are a good start, but of course I am still learning and I really haven’t even scratched the surface of all there is to digest from the Oriental Orthodox traditions. I’ve tried to read Fr. VC Samuels’ “The Council of Chalcedon Revisited” about 3 times, but can’t seem to stick with it. It is a well-written defense of non-Chalcedonian Christology, I think I’m just too new to the whole thing to “get” it right now.

I don’t know of anything for the Assyrians. Most of their modern chroniclers (e.g., Fred Aprim) are polemical and good for a purely historical narrative, but should be read cautiously if/when they venture into dogmatic disputes. Obviously the Assyrians have their own take on such matters. If you want a sympathetic portrayal of the Assyrian Church of the East (and an engrossing history book, too), I recommend Dr. Suha Rassam’s excellent “Christianity in Iraq”, which is very readable (and very depressing).
 
Vico said:
Serbian Orthodox → Krizevci Catholic
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Serbian Orthodox is Serbian Orthodox.

Krizevci Catholic are Croatians who are members of the Greek (Byzantine) Catholic Church, NOT the same thing… 2 TOTALLY different nationalities and religions.
 
Patchunky said:
Serbian Orthodox is Serbian Orthodox.

Krizevci Catholic are Croatians who are members of the Greek (Byzantine) Catholic Church, NOT the same thing… 2 TOTALLY different nationalities and religions.
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That is the correspondence however, because the Krizevci Catholic Church includes all of former Yugoslavia, except that the Macedonians are considered their own Church sui iuris. The Churches sui iuris are not limited to only one ethnic group, rather the definition, determined by the Holy See, is flexible.

Former Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, and Montenegro

Diocese of Marča was founded as Greek Catholic in 1611 when a Greek Catholic bishop Simeon Vratanja was consecrated in Rome.
 
Vico said:
That is the correspondence however, because the Krizevci Catholic Church includes all of former Yugoslavia, except that the Macedonians are considered their own Church sui iuris. The Churches sui iuris are not limited to only one ethnic group, rather the definition, determined by the Holy See, is flexible.

Former Yugoslavia: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, and Montenegro

Diocese of Marča was founded as Greek Catholic in 1611 when a Greek Catholic bishop Simeon Vratanja was consecrated in Rome.
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And Serbs are Serbs and Croatians are Croatians. Krizevci is for Croatians. There are no Serbs who are Eastern Catholics!
 
Patchunky said:
And Serbs are Serbs and Croatians are Croatians. Krizevci is for Croatians. There are no Serbs who are Eastern Catholics!
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The point in not about ethnicity, it is about conversion to the Greek Catholic Church from the Serbian Orthodox. The Serbian Orthodox Church has territories of Croatia, Serbia-Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Hungary. They would convert to the Krizevci Catholic Church sui iuris according to the norm of church law. Those Serbian Orthodox in Macedonia convert to the Macedonian Greek Catholic Church.
 
May I suggest this information packed little booklet, “The One Church and the Communion of Churches”, available on Amazon (amazon.com/gp/product/0972352309).

It details the basic information about each of the Eastern Rite traditions, both the Orthodox and their Catholic counterparts. It’s only 31 pages but has a lot of great information, color photos, etc.

(Disclaimer: I am “Chrissy the Stooges Woman”, one of the people selling copies. :))
 
theistgal said:
May I suggest this information packed little booklet, “The One Church and the Communion of Churches”, available on Amazon (amazon.com/gp/product/0972352309).

It details the basic information about each of the Eastern Rite traditions, both the Orthodox and their Catholic counterparts. It’s only 31 pages but has a lot of great information, color photos, etc.

(Disclaimer: I am “Chrissy the Stooges Woman”, one of the people selling copies. :))
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Thanks very much. Man I got a lot of reading to do based off the resources given off this thread. God Bless.

Little One0307
 
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