Eastern Catholics, are we really Catholic?

[Hesychios]

So to the extent that I understand your main point correctly, I think it misses the real point about who we are and what we believe, and quibbles over things that we don’t care about in the same way that you do.

Who is “we” exactly? Do you care about unity in Christ? I think you do, I do too!

Do you think your church represents thew First Millenium church in it’s unity? My friend who posts as Gregory Palamas here thinks so…

…it is an opinion formed from a lifetime of direct experience of, and love and deep respect for, the people of my Church. That, I belive is what makes our senses different.

I respect your lifetimes opinion, I really do, I only wish you could also respect mine.

If you are like the Ruthenian Catholics I know and love, you would like to think of your church as a model for Christian Unity.

So what kind of model is that, anyway?

Are you hoping the Orthodox will come “into communion” with Rome and become what your church has become? It is a serious question, a lot rides on it. The Orthodox want to know just what would be expected of them if they accepted an offer to be “in communion” with Rome. You could provide valuable insight, and help facilitate a smooth transition.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

On the other hand, what you describe might just kill prospects for unity in this generation, depending upon what you and your peoples own vision of unity turns out to be. It would not be your fault of course.

I believe that the original terms of unity at Brest were not bad at all. The Orthodox bishops who made that compact were determined to be Orthodox forever, and I believe that they did not expect some of the changes that came later.

Quite frankly, I am pretty sure that if they had known these (future for them) dogmas would be imposed upon their people, it would have been a deal-breaker. Had anyone let on about plans to introduce the new dogmas it would have been what in business i called a “poison pill”, sure to cancel all further dialog.

That’s my opinion of course, but I am Orthodox and they were Orthodox, so I am assuming that they were a lot like the Orthodox bishops I know.

So where am I going with this? Well, I think we are seeing something similar being proposed in some circles today. The question in my mind is…how will it turn out?

To the best of my knowledge I have made no comments on matters of who is Catholic. I honestly don’t have strong opinions on who must believe what to be what. (Perhaps you are misinterpreting something unrelated???) Eventually I will get around to a post that I think may be useful on that point.

My apologies if I have misrepresented you. I guess I was thinking that you and Simple are alike in that regard.

Perhaps I confused you with someone else for the moment

Michael

 

[Ungcsertez]

As a Byzantine Catholic kid in the 50’s, “catechism class” for me consisted of trapsing over to the church basement on Saturday mornings with my sisters for two-hour catechism sessions. The text for the first hour was, indeed, the Baltimore Catechism and we were taught from it by visiting Benedictine nuns. Hour #2, however, was referred to as Liturgical Catechism, which our pastor, a Benedictine heiromonk, would himself teach. At this point, the class would take a decidely Eastern spin as we would discuss the “nuts ‘n’ bolts” of Catholic worship in the Eastern tradition. We had a separate text for this portion of our catechism class entitled (coincidentally) Liturgical Catechism - I remember very little about the text itself except that it was, indeed, decidely Eastern and not Latin - it may have even been an Orthodox publication; I just don’t recall. All the hand-drawn illustrations were of priests in Eastern vestments, temples with iconastos, etc. For example, I especially remember, even after these many decades, the particular drawing in the book that illustrated the proper arrangement of the Precious Gifts on the diskos.

Fr. Gregory’s approach was to stress that we were, indeed, Catholics, just as Catholic as our buddies across the tracks at the Roman Catholic St. Cyril’s Church, but that we practiced our Catholicism different thn they did, more like our relatives in the “old country” did. He was always quick to point out “differences” to us, as well as the “whys” behind those differences. Case in point: on Palm Sunday, our Roman Catholic friends received palms: we Byzantine Catholics, instead, received pussywillows because palms just didn’t grow in the “old country” where our ancestors were from so, since they substituted pussywillows, so did we.

You must remember in all this that we were mere kids. Dogmatic or theological discussions re: the Immaculate Conception, purgatory, etc. would have gone right over our heads at that time. Our entire catechism program stressed two very basic concepts:

1. We were Catholics, and we believed what all Catholics believe.
2. We were different from the Roman Catholics because we were Byzantines, and that was something we should be proud of.

And at that grade-school level, that was sufficient for us!

BTW - I served at the altar for the previously-mentioned +Bp. Elko (IIRC, I believe I held the dikeron and/or trikeron)… there were no “episcopol gloves” in sight and he certainly wore an Eastern crown (no mitre!) when visiting our parish.

Go to the latest BCW and there is a photo of Bishop Nicholas T. Elko in full vestments, including the Roman episcopal gloves!

U-C

 

[ASimpleSinner]

Go to the latest BCW and there is a photo of Bishop Nicholas T. Elko in full vestments, including the Roman episcopal gloves!

U-C

Wow 22 days later +Elko’s gloves come back to the mix.

He has only been dead for almost two decades and NOT part of the metropolia for four decades…

But with apologies to Monty Python…

Well, no one expects the Gloves of Archbishop Elko!

 

[dvdjs]

The fact is, the homelands of the Ruthenians south of the Carpathians, as well as the Red Ruthenians and White Ruthenians were not projecting into the west. Sorry, but you made that up.

Ahem. As I mentioned, the precise situation is different for different groups, but for the Carpatho-Rusyns the geography is clear. Nothing to make up.

The political power of the Hungarian kingdom and the Polish kingdom was projecting into the east. Funny that the Latins who migrated eastward did not pick up a few things too …

Or perhaps you are interpreting protruding or projecting as a verb rather than a predicate adjective as I used it. I am not talking of a temporal process, just the state of affairs. I am not interested in who moved where and when. There are as many historical perspectives on that subject as there are axes to grind. Not interested.

Funny that the Latins who migrated eastward did not pick up a few things too, like Palamite theology, or an understanding of Theosis, or devotional practices like the Akathist and the Jesus Prayer, or Orthros before Mass.

Not really funny. There was a time that when the East was the intellectual center of the Christian lands, and the West was in disarray, suffering the barbarian onslaughts. But Rome stumbled through the dark ages, converted the barbarians to the Catholic faith, and recovered its vitality. By the beginning of the 1500’s the overal situation was reversed. Constantinople was conquered. The rise of Moscow was only just beginning. Kievan Rus was recovering from eastern pressures. But Spain was Christian, Columbus was in America, and Copericus was studying at the University in Crakow. Mohila went to the west for university/seminary, because that’s where there were important centers of learning.

It was the eastern church that suffered the damage.

Actually, these lands (Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks) were originally evangelized into the eastern church through the work of Cyril and Methodius. That effort was undone even before the great schism Southern Poland practiced the “Methodian Rite” until the eleventh century. After the Magyars accepted Christianity from the west, the native eastern rite christians were by and large pushed into the Latin church.

This is long before Brest or Uzhhorod, so what’s your point? I accept the fact that at the East/West interface, time and chance happenenth. And I accept that the Serbs were evangelized by Latins, but ultimately served by Greek clergy. And that the Bulgarians played both sides to work the best deal - at the outset of the Partriarchate, and during the quest for autocepahly. What is the point?

Frankly, they could have known as much about Islam, or even Buddhism, but that is not the same as actually being taught it as truth by the village priest.

Well if you have a source of homilies of Carpathian village priests of the 17th centiury, I’d just love to see it.

What did they talk about? If our village priests received any education, then like Peter Mohila it was a western one. My guess is that what was heard is much that same as what is heard today. Discussions of the Gospel and Epistle, and perhaps propers for the feasts. Palamite theology? I been a regular at an Orthodox mission - served by a college and semnary educated priest - for five years and have not heard this discussed not even on the St. Gregory’s feast. What I hear is, for the most part, just what I hear in BCC parishes.

Peter Mohila came after the Union of Brest and the Latin missionaries having worked in K’yiv, not before, and he had nothing to do with your Carpathian predecessors.

Just after - and before Uzhhorod. It is likely that his catechism and other similar catechisms represented the spirit of the era. If Orthodoxy was assuming Western ideas and methods, why would we have been resistant? So again I think it would be interesting to understand what our priests were saying at that time. I think that any notion that it was an orthodoxy opposed to rather than receptive of Latin ideas is probably wrong.

 

[theistgal]

Go to the latest BCW and there is a photo of Bishop Nicholas T. Elko in full vestments, including the Roman episcopal gloves!

U-C

If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.

 

[dvdjs]

Who is “we” exactly? Do you care about unity in Christ? I think you do, I do too!

Do you think your church represents the First Millenium church in it’s unity? My friend who posts as Gregory Palamas here thinks so… If you are like the Ruthenian Catholics I know and love, you would like to think of your church as a model for Christian Unity.

We’ve been through this before, IIRC.

I see the mission of the BCC as advancing the salvation of its members. It is the faith of my fathers, and its efficacy as a ladder to salvation is crystal clear to me from my life’s experience. That, for me is enough: we have the right to exist, as the Balamand statement suggests, because we exist. I understand that others have bigger plans. For me, there is no need for anything more.

Do I favor unity? - of course. Do I think that we can play a role in it? Perhaps. Here’s one possibility: At some point, rather than looking to us as abused by Latins, Orthodoxy may have a moment in which they will see themselves as abusers, and repent for their treatment of us. Maybe if there were just a little more compunction, and a realization that - given their own normal manner of reception of Catholics (vide supra) - there is no right before God to deny communion, then maybe there would be a chance. The Catholic church stands with open arms to you.

Are you hoping the Orthodox will come “into communion” with Rome and become what your church has become?

Too elliptical for me. What do you think it has become? And why? Is what we’ve become actually normative for Greek Catholic churches?

It is a serious question, a lot rides on it. The Orthodox want to know just what would be expected of them if they accepted an offer to be “in communion” with Rome. You could provide valuable insight, and help facilitate a smooth transition.

Actually, IMO, little or nothing rides on it. It would be absurd to think that a diaspora church of 100,000 is a model for Bulgaria, let alone Russia. This is like your sense of the battle at CAF for the soul of Eastern Catholic churches. Fantasy.

 

[Diak]

XB!

Every church was and is different. But do you really think that the UGC’s are really so different then and now? Can we look at UOC-KP as a comparison? How different are the UGCC and UOC-KP? The salient fact is that people of the union were Easterners protruding into Western lands and living among Westerners. That fact has had assimilatory effects (and counter-assimilatory) effects on both EC and EO’s.

Indeed every church is different - on many levels.
There are very little differences between the KP and UGCC, and even fewer between the UAOC and UGCC. Many of our clergy use the recently printed KP books in Ukrainian now such as the Chasoslov, and KP or UAOC use some of the recently printed Studite books, such as the Trebnik.

Every time I have been invited to celebrate a Moleben, Panakhyda, etc. with brother Ukrainian Orthodox clergy, the celebrations are without exception cordial and smooth. Outside of the Divine Liturgy and the restoration of full Eucharistic communion we very frequently celebrate together liturgically. Our faithful do intercommune on a local level.

There is, as many have pointed out such as Fr. Borys Gudziak in his epochal Harvard dissertation later made into the masterful Crisis and Reform, a unique Kyivan spiritual, liturgical, and cultural heritage and identity - which becomes a natural point of dialogue and similarity between the non-Muscovite Ukrainian Orthodox churches and the UGCC. Even though his works were published post-Union of Brest, Mohyla influenced everyone of the Kyivan Church greatly - not just the Orthodox but our own UGCC liturgical usage, and we all recognize that as part of our shared Kyivan heritage. I’ve made extensive use of his Catechism as well as his various liturgical commentary.

To switch gears a bit, after hearing the recent MP comments on the meeting between the EP representatives and the KP the old epiteths of “uncanonical” passed on the KP by the MP start ringing out in various venues. To me those are as hollow and meaningless as those of the ROCOR who judged the MP to be without grace and constituting an invalid hierarchy well until a few years ago, and somehow managed to forget all of that last summer. Seems a bit odd that canonical grace can be that capricious.
FDRLB

 

[Ungcsertez]

If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.

It’s just that I’ve never seen a pic of Kyr Nikolai without them, but others seem to think this is something I’ve made up. Yes, if the gloves fit, you must admit!

U-C

 

[ASimpleSinner]

It’s just that I’ve never seen a pic of Kyr Nikolai without them, but others seem to think this is something I’ve made up. Yes, if the gloves fit, you must admit!

U-C

I admit I don’t catch every last post here… but U-C who “seems to think” this is something you made up?

For my money, it isn’t that I think you made it up, I just can’t for the life of me understand your obsession.

 

[Ungcsertez]

I admit I don’t catch every last post here… but U-C who “seems to think” this is something you made up?

For my money, it isn’t that I think you made it up, I just can’t for the life of me understand your obsession.

I knew you’d like it, so I posted this BCW reference, enjoy! Now if I could just find that TIME Magazine photo of Kyr Nikolai from 1967 holding the Ciborium in procession, that one is priceless!

U-C

 

[SVP]

I knew you’d like it, so I posted this BCW reference, enjoy! Now if I could just find that TIME Magazine photo of Kyr Nikolai from 1967 holding the Ciborium in procession, that one is priceless!

U-C

So, your obsession with finding obscure photos of Eastern hierarchs following Latin practices serves to prove what in reference to the original post?

ISTM that it merely serves to prove that you are obsessed with minutia and trivia rather than focussing on the future and well being of your church…

 

[ASimpleSinner]

I knew you’d like it, so I posted this BCW reference, enjoy! Now if I could just find that TIME Magazine photo of Kyr Nikolai from 1967 holding the Ciborium in procession, that one is priceless!

U-C

So in other words when I ask “but U-C who “seems to think” this is something you made up?” you can’t answer that?

You are showing your cards here, U-C. There is no escaping the impression I am getting that this is for provocation and causing glee and toe-curling as we take these trips down “memory lane”.

Chances are I already saw all of your “embarassing” photos of +Elko and MORE when I was a seminarian with access to our archives there.

So?

 

[Hesychios]

Every church was and is different. But do you really think that the UGC’s are really so different then and now? Can we look at UOC-KP as a comparison? How different are the UGCC and UOC-KP?

Are you referring to liturgical practice or theology?

Does the UOC-KP believe in Universal Jurisdiction of the Pope? Does it teach Purgatory?

The salient fact is that people of the union were Easterners protruding into Western lands and living among Westerners.

Still inaccurate.

I would like to see where the 80 million at least figure comes from.

It seems that I greatly overestimated the combined populations of Ukraine and Belarus, with what should be portions of Russia, all once “Catholic” under the Union of Brest. It would be more accurately about 55 or 56 million for Ukraine and Belarus with a few million in Russia making about 60 million. Sorry for the mistake.

This is what could have been the Union of Brest today, it stands at about five million or less. The figures in the Annuario Pontificio have varied widely of late.

And it would be nice, in the interest of the Truth, that you point out that this “return” overwhelmingly involved force, and did not allow for choice.

You naturally want to upplay some “force” of return but downplay some “force” of union.

It is clear that when the Union was begun, it was a state issue. The monarchy of Poland actually named the bishops and Poland enforced this by whatever means were called for. When Poland was no longer in power it lacked any means to name bishops in those areas, it became a matter for the Russian state and likewise it’s decisions were enforced.

This is no surprise to anyone. Unfortunately there was brutality on both sides on occasion, but not like a major crusade or anything like that. I would say that just as the violence of the Inquisition is overplayed for polemical reasons, the violence of the Union of Brest, and it’s undoing, are typically exaggerated. Intriguingly the population left the Union of Brest as easily as it went in.

They did not have to renounce any doctrines they were not taught and did not believe in.

Your point about the manner of reception of Greek Catholics, however, is an excellent one that I often make. Clearly, the normal way of receiving Catholics into Orthodoxy, involves neither baptism nor chrismation, just confession and communion in one’s own parish that had been laid claim to by Orthodox.

My point was they came out of the Union of Brest Orthodox, no attachments to Latin theology. The original union did not require them to believe that stuff, although today we are told (by some people on this forum) they must now believe those doctrines. What do you say?

This means, ISTM, that means that our excommunication from Orthodoxy is not about what we believe, and the EO churches fully understand that.

This was true initially.

The K’yivan Metropolitanate of the Union of Brest did not teach any false doctrines. The failing of that union was in communing with a church that teaches and promotes false doctrines. (The danger, of course, is that false ideas could spread in this way.)

Later, the remnant body in Austrian Galicia (the UGCC today) most assuredly did teach the Latin doctrines. I don’t exactly know at what point the change occurred, just that the church was originally not teaching those things and in the twentieth century it was.

Presumably the Sub-Carpathian Ruthenians went through a similar process of theological assimilation.

This is what saddens me, we have a chance here to bring Holy Orthodoxy and Latin Catholicism together, but it is unlikely to happen if the Latin theology is forced on Orthodox. I see the Union of Brest as a model intended to get around that, not requiring anything further of the Orthodox nor the Papal Catholics. But it did not succeed then and it probably will not work now either.

Too bad.

Maybe if there were just a little more compunction, and a realization that - given their own normal manner of reception of Catholics (vide supra) - there is no right before God to deny communion, then maybe there would be a chance.

The Holy Orthodox church requires that it’s members believe Orthodox theology and reject any false doctrines, fast appropriately and pray, be continent and have a recent verifiable confession before receiving communion. This is expected of every Orthodox Christian.

The same standard is expected of everyone. If you wish to receive communion in the Orthodox church you are held to the same standard without exception. If or when you are ready to renounce Latin theological constructs and meet the other requirements you will be received. Otherwise, bloom where you are planted.

Yes, the church has the right to deny people the Eucharist. No real church will abandon that serious responsibility, yours included.
*
Michael*

 

[Peter_J]

^^ I’m sure you realize, however, that most of your fellow Orthodox take a much dimmer view of the Union of Brest than you do?

 

[Hesychios]

^^ I’m sure you realize, however, that most of your fellow Orthodox take a much dimmer view of the Union of Brest than you do?

Of course I do!

But let’s be frank. From the Orthodox point of view the thing was a failure, and I state as much here. It was intended to be a model where two Apostolic churches could share communion despite their theological differences.

Nevertheless, recent Supreme Pontiffs have been making noises that sound just like it. I have also read from assorted Latin Catholics the desire to see intercommunion first, and a resolution of theological points later. That seems to reflect it too.

The Vatican allows Orthodox and PNC to commune (when certain conditions are met), even though they do not believe in Papal Universal Jurisdiction, Papal Infallibility or Purgatory. How odd, some people here say there is no such thing as an Orthodox in communion with Rome.

dvdjs has gone on record here as stating that the Orthodox have no right to deny Catholics communion, at least that is how I interpret his last comments about it. That to me sounds like an aspect of the Union of Brest all over again.

I once suggested here (facetiously, I should add) that eastern Catholics and Orthodox converts to Catholicism be put through an RCIA type program, since some Catholics (like Simple Sinner, Brother David and East & West) believe eastern Catholics are bound to affirm every dogma the Latin church teaches. This to howls of protest!

What can this mean, if eastern Catholics are compelled to believe something that they object to being taught? It sounds to me like the echo of the Big Bang of Brest, always in the background.

Michael

 

[Peter_J]

Of course I do!

But let’s be frank.

Dude, you can be all the frank you want.

Nevertheless, recent Supreme Pontiffs have been making noises that sound just like it. I have also read from assorted Latin Catholics the desire to see intercommunion first, and a resolution of theological points later. That seems to reflect it too.

Yes … well I suppose that might be called “neo-uniatism”.

dvdjs has gone on record here as stating that the Orthodox have no right to deny Catholics communion, at least that is how I interpret his last comments about it.

I’ve been wondering whether he meant that, or something different.

God bless,
Peter.

 

[Peter_J]

Hesychios, I sent you a PM.

 

[bobzills]

The Vatican allows Orthodox and PNC to commune (when certain conditions are met), even though they do not believe in Papal Universal Jurisdiction, Papal Infallibility or Purgatory. How odd, some people here say there is no such thing as an Orthodox in communion with Rome.

There is another question that comes to mind here and that is the lifting of excommunications between RC and EO that occurred at a meeting between Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras?

 

[ASimpleSinner]

I once suggested here (facetiously, I should add) that eastern Catholics and Orthodox converts to Catholicism be put through an RCIA type program, since some Catholics (like Simple Sinner, Brother David and East & West) believe eastern Catholics are bound to affirm every dogma the Latin church teaches. This to howls of protest!

What can this mean, if eastern Catholics are compelled to believe something that they object to being taught? It sounds to me like the echo of the Big Bang of Brest, always in the background.

Michael

Michael I am well past the point of understanding where you are going with this. Your propositions generally seemed to be “darned if you do, darned if you don’t” in nature.

1. 
   *]You are perhaps wanting - by way of a contract - Greek Catholics to reserve the right to deny or even teach against what in our wider communion has been taught by our ecumenical councils and Petrine ministry. How does that play out in Orthodoxy? Would the Byzantine Orthodox go after a model of communion with the Oriental Orthodox with the caveat that those with whom they are now in communion have rights to unilaterally reject or teach against what they believe?
   *]If you are of the thinking that this is how it should be, one wonders why you did not remain a Greek Catholic and join up with the small but voiciferous party that insists it has every right to reject wider teaching authority based on personal readings of what is “Orthodox”.
   *]Can we make any attempt to distinguish between that which is “simply Latin” and teachings that would be adhered to by all of the Catholic world?
   *]Do you see that some of the semantics in what is “simply Latin” and what would be believed by a whole communion as being mixed up by painting with broad strokes that are little qualified?
   *]Does it necessarily follow that the arrangements made for our union agreements would be the model for future communications, especially in light of Ravenna and Balamand? Why do you insist on painting it as though that were so? Does it follow that the Moscow patriarchate (or any other body) would still follow the model they used for the creation of an Assyrian Orthodox community in Tehran? Because that happened in the past means that is the end goal for today’s on-again, off-again dialogues between Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians?
   *]You seem to ultimately be saying that if it isn’t the case that we who are in communion are free to reject the wider communion (a proposition foreign and likely abhorrent to your own new church) than we are a disappointment to the Orthodox.
   *]But the Orthodox would welcome a model of communion where they would be in communion with those who “teach error” so long as no one try to force it on them? If they would welcome that, than it is as simple as each national synod lifint the ban on Catholics recieving communion - Rome has already allowed for the Orthodox - and it would be a fait accompli in a model you seem to be suggesting would be acceptable - communion sharing while retaining all differences that could or would be problematic. Have many evinced much interest in doing that?
   *]As to the union agreements being “largely failures” that would be a more palaltable and less biased option if history were totally free of coercion. One wonders how many Eastern Catholics there would be today had it not been for nation-states favoring, promoting, and sometimes coercing everyone into belonging to the Orthodox church of the nation-state. There is little room in this argument to point to numbers alone as “evidence” on which to rest a case.
   *]All of the talk that implicity suggest the main concern or real reason different of the Orthodox national churches have been cool to ecumenical talks is because they look at Greek Catholics and say "we sure don’t want to end up like that!" is as silly as it is unwarranted. It is an expedient polemic used to cast aspersions on a community largely seen as “traitors” that loom large in the psyche of some who grow up on bedtime stories to “beware Jesuit uniatizers on the horizon”. Our existence is unforgiveable, and a chance to say “well we’d love to talk with you more Mr. Pope, but frankly we are afraid we will look like those folks”. Year right.
   
   Maybe you could outline what in your mind you think an acceptable union would entail, and what in your mind we in union should be like. So far, darned if you affirm teachings of your wider communion, darned if you assert differences which mean little to parties that would not want to be in communion with the “errant Latins”.

 

[Peter_J]

Hi ASimpleSinner,

I think I basically agree with what you are saying, but I think your arguments would go across better if you calm down a little. I see no reason that this shouldn’t be a friendly little discussion.

Also, for the sake of anyone just joining us, it might help to mention that not everything you’re responding to is contained in the quote at the beginning of your post.

God bless,
Peter.