Glory to Jesus Christ!
Each culture approaches spirituality in a different way. We need to be aware of the diversity of Liturgical Christianity.
It would be next to impossible to generalize about the eastern churches. For instance, there is the Ge’ez church from Ethiopia and the Syro-Malankar church from India. An observation from our vantage point might make us conclude that they have very little in common with each other, yet we are lumping them together into the “eastern” churches!
It’s almost unfair. That’s like lumping Cherokee and Quechua (from the Andes) into one pot and calling them all “Indians”. But I digress.
To the Ge’ez Catholics, Syro-Malankar Catholics and Armenian Catholics the Byzantine Catholics seem pretty “Western” and really the Byzantines share a common heritage and theological history with the church of Rome for many centuries. So the Byzantine church is only “eastern” because it happens to originate east, but only slightly east, of Rome.
So as to the statues, I am sure the Western church has utilized three dimensional sculpture more than any other Catholic or Orthodox Christian church. However, due to “cross-pollination” you will find statuary around many, if not most Eastern Catholic temples. The least likely place to find them would be within the sanctuary itself, yet even there we have examples of this practice. We call it Latinization, a policy that was once all the rage is now out of favor.
When the Eastern Catholics started to arrive in North America (and later Australia) the Latin bishops didn’t know what to do with them. First they tried to encourage them to worship in Latin churches, but that wouldn’t work, so they tried to assure that the temples and vestments were as Latin-looking as possible. That policy was a bit more successful. Many easterners felt like unwanted stepchildren and were somewhat willing to conform, although others were offended by the enforcement of the practices. The youngsters grew up with the Latinizations and that was all they knew.
Even Latin devotional practices were
de rigeur and kneeling for communion was required. Rosary was popularized at the expense of eastern devotions.
Now the great-grandchildren and converts are struggling to restore the beautiful traditions of their respective churches. You will find pews almost everywhere though, statues in some places, and other practices in varying degrees of removal, but the process of restoring the churches goes on.
The parish I belong to has removed about 40% of the pews for those who wish to stand, and we have no kneelers. We have no sculpture but many lovely icons, and to answer another concern, there are always provisions made for the elderly and infirm to sit, and plenty of wheelchair and walker space!
In Christ Always
Michael, that sinner
