EC and Marian devotions and apparitions

[Alexander_Roman]

Why do some Easterners continually denigrate Latin tradition?

Before I opened this thread, I assumed, against my wishes, that the first post by an Eastern Catholic would indeed jab at the Latin tradition. Sure enough, Father Deacon Paul’s post ended with an insult to how the Mother of God is most often venerated in the Latin tradition.

Then Diak feels the need to point out that the Akathist to the Theotokos is 600 years older than the Rosary. I am sure he will defend his comments by saying he was just trying to give the questioner a feel about how ancient is Eastern devotion to Our Lady. Still, the need to compare and contrast in a way that seems to belittle the Latin Tradition is uncalled for, but unfortunately par for the course.

Remember how many Eastern Catholics supposedly had an inferiority complex before Vatican II and had to legitimize their Catholicism by importing Latin practices? My, how the pendulum does swing in regards to inferiority/superiority complexes.

If I had seen these sorts of comments only once, or twice, or a thousand times, it would be one thing. But over the course of years, I have seen untold numbers of comments slamming Latin tradition, as if it is not somehow just as legitimate (and often, just as ancient or moreso) as Byzantine tradition.

In the interest of Christian charity, I BEG our Byzantine Catholic brothers and sisters to extoll the virtues of your own Rite without disparaging our venerable and ancient Latin Rite in the process.

You make an excellent point. However, Eastern Catholics, when they feel the need to do as you’ve said, do so because for very long Roman Catholics have applied their own Latin standards to us as THE standards that define what being a Catholic is. Those EC’s who have suffered Latinization where even their own clergy and hierarchs have adopted the attitude that “what is Latin is what is best” do go out of their way to “push back” so to speak to affirm that their traditions are every bit as Catholic as Latin ones - and as Fr. DIAKon said, in several cases, hundreds of years older.

So the Western litany can be said to be based on the Akathist hymn. The Rosary existed in the Christian East from the time of St Pachomius and the Thebaid Desert as the “Rule of the Theotokos” and spread from the East to the West. The feast of the Conception of St Ann originated in the East in the sixth century and is the forerunner of the Immaculate Conception in the West (a dogma that was entirely unnecessary in the East because Augustinianism was never an issue with us).

In addition, we always feel the need to educate Roman Catholics and Protestants about the Christian East as we are hardly on Western Christians’ radar screen and so MANY unfortunate and untrue things are said about us and our faith/practices, even on CAF.

No offense is intended on our part, but we do have an obligation to explain and to defend ourselves against what is often an implicit charge that sees our Catholic identity in terms of how closely we approximate the Latin tradition.

Please put yourself in our position before getting annoyed with us!

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but there is an Eastern variation on the rosary. Saint Seraphim was supposed to have used it.

HAIL, O Virgin Theotokos, Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, for thou hast borne the Savior of our souls.

Apparently, there’s an entire prayer set for it.

I would like to be as Agnostic as you, Friend!

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Can anyone direct me to the ‘reading’ of the Pokrova…what EVERY figure in the blessed icon is or who it is? Doing research…thanks!

Yes, the Mother of God, of course, holds her Mantle over the people as they pray to implore her protection.

Immediately below her is St Romanos the melodist who composed the akathist hymn in her honour that is used so extensively and liturgically in the Byzantine East. He holds a paper, the paper that the Mother of God gave him to swallow in a dream that gave him a beautiful singing voice. To St Roman’s right is the figure of St Tarasios, Patriarch of Constantinople in whose era at least one vision of the Protection took place. To St Taras’ right stand the figures of St Andrew the Fool for Christ and his disciple, St Epiphanios. St Andrew was the only one in the Church to see the Mother of God in a vision and he lifts up his hand to point to her to let everyone know that she is with them and is protecting them.

To the left of St Roman is the Emperor Leo the Wise and his wife, Empress St Theophania. Above them stand the saints accompanying the Mother of God - Sts Peter and Paul, St John the Baptist, St Alexios the Man of God and many others.

The Protection icon has many variants and the Ukrainian Kozaks had their own called the “Kozak Protection” depicting Kozaks standing under the mantle of the Mother of God.

Alex

 

[Alexander_Roman]

Zarvanitsa was an approved apparition site even before the reports of new apparitions in the eighties-- but in view of the rules here that’s as far as I can go.

There are more than 1,000 miracle-working icons in Ukraine and Russia alone. The miraculous icon of Pochaiv in western Ukraine has 300 copies enshrined around the world - and each of them is miracle-working!

There are hundreds of miraculous appearances of the Theotokos associated with her icons and shrines in the East. Prof. Poselianin in his “Mother of God” monumental work has outlined many there. Every day there is a commemoration of a miraculous icon of the Mother of God or several.

Such icons, althought experienced by individuals, soon become the focus of a church-wide liturgical veneration. The icon is often framed in a richly decorated shrine and hung in a prominent place in a Church. Usually there are liturgical hymns sung before the Marian image after EVERY church service. On the feast days of the icon (and in many cases there are several), the icon is taken in grand procession around the Church, through the streets of the city etc.

There are over 100 Akathists and many Canons in honour of the Mother of God. There were also Russian Elders who, instead of the Jesus Prayer, prayed the Byzantine “Hail Mary” (by tradition, originally composed by St Cyril of Alexandria) unceasingly. Every eastern Christian should pray the 150 Hail Mary’s daily, according to St Seraphim of Sarov.

At Diveyevo in northern Russia, there is the Convent which has a ditch around it. The nuns and pilgrims walk around the Convent following the ditch daily, reciting the 150 Hail Mary’s (and on feast days, the nuns sing the Hail Mary’s). The belief is that the Mother of God herself walks around the Convent once each day.

The Mother of God, by tradition, especially protects four places on earth: the monastic peninsula of Mount Athos, the country of Georgia, the city of Kyiv and the monastery of Diveyevo.

And the Byzantine tradition’s special short invocation to the Theotokos is: Most Holy Mother of God, save us!

Alex

 

[Sean_O_L]

http://jloughnan.tripod.com/byzcath.jpg

See file at jloughnan.tripod.com/byzcath.htm