Greek Catholic

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Matthew_Holford

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I note that a number of Eastern Catholic churches have the word ‘Greek’ in their title. As I do not know why I’m hoping that someone can please tell me why ‘Greek’ is part of the name of some of the Eastern Catholic churches. Is it because Greek is or was the liturgical language? Does it refer to the fact they have adopted traditions from Greek ancestry? Does it refer to their Byzantine heritage? Is it another reason?
 
Matthew_Holford said:
I note that a number of Eastern Catholic churches have the word ‘Greek’ in their title. As I do not know why I’m hoping that someone can please tell me why ‘Greek’ is part of the name of some of the Eastern Catholic churches. Is it because Greek is or was the liturgical language? Does it refer to the fact they have adopted traditions from Greek ancestry? Does it refer to their Byzantine heritage? Is it another reason?
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To distinguish ourselves from “Roman” Catholics. The Byzantine Rite grew in the Greek side of the Roman empire, as opposed to the Latin side, or Western Roman empire.
 
They don’t believe that the Pope is the only leader in the Catholic Church (only 1 of 5, I believe), so they follow what was originally in the east (Greece) rather than Rome (or something to that effect, I think).
 
karebear92 said:
They don’t believe that the Pope is the only leader in the Catholic Church (only 1 of 5, I believe), so they follow what was originally in the east (Greece) rather than Rome (or something to that effect, I think).
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You’re talking about the 5 traditional Patriarchates of the Church (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch)

Rome of course has primacy over the other 4. Greek just says that we belong to the Greek side of the empire, and thus the culture and philosophy is more Greek than Latin.
 
ConstantineTG said:
You’re talking about the 5 traditional Patriarchates of the Church (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch)

Rome of course has primacy over the other 4. Greek just says that we belong to the Greek side of the empire, and thus the culture and philosophy is more Greek than Latin.
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Okay, thanks for clearing that up. 🙂
 
Greek refers to our Constantinopolitan traditions, since the latins thought of the eastern Empire as the “empire of the Greeks.”
 
ConstantineTG said:
To distinguish ourselves from “Roman” Catholics. The Byzantine Rite grew in the Greek side of the Roman empire, as opposed to the Latin side, or Western Roman empire.
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Thanks for the info.🙂 I should have worked it out: isn’t it only Eastern Catholic churches that use the Byzantine Rite who have Greek (if they have it) in their name?
 
Matthew_Holford said:
Thanks for the info.🙂 I should have worked it out: isn’t it only Eastern Catholic churches that use the Byzantine Rite who have Greek (if they have it) in their name?
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For the most part, yes.

It definitely is an attempt to distinguish between the “Roman” (or Latin) and the “Greek” liturgical traditions, since we like to put everything in nice little boxes in order to understand them better. But it should be mentioned that the Greeks (or Greek speaking Hellenes) throughout the Middle east considered themselves Romans for most of the time when this liturgical tradition was in formation. They were very proud of this, and could have called themselves Roman and Catholic with accuracy.

It was the East Roman empire and it’s own Great Church of Hagia Sophia which set the standard for worship using the liturgy of St John Chrysostom/St Basil. Then Saint Photios launched the missions of Ss Cyril and Methodios which carried this into central and eastern Europe. Naturally, Greek ethnicity has little to do with it and it is not unique to the Greek state, and most of the believers do not use the Greek language in worship. It pretty much refers to the East Roman liturgical tradition of Hagia Sophia, commonly thought of as ‘Greek’ to modern western people. The alternative term, Byzantine, is also a western label, which the East Romans and Greeks do not seem to have ever used to describe themselves.

I have seen it referred to the"Methodian Rite" as used in central Europe in some accounts.

I believe it was Empress Maria Theresa who first popularized the term ‘Greek Catholic’, referring in her case to distinguish converts from among her ‘Greek Orthodox’ subjects who were allowed to keep their ritual traditions.

For what it’s worth, Orthodox also still use the term.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
Thanks for the info.🙂 I should have worked it out: isn’t it only Eastern Catholic churches that use the Byzantine Rite who have Greek (if they have it) in their name?
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Correct. The Eastern Catholic churches that use the Byzantine rite (e.g Ukrainian, Ruthenian, Melkite, Russian, etc…) are called “Greek Catholic”.

But the other Eastern Catholic churches, namely the Oriental churches (e.g. Armenian, Alexandrian, Chaldean, etc…) , are not called “Greek Catholic” and they have their own different rites.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
Thanks for the info.🙂 I should have worked it out: isn’t it only Eastern Catholic churches that use the Byzantine Rite who have Greek (if they have it) in their name?
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Yes. The Alexandrians, Armenians and Syriacs do not use “Greek”.
 
karebear92 said:
They don’t believe that the Pope is the only leader in the Catholic Church (only 1 of 5, I believe), so they follow what was originally in the east (Greece) rather than Rome (or something to that effect, I think).
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Hi
Greek Catholic believe that the Pope of the Vatican is there leader.
 
Hesychios said:
For the most part, yes.

It definitely is an attempt to distinguish between the “Roman” (or Latin) and the “Greek” liturgical traditions, since we like to put everything in nice little boxes in order to understand them better. But it should be mentioned that the Greeks (or Greek speaking Hellenes) throughout the Middle east considered themselves Romans for most of the time when this liturgical tradition was in formation. They were very proud of this, and could have called themselves Roman and Catholic with accuracy.

It was the East Roman empire and it’s own Great Church of Hagia Sophia which set the standard for worship using the liturgy of St John Chrysostom/St Basil. Then Saint Photios launched the missions of Ss Cyril and Methodios which carried this into central and eastern Europe. Naturally, Greek ethnicity has little to do with it and it is not unique to the Greek state, and most of the believers do not use the Greek language in worship. It pretty much refers to the East Roman liturgical tradition of Hagia Sophia, commonly thought of as ‘Greek’ to modern western people. The alternative term, Byzantine, is also a western label, which the East Romans and Greeks do not seem to have ever used to describe themselves.

I have seen it referred to the"Methodian Rite" as used in central Europe in some accounts.

I believe it was Empress Maria Theresa who first popularized the term ‘Greek Catholic’, referring in her case to distinguish converts from among her ‘Greek Orthodox’ subjects who were allowed to keep their ritual traditions.

For what it’s worth, Orthodox also still use the term.
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I think I was saying Greek was sort of code, if you like, for Byzantine rather than connecting it with Greek ethnicity.

I don’t know whom you consider to be ‘modern western people’; I don’t consider Hagia Sophia to be Greek. It’s in Turkey. If you live in Europe it’s not wise to mix Greek with Turkish. They don’t like it one little bit.😃

If ‘Greek’ and ‘Byzantine’ are words used by westerners how would it be more appropriate to refer to the so-called Byzantine Rite?
 
Aramis said:
The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) was (at one point) the “Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of North America,” early in the 20th C.
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I ask why would they use that name. Catholic I can understand as the Orthodox churches have a valid claim to and use of that name (I see corrections coming my way from some quarters:D). What confuses me is why they would use the terms ‘Greek’ and ‘Russian’. The only conclusion I can draw is they used ‘Greek’ to refer to their use of the Byzantine Liturgy.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
I ask why would they use that name. Catholic I can understand as the Orthodox churches have a valid claim to and use of that name (I see corrections coming my way from some quarters:D). What confuses me is why they would use the terms ‘Greek’ and ‘Russian’. The only conclusion I can draw is they used ‘Greek’ to refer to their use of the Byzantine Liturgy.
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At that time the church structure derived from the* Russia*n mission to AK, then CA…
There was also a strong “missionary” effort among the *Greek Catholics * who had recently emigrated to America. This “mission” included efforts to recruit whole parishes - people and property. These parishes had been incorporated as “Greek Catholic”, but, typically, independent of a hierarchy which was only slowly being established in the US. By adopting “Greek Catholic” a stronger claim could be made to the parish property.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
I ask why would they use that name. Catholic I can understand as the Orthodox churches have a valid claim to and use of that name (I see corrections coming my way from some quarters:D). What confuses me is why they would use the terms ‘Greek’ and ‘Russian’. The only conclusion I can draw is they used ‘Greek’ to refer to their use of the Byzantine Liturgy.
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The Russian Orthodox Church absorbed the schism lead by Rev. Fr. Alexis Toth. Essentially, Fr. Toth and a couple other Ruthenian priests left for Orthodoxy because of mistreatment by Roman bishops, especially Bishop John Ireland.

Once accepted into Russian Orthodoxy by Bishop Vladimir of San Francisco, Fr. Toth actively pursued a further schism of Ruthenians and Ukrainians into the ROC. Including the ‘Greek Catholic’ in the name made it easier to convert many of them.

In essence, it was a deception.

Note also: Rev. Fr. Alexis Toth has been canonized by the Russian Orthodox…
 
Matthew_Holford said:
If ‘Greek’ and ‘Byzantine’ are words used by westerners how would it be more appropriate to refer to the so-called Byzantine Rite?
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It may be cumbersome, but I think ‘Constantinopolitan’ would be more appropriate.

Perhaps too many syllables … 😉
 
Aramis said:
The Russian Orthodox Church absorbed the schism lead by Rev. Fr. Alexis Toth. Essentially, Fr. Toth and a couple other Ruthenian priests left for Orthodoxy because of mistreatment by Roman bishops, especially Bishop John Ireland.

Once accepted into Russian Orthodoxy by Bishop Vladimir of San Francisco, Fr. Toth actively pursued a further schism of Ruthenians and Ukrainians into the ROC. Including the ‘Greek Catholic’ in the name made it easier to convert many of them.

In essence, it was a deception.
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It is worth noting that aside from Fr. Toth, only two other priests joined him - one of whom was his brother . These two priests, however, returned farily quickly, to the Catholic church.
 
dvdjs said:
At that time the church structure derived from the* Russia*n mission to AK, then CA…
There was also a strong “missionary” effort among the *Greek Catholics * who had recently emigrated to America. This “mission” included efforts to recruit whole parishes - people and property. These parishes had been incorporated as “Greek Catholic”, but, typically, independent of a hierarchy which was only slowly being established in the US. By adopting “Greek Catholic” a stronger claim could be made to the parish property.
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Thanks for the info. I’m afraid I don’t know for what your abbreviations AK and CA stand.
 
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