Can’t I just
switch my membership to a latin church? I’d rather not be Greek Melkite
There is no need for you to make any change.
You can freely remain active in any Latin Church, AKA Roman, parish… or any EC or OC Catholic parish for that matter. The only time your status as canonically Melkite would be of any issue would be if you want to be married and/or ordained. (A UGCC Catholic who often served with us, Russian Greek Catholics, as a deacon, was ordained as a Dominican here a year and a half ago.)
I feel awkward at a Greek Melkite Church… The parish my dad goes to doesn’t do english masses and it’s just weird…
I prefer the latin church which i was raised in because originally there was no local Melkite parish… When one came to our city my dad went and i stayed at the latin parish…
I’m not racist or anything but the entire parish is syrian and Arab including my Dad…
Maybe your dad is just trying to connect with you in the way he knows best.
Of course you feel out of place in a tradition which is so new and unfamiliar to you, and with services in a language you don’t understand. Maybe you can find a way to meet him “in the middle”. Perhaps the deacon or one of the clergy wives or another catechist in the Melkite parish could give you some instruction to help you become more familiar with the liturgy. Maybe someone here knows a good CD of the Liturgy in English. The two Melkite parishes I have gone to the services were a combination of English and something else which I assume was Arabic. Because I’m so familiar with the Divine Liturgy I was able to follow what was going on. This is true when I’m sometimes in an Orthodox Church here where the service is 80%+ in Greek. I’ve had a much harder time in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite knowing where the priest was in the Mass, even though I know the Roman Rite Ordinary Form in depth.
If you could become more familiar with what is going on in the Melkite liturgy then maybe you could go there for our Major Feasts, for example, and share that much with your father and this important part of your own heritage. Maybe there are some babas/yiayias whatever they are called in the Arabic family, who could take you under their wing. I’m one of the only females posting here and a baba myself, so that makes sense to me.
As it happens I also went to Quaker boarding School, college and grad school,
many decades ago. While I am profoundly grateful for the formation I received in that faith community during all those years, now when I am in even a deeply covered Meeting for worship I have found myself joyfully thinking “I am SO glad I’m Catholic!” That’s another whole topic…
) to get everything to calm down. There’s another Melkite parish that’s a little more friendlier a couple cities over that is 45 minutes away… I’ve convinced my Father to let me go there…