Dear Friends,
In the Ukrainian Catholic Church, there certainly is the requirement to attend the Divine Liturgy TOGETHER with the Divine Office (at least Vespers and Matins) on Sundays (aka “day of the Resurrection”) and on specific Holy Days as outlined by our Patriarch and his Patriarchal Synod.
Those days include, but go beyond the days enumerated by the aforementioned code.
Canon Law does exist in the East, but it is different from that in the West and has different emphases that are in keeping with the spirituality of the Christian East.
Thus, for example, the “9 Precepts of the Church” by St Peter Mohyla has nine church laws including the rule to attend Divine Liturgy and the Office on Sundays and Holy Days. The Holy Days include all 12 major Feasts of the Church, to be sure. They will also include those days set aside not only by our Patriarch, but also by our local Eparch/Bishop.
The rule for attendance in the Divine Liturgy in the East is to attend DAILY if we can. St Basil ( I believe it was) said that if a Christian, through his or her own fault, does not attend Divine Liturgy for three consecutive Sundays in a row, he or she is to be excommunicated - period.
Also, the canons of the East stipulate that those attending Divine Liturgy have an obligation to confess and prepare to receive Holy Communion. If even laity, at the time of Communion, cannot go to Holy Communion, they are to explain themselves and if the explanation is unacceptable, they could be excommunicated . . .
And I know of a couple of parishes that actually follow these rules . . . :
While it is true that there is an Eastern Congregation and a set of canon laws promulgated for the Eastern Catholic Churches, there is no reason, today, for these to exist.
I don’t mean one should be outrightly disrespectful of them, only that Rome, in its wisdom and with the view to fully respecting the patrimony of the Christian East should, in time, abrogate the Eastern Congregation as a failed experiment in trying to centralize, and therefore Romanize, Eastern Church government and also accept that the EC Churches already have and have had their own canonical laws and regulations that include and go beyond what Rome’s Eastern Canon laws are about.
They are, at best, an attempt to model Eastern church canon law on the Roman model which is, at worst, the height of Latinization. Being in communion with Rome means not contradicting what Rome believes and practices. Eastern church canon law does none of that, in fact, it goes beyond what Rome “prescribes” for the EC faithful. In short, the EC Churches do not need Rome to tell it what it has always been doing and more.
If the Roman Catholic Church got out of the business of trying to teach Christian asceticism to the East, then it could focus on trying to get more of its own Latin Catholic members in North America and Europe (those who are not Traditionalists and their name is “Legion”) to follow in the ways of Catholic piety.
Rome can teach the East nothing when it comes to Church attendance etc. Eastern Christians, by virtue of the fact that they have had their services and devotions translated into languages they understand, have grown very close to their Church services. In many Eastern countries under foreign oppression, the Eastern Church is the main institution where the people’s religious and cultural identity is fostered. This only serves to solidify the tremendous bond between Church and people.
We are in communion with Rome, but we are not “in Rome” as the Latin Catholics are. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. We do as the East does.
Alex
Yet why do I have the feeling that there’s going to be more of the (what has recently become) usual “Yeah but Rome says XYZ and so that’s the way it is” stuff coming in the offing? Now let me see … 
