How are your parishes doing?

[dochawk]

Is your parish’s Divine Liturgy in English or in a mixture of languages?

We’re pure English. There are very few in the parish that would actually understand Slavonic.

The priest’s handouts at their retreat a couple of years ago had handouts that double-underlined the parts about the transcarpatian immigration being over, and that we needed to grow with out it.

The Ruthenian and ukranian churches seem to be at the opposite poles in ethnicity/insularity, with the Ruthenian eagerly gathering everyone in, and the Ukranians generally hanging on to their ethnicity. OTOH, one of my daughter’s was gleefully embraced by a Ukranian parish when she’s lived with her grandmother in Tucson, while another (with husband and two babies) was all but adoptted by a Ukranian parish her Ave Maria.

An anonymous visitor to our parish was so overwhelmed by the warm welcome that he commissioned a steel-cut outdoor icon of St. Gabriel for us . . .

Thinking back to my own first visit to a Byzantine parish, I’m sure I would have recognized it as beautiful had it bee in Slavonic, but I wouldn’t have been overwhelmed the way I was.

And I had a chat with the western Maronite bishop when he was out to consecrate their parish (I was the KofC honor guard). In his homily, he mentioned that on his last visit, someone commented that it was a shame that th Qurbano handy been entirely in Arabic, and he tried to drive home that this was missing the point, and that if someone brought a non-Arabic speaking friend or neighbor as a visitor, they wouldn’t return. He even cited his patriarch of this. He is so frustrated by that attitude that when I was chatting with him, he turned to bang his head on the wall . . .

hawk
hawk

 

[ConstantineTG]

The Ruthenian and ukranian churches seem to be at the opposite poles in ethnicity/insularity, with the Ruthenian eagerly gathering everyone in, and the Ukranians generally hanging on to their ethnicity.

There are places in Canada where most of the Ukrainian immigrants from 100 years ago settled, and that is around the prairies and Ontario. But not out west where we are. In the East I don’t think they have problems filling in their parishes.

 

[Splagchnizomai]

We’re pure English. There are very few in the parish that would actually understand Slavonic.

The priest’s handouts at their retreat a couple of years ago had handouts that double-underlined the parts about the transcarpatian immigration being over, and that we needed to grow with out it.

The Ruthenian and ukranian churches seem to be at the opposite poles in ethnicity/insularity, with the Ruthenian eagerly gathering everyone in, and the Ukranians generally hanging on to their ethnicity. OTOH, one of my daughter’s was gleefully embraced by a Ukranian parish when she’s lived with her grandmother in Tucson, while another (with husband and two babies) was all but adoptted by a Ukranian parish her Ave Maria.

I guess there will always be an ethnic dimension to some ECCs. Wasn’t the mission of Sts Cyril and Methodius to spread the Gospel in the local language? Does local language just mean the language spoken in the local church, but not in the neighborhood or city?

 

[ConstantineTG]

I guess there will always be an ethnic dimension to some ECCs. Wasn’t the mission of Sts Cyril and Methodius to spread the Gospel in the local language? Does local language just mean the language spoken in the local church, but not in the neighborhood or city?

Well, of course there’s that issue that the RC Church is claiming most of the lands outside of the traditional homelands of the Eastern Churches as their territory. So really the Eastern Churches here are here specifically for the immigrants from their motherland.

 

[John_of_Patmos]

That actually is not a bad idea. At the moment I am even unsure if there is a good Eastern bookstore in the area. There are a number of Orthodox Churches around (there’s a Ukrainian Orthodox, Romanian and Serbian very close to our parish, and more throughout the metro area) that could also be potential customers. But I am not sure if the parish is interested in that, I will ask my priest and speak to my bishop about it. I’m willing to give the other Orthodox parishes a call and let them know they can come to our place for their needs.

I would assume you could get help from our EO brothers. When you say Ukrainian EO, which one: UOC-MP, UOC-KP, or UAC? (Ironically, Constantinople doesn’t recognise any one of the three!)

 

[dochawk]

I guess there will always be an ethnic dimension to some ECCs. Wasn’t the mission of Sts Cyril and Methodius to spread the Gospel in the local language? Does local language just mean the language spoken in the local church, but not in the neighborhood or city?

Church Slavonic, defined by SS C&M, was designed to be intelligible to speakes of the various Slavic tongues.

 

[Splagchnizomai]

Church Slavonic, defined by SS C&M, was designed to be intelligible to speakes of the various Slavic tongues.

But the idea behind doing so was to make it intelligible to the locals, right? Was it meant to be a universal language of the Eastern Catholic Church?

 

[ConstantineTG]

I would assume you could get help from our EO brothers. When you say Ukrainian EO, which one: UOC-MP, UOC-KP, or UAC? (Ironically, Constantinople doesn’t recognise any one of the three!)

I asked our bishop about that, and there is in fact a diaspora (US/Canada) Ukrainian Orthodox Church not affiliated to those three in the motherland that is under the Ecumenical Patriarch. They are in communion with all the canonical Orthodox Churches. Funny story from that is that they are very anti-Russia and they refuse to concelebrate with the OCA here because the priest was from Russia

But I think the one close to our parish is KP and is the only one that is from those Churches from the motherland.

 

[babochka]

We’re doing ok… I would have answered differently a year ago, and even more differently 3 years ago. When I was a kid, we had a thriving parish. Three years ago, we were on the verge of extinction. My kids were the only kids in the parish, and the rest were over 70. That pretty much made up the 10-12 people who regularly attended. Then things started really looking up. Three new families with children, plus a new priest and his family, joined the parish. Over time, several more single adults and couples joined the parish. Attendance has averaged 45-50 for a couple of years now. Sadly, in the last several months we have lost several parishioners, which is keenly felt in such a small parish.

Financially, things are not so good. Our priest and his family live with his in-laws. The bills get paid, but just barely. There is a long list of thing that need to be done to the building that probably aren’t ever going to happen. Fundraisers are difficult. Most of our parishioners are either over 70 or have large families of young children. We’re missing the in-between ages. For the most part, we can only get together on Sundays. Almost everyone travels quite a distance to church. Some travel 1/2 hour, some 1 1/2 hours, one faithfully drives 2 1/2 hours. Successful fundraisers require workers.

Spiritually, I think our parish is quite healthy. People come to church to worship and pray together. We have a wonderful priest who challenges and inspires us to become better Christians. His faith and example, and those of my fellow parishioners, are a constant source of strength for me and my family.

We’re not ethnic at all, except that our priest is Slovak. We have a few cradle Byzantines, a few Byzantine converts (Baptized as adults into our church), a few who have made a canonical transfer from the Latin church, and the rest are Latins, but Byzantine at heart. The Liturgy is always in English, which occasional Slavonic for the seasonal greetings (Christ is Born! , Christ is Risen, etc).

 

[rinnie]

Not real great. We are probally going to combine a few or our Church’s together and share a Priest.

Many reasons for this, One, family’s don’t go to Church like that used to.
Another is there are too many Church’s all within miles of oneanother.

Another is more funerals then baptsims. Etc. Another is many have retired and moved down south because of the weather. That is a big reason the Church’s down south are growing in record numbers.

We are in the process of figuring this out in our council. Its a work in progress.

 

[Sybok]

ConstantineTG

do you have a website? if not i suggest highly to get one

I think most importantly weekly Moleben to the Mother of God or similiar Marian Devotion like rosary publicly and then no longer worry

those are my suggestions, i will pray for your parish and please pray for mine

 

[ConstantineTG]

We do have a website. But I don’t think people visit it much.

 

[Hesychios]

We’re a heavily ethnic parish. …

Well, that’s the reason right there.

All smaller ethnicities eventually dissolve in the dominant one. It can take many generations or happen rather quickly.

Most declining parishes are very welcoming to outsiders, the voices for openness and all that are stronger. But when they were thriving with new fresh families coming in from overseas they were not very welcoming. It is in the ‘thriving’ period that a parish has to reach out to the wider community and evangelize to them, but usually that is not at all how it works out.

Conventional wisdom has it that a faith community needs to pull in 6% of it’s current congregation in new members every year to maintain itself stably (to allow for deaths, people moving away etc.), to grow the number has to be greater.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place . If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”
Red Queen

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