How can a Church have no hierarchy?

[JesuXPIPassio]

Could someone help shed some light on this for me? I’m very confused on this.

This page from EWTN ewtn.com/expert/answers/catholic_rites_and_churches.htm classifies a Church as being an assembly of the faithful with a hierarchial order. Yet this page on wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Byzantine_Catholic_Church

I really hate using wikipedia as a source, but presuming that the article is true, how can a sui juris Church have no Bishops? Who does the necessary governance? As you all know, there are things done by Bishops that just can’t be done by priests. I’d guess the Russian Catholics could just ask the Congregation for Oriental Churches for assistance when they need it, but I’d imagine it would be extremely impractical for Eastern Europeans to have to contact Western Europeans for every little thing, and the Congregation already has 21 other Churches to worry about, plus concerns with ecumenical talks and dealing with the volatile homeland situations that a gigantic portion of Eastern Catholics have to endure. As I understand it, Byzantine priests need an antimension consecrated by their Bishop to be able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy; to whom are those priests in Churches without Bishops supposed to turn?

Or do those Russian Catholic Churches somehow fall under the jurisdiction of another Church that governs the territory?

Also, since the Russian Catholic Church is supposed to be Sui Juris, under normal circumstances, do their Bishops get appointed by Rome, or would their bishops just need to be selected within their own hierarchy? If the latter case is true, am I right in guessing that Rome simply would need to step in and appoint and consecrate new Bishops as there are no native bishops to do the selection?

 

[Micki]

Those who don’t have a hierarchy have told me that they don’t need it. There authority is the Bible. That’s it!!!

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Those Churches that have not hierarchy are under the authority of Rome and the local bishops. For the Russian Catholic Church they fall in this category. There are currently four Russian Catholic Communities in the United States, one in San Francisco, one in New York, one in Los Angeles (actually, El Segundo) and one in Denver. They are under the local bishop. The sole exception is the community in El Segundo (St. Andrew) actually is administered through the Melkite Bishop per the long-standing request of the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles.

By definition a Church without a hierarchy has no bishops so your question about who appoints them has no answer. The priests serving the Russian Catholic Church are, in general, Latin Rite priests. Again, the exception is Fr. Smith who serves St. Andrew – he’s a Melkite priest.

Note that *all *Eastern Catholic bishops outside their normal territory actually submit their resignations to the pope. This is simply part of how the juridic aspects of running the Churches takes place.

Deacon Ed

 

[Edmac]

Fr. Russo, who serves St. Michael’s is also a Melkite. Our
previous pastor, Fr. Soles, was ordained for the Russian
Church.

Edmac

 

[Frbrendan]

I really hate using wikipedia as a source, but presuming that the article is true, how can a sui juris Church have no Bishops? Who does the necessary governance? As you all know, there are things done by Bishops that just can’t be done by priests. I’d guess the Russian Catholics could just ask the Congregation for Oriental Churches for assistance when they need it, but I’d imagine it would be extremely impractical for Eastern Europeans to have to contact Western Europeans for every little thing, and the Congregation already has 21 other Churches to worry about, plus concerns with ecumenical talks and dealing with the volatile homeland situations that a gigantic portion of Eastern Catholics have to endure. As I understand it, Byzantine priests need an antimension consecrated by their Bishop to be able to celebrate the Divine Liturgy; to whom are those priests in Churches without Bishops supposed to turn?

Or do those Russian Catholic Churches somehow fall under the jurisdiction of another Church that governs the territory?

In looking at that wikipedia page, it seems that they are under the Melkites, and would therefore use antimensia, etc. consecrated by the various Melkite bishops. The same with Church governance, and so on.

 

[Aramis]

The simple matter is that there are several Sui Iuris churches in similar state.

The Russians are growing, and when Rome sees fit to establish them as an eparchial or metropolitan church, they will elect their candidates at a priestly assembly, and the pope will pick one.

Prior to that, however, an exarch can be appointed to serve as their bishop. While not the ordinary, an exarch has many of the rights of an ordinary.

Until then, the local bishops can ordain men into the clergy for those churches, both priests and deacons, or can grant biritual faculties to their local priests to serve the parishes.

Further, in the case of the Russian Church within Russia, some of the Russian parishes are convert priests, who brought the parish with them, but were Russian Orthodox priests and laity before that translation.

It is entirely possible, as well, that a RO bishop might convert/translate… in which case, they would probably be made exarch, if not eparch, of the Russian Catholic Church sui iuris.

One of the Churches without hierarchy consists of a few thousand faithful… they may have some seminarians, and when ordained, those men are likely to be sent back to serve the community.

And remember, so long as they are part of the Holy Catholic Church, even if their ordinary is gone, their priests all dead, their deacons asleep in the arms of the Lord, there is ALWAYS the Pope. So, except during the interregnum, no Catholic is ever without a bishop.

 

[ASimpleSinner]

Those who don’t have a hierarchy have told me that they don’t need it. There authority is the Bible. That’s it!!!

That really isn’t the case here.

To say the Russian Catholics don’t have a hierachy is more or less to understand that they do not have a bishop of the Russian Catholic Church overseeing them all.

As it stands right now, Russian Catholics in the US are all under the jurisdiction of the local Latin Ordinary. In a move that has proven pastorally prudent, the Melkite hierarchy - which traditionally took on assistance to Russian Orthodox communities that entered unia - assists in episcopal support of these small missions.