How Eastern Catholicism came to be?

[ConstantineTG]

Did most Eastern Churches became Orthodox and then some came back into Catholicism at a later date? Or where there holdovers from the Great Schism who remaind in union with Rome? How and why did some of these Orthodox Churches returned in part to communion with Rome?

I’m interested to learn more about the history.

Thanks!

 

[Little_Boy_Lost]

A lot of times you had a body of eastern christians entering into communion with rome for various reasons.

The maronites and the indian churches remained in communion with rome even though for periods of times they had no contact with Rome. The maronites lived in the badlands of muslim territory and the indians were cut off by persia and did not contact christians again until the portuguese arrived.

 

[ConstantineTG]

But what about those that belonged to Churches that belonged to the Orthodox? Did the entire Church joined the Orthodox or where there factions that remained in Communion with Rome?

And if the entire Church became Orthodox, what prompted the return to Communion with Rome for some parts of that Church?

 

[Little_Boy_Lost]

In the case of the ukranians, some bishops petitioned Rome and became the first of the orthodox groups to come into communion with Rome. This came about under the treaty of brest.

The melkites saw the election of a pro-roman patriarch which split the antiochian church creating a rival patriarch in communion with the Orthodox churches.

I believe a similar situation happened with the coptic patriarchate of alexandria.

As always, wikipedia has a decent general history of the subject. And if you want, search up each individual church and there should be a history of how that church came into communion with Rome. Cheers!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Catholic_Churches

 

[ConstantineTG]

Too many words is not good for my (what I believe to be) ADD

But thanks for your effort on this. It gives me a starting point.

 

[Vico]

Did most Eastern Churches became Orthodox and then some came back into Catholicism at a later date? Or where there holdovers from the Great Schism who remaind in union with Rome? How and why did some of these Orthodox Churches returned in part to communion with Rome?

I’m interested to learn more about the history.

Thanks!

Twenty of the Eastern Catholic Churches were re-unions from three traditions of Churches:

1. Assyrian Church of the East – Chaldean tradition (2)
2. Oriental Orthodox – Antiochian, Armenian, and Alexandrian traditions (5)
3. Eastern Orthodox – Byzantine tradition (13)

Plus these two Churches that were never separated from union with the Latin Church:

1. Maronite – Antiocene tradition (Lebanon)
2. Italo-Greek / Italo-Albanian – Byzantine tradition of Southern Italy and Sicily

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=601&pictureid=7066

 

[rjm22c]

Check this link

The only Maronite Catholic Forum online
so please contribute

www.saint-charbel.com

enter the forum and give your comments

 

[dcointin]

How satisfied have Eastern Catholics generally been with their union with Rome? I hear alot of complaints about Latinizations, denials of historic rights and privledges, etc. Would most say that Rome has remained faithful to their agreement of union?

 

[Aramis]

Did most Eastern Churches became Orthodox and then some came back into Catholicism at a later date? Or where there holdovers from the Great Schism who remaind in union with Rome? How and why did some of these Orthodox Churches returned in part to communion with Rome?

I’m interested to learn more about the history.

Thanks!

Italo-Albanians: maintianed the Byzantine Rite since their arrival in Italy; answered to the Patriarch of Rome starting not long after (per the canons of the Ecumenical Councils.) Never out of communion, tho “officially” suppressed for a couple years by an antipope.

Maronites: lost communication with Rome, and were out of communion with their neighbors by 700; when the crusaders encountered them, they came back into communication and visible formal communion with Rome, ca 1130.

The rest were schisms within various Orthodox churches, and are post 1500. (Most are post 1700!) Some, like the Ukrainians, were the majority of their synod, including their primate (The Metropolitan of Kyiv-Halych). Others were dissidents in their synods (The Armenians). Most broke communion with their parent church in the union, but a few (Syrian, Chaldean, Armenian) retained or reestablished limited communion with their parent churches.

And in all great irony…
The parent church of the Ukrainians AND the Ruthenians, the Ruthenian Orthodox Church, is now known as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and has had several schisms itself, resulting in 4 different jurisdictions. The Orthodox were the dissident voice in that schism… and it was to prevent exactly what eventually happened: domination and/or suppression by the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Ruthenian Orthodox of today are a schism of the Ruthenian Catholics in the 20th Century…

Each church is a separate history…

 

[Nine_Two]

The Ruthenian Orthodox of today are a schism of the Ruthenian Catholics in the 20th Century…

By Ruthenian Orthodox you mean the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarch, right? Because there is no Ruthenian Orthodox church.

 

[Vico]

By Ruthenian Orthodox you mean the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of the Ecumenical Patriarch, right? Because there is no Ruthenian Orthodox church.

I figured that Aramis meant the ancestors of two streams of Ruthenians in North America, from Union of Brest (Poland-Lithuania) and Union of Munkacs (Hungary) contributed to two Orthodox Churches:

1892 Father Alexis Toth, 20,000 Ruthenian faithful formed the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America with the Russian Orthodox of Alaska which in 1970 became the Orthodox Church of America

and

1929 Father Orestes Chornock and many Ruthenian Catholic faithful formed American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese, joined to Constantinople officially in 1937.

 

[Nine_Two]

I figured that Aramis meant the ancestors of two streams of Ruthenians in North America, from Union of Brest (Poland-Lithuania) and Union of Munkacs (Hungary) contributed to two Orthodox Churches:

1892 Father Alexis Toth, 20,000 Ruthenian faithful formed the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America with the Russian Orthodox of Alaska which in 1970 became the Orthodox Church of America

and

1929 Father Orestes Chornock and many Ruthenian Catholic faithful formed American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Diocese, joined to Constantinople officially in 1937.

I was asking if he meant the later because the former movement was completely incorporated into what is now the OCA.

 

[Vico]

I was asking if he meant the later because the former movement was completely incorporated into what is now the OCA.

That makes sense. Yet, there were many ethnic Ruthenians joining the OCA precursor, through Fr. Toth, over 20 year span, even in the 20th century (1902 in particular, the parish of St. John the Baptist in Mayfield, Pennsylvania).

 

[Aramis]

Yes, the Ruthenian Orthodox of today is an oblique reference to the American Carpetho-Rusyn Orthodox Diocese… whose website used to refer to themselves as Ruthenian Orthodox in some subsidiary pages.

The OCA were an inevitability… the creation of the OCA (under its prior names) was boosted by the 1st Ruthenian-American Schism, but the Russian Orthodox Church In America was already extant as a diocese starting in 1840… under founding bishop Innokenti Veniaminov… When Alaska was purchased in 1867, the OCA became an inevitability.

But further, St. Alexis was not part of a corporate schism; his was a personal schism, which lead to others coming in one at a time, each a priest in personal schism. In part, that was because there was no EC particular church in the US at that time; only a handful were in fact legitimately Catholic - and even those were in violation of canon law, since the 1st Baltimore Council forbade the use of any missal except the Roman.

Now, admittedly they were mistreated by ignorant Roman Church Bishops. But St. Alexis lead them into schism, when the choices were schism by Orthodox Reunion, schism by unauthorized parishes (which many already had), or return to Europe and the Middle East.

Their schism, however, also paved the way for Rome’s overriding the 3rd Canon of 1st Baltimore… along with the suppression of Dominicans’ use of the Dominican rite.

The ACROD, ironicly, rejected the Nikonian Recension, as their Ruthenian forefathers had, and in preserving their church, their Ruthenian Identity, and their Ruthenian Liturgy, fled to the protection of Constantinople’s Omophor, instead. Theirs was a true schism of the Eparchy; a group of priests, together, leaving one church for another, and creating a new particular Church (by the graces of the EP).