Is there a real chance of communion between the Catholic Church and the orthodox?

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Michael16 said:
@Margaret_Ann:

Can you please tell us the lived experience of being an Eastern Catholic in the Catholic Church?

I feel a little bad that we’ve been discussing all this without consulting an EC about what life is like for an Easterner in the Catholic Church.
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When I was little we had practically NO Eastern Catholic catechetical resources. We had RC sources. Example:
  1. REMEMBER TO KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY.
(Picture of priest holding up the Host and facing the people.)

I go to Church on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. I join the priest as he offers Mass. This is how I keep God’s Third Commandment.

This is the 1965 pew book from Byzantine Seminary Press that we had growing up (as you can see it got a lot of use!):

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
My parents always said “Mass” e.g. “We have to go to Mass on Sunday.” We also had the large blue paperback (1976) from Byzantine Seminary Press (@dochawk referred to the red hardcover edition earlier).

It wasn’t until after my First Holy Communion that we got the original God With Us Series. I have up to either Becoming or Journey. Also, we had First Confession before First Communion. It wasn’t until recently that we started doing all 3 Mysteries at the same time (Baptism, Chrismation & Holy Eucharist). I was baptized & confirmed but didn’t receive my First Communion until after First Confession when I was 7.

During the Great Fast (Lent), we had Byzantine Stations of the Cross by Fr. Demetrius Wysochansky. He was the brother of a priest my father knew. (I still have the booklets too.) In the 1990s our former pastor told us that we were going to have Presanctified Liturgy instead of Stations. A lot of people groaned but I loved it. Our sister parish has both Stations and Presanctified but we only have Presanctified Liturgy during the Great Fast.

The Divine Liturgy was all in Old Slavonic except the Epistle, Gospel and the homily. My late father and another gentleman would take turns reading the Epistle in English and 2 other gentlemen took turns reading it in Slavonic or Ukrainian. Then it became half Slavonic, half English. When I finally learned how to sing the Liturgy in Slavonic, the 1987-1988 Synod decreed that the Divine Liturgy would be in Ukrainian - not Slavonic - and English. We lost half of our parishioners - good, hard-working parishioners - because they were Byzantine Catholic and didn’t understand Ukrainian. Our parish has never recovered from it. Our sister parish kept Slavonic in their Liturgy a lot longer but they gave it up a few years ago and started doing it in Ukrainian. Now I hear that there’s a new Ukrainian version of the Liturgy in the works.

I’m probably more familiar with RC theology (e.g. Aquinas) than I am with Byzantine theology. To me, the Immaculate Conception, purgatory, indulgences all make sense. I don’t understand the Filioque but I grew up professing it, and as I mentioned earlier, it devastated me when the Archbishop said we wouldn’t have it in the Creed. I felt like I was losing part of my baptismal Creed.

Cont’d
 
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On that charge you’re absolutely right. There are some that professed and some that rejected. I can use Augustine to both support and blast Roman Supremacy depending upon the era of his life that I pulled my selections from.
 
I would use his last writings. It’s been years since I’ve studied that particular topic so I’m a little fuzzy on which exactly they were, but he was almost anarchic on authority in his last days.
 
Personally, @Hume; I think the Caliphates and Sultanates did what they could to prevent Christian from helping Christian. Preventing internal revolt supported from outside. Except in this case, it would be a religious war as well.
 
To that I would reference the Venetian sack of Constantinople in the 13th century.

Prima facie, the Pope feigned displeasure and issued broad excommunications, but it’s no secret from the surviving writings of a particular Byzantine princess (I think another Theodora?) that there was substantial religious animosity between Rome and Constantinople and the Roman church was satisfied to see a rival brought low.
 
@Hume: The source I have “ The Glory of the Crusades “ by Steve Weidenkopf states that the Holy Father didn’t feign any displeasure and the excommunications were valid and sincere.

The problem was also the memory of the Massacre of the Latins in the 12th century and Venetian greed. They dominated Byzantine trade and they intervened in a succession dispute at the Byzantine court.

The original goal of that particular Crusade was fighting the Muslims. The Venetians sidetracked the Crusaders into their dirty business.
 
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I have the understanding that Innocent was delighted with the Latin rule of Constantinople as he thought it would be a way to end the East-West schism.
 
@Hume, that’s possible. But, as it was a horrible way to do it and he did excommunicate those men because they did a terrible sin. A genuinely Holy Father wouldn’t condone such a thing I would think.

I’m thinking that Pope Innocent had to accept that it did happen and he possibly tried to make good come out of evil.

I’ll admit: It was a terrible thing we did and it certainly didn’t help the East spiritually and militarily.
 
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On your addition, there isn’t a “we”.

The men that did it and the men and women it was done to are long dead. We live with the consequences of the past, but there’s no “we”.

Even as I try to be a stoic, I detest when living people espouse the grudges of the long dead.
I’m sure you weren’t particularly meaning to do that, but I’m ever reminded of a time I ate at a Greek restaurant with an Italian friend and he was tense the whole time and discourteous with the ethnically correct staff. I asked him what the problem was and he said “the centuries”. I ate my meal in mild disgust.
 
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Michael16 said:
@Margaret_Ann:

Can you please tell us the lived experience of being an Eastern Catholic in the Catholic Church?

I feel a little bad that we’ve been discussing all this without consulting an EC about what life is like for an Easterner in the Catholic Church.
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Cont’d from previous post

As I posted earlier, in the 1990s Rome issued an Instruction stating that in accord with VII, we had to make better progress in restoring the practice of our own Tradition.

Example: First Holy Communion will be given at the baby’s Baptism and Chrismation. First Penance is now followed by First Solemn Communion.

Example #2: No more statues. The Holy Name Society at my late father’s old parish had a beautiful statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague. I have no idea if it’s still there.

Example #3: The Immaculate Conception is now called the Conception of St. Anna and it’s a day later (Dec. 9 vs Dec. 8). Since it was changed (and the U.S. bishops downgraded the Patronal Feast of the U.S. to non-obligation), I have a dilemma as to what day I have to observe. This year Dec. 8 fell on Sunday 🙏 so we observed it on Sunday (as did our cathedral in Philadelphia).
Btw, our cathedral in Philadelphia is called the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. 💛

I suppose the one thing that REALLY irks me is the ignorance of most Roman Catholics re the Eastern Catholic Churches. Examples:

Are you Catholic? - Yes, I’m Catholic. Same pope, different Liturgy. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is the largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See.

How come you make the Sign of the Cross backwards? 😫😖😬 We make it the way Pope Innocent III decreed.

Only bishops can do Confirmation. Confirmation by a priest doesn’t count. - I actually had someone tell me this, and ever since then I’ve had doubts about my Confirmation (Chrismation).

You can have meat on Friday. The Pope said so. - Actually, Pope Paul VI said in his decree on Friday abstinence (it’s on the Vatican website!) that Roman Catholics are still bound to Friday penance. You can substitute another penance for Friday abstinence but we can’t. If you don’t substitute anything then you’re still bound to Friday abstinence. We still have Friday abstinence (and traditionally Wednesday abstinence too!). The only Fridays of the year that we’re allowed to have meat are the Privileged Weeks.

Privileged Weeks? What’s that? - The Privileged Weeks are 1) from Dec. 25 to Jan. 4 inclusive, 2) the week after Pascha/Easter, 3) the week after Pentecost and 4) from the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee to the Sunday of the Prodigal Son (= the last Sunday after Epiphany to Septugesima on the TL calendar). We can have meat even on Wednesday & Friday.

Your Mass is old-fashioned. - First of all, it’s Divine Liturgy, not Mass. Second, it’s the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, a Father & Doctor of the Church.

I could go on but you get the idea.

Seriously, I’ve met SSPX priests who know more about the Eastern Catholic Churches than most Roman Catholics (CAF members definitely excluded!)
 
Thank you so much for your posts, @Margaret_Ann.

I was afraid that you and the other ECs had a bad experience in the Church.
 
Michael16 said:
I was afraid that you and the other ECs had a bad experience in the Church.
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I believe there is still a struggle with Byzantine Catholics who grew up in the Church, as @Margaret_Ann did, that struggle to let go of Latin devotions because this is the tradition the Church they grew up in, a true and rightful struggle I would say. Then there are Byzantine Catholics as myself (former RC) who are drawn to Eastern liturgical traditions, Eastern theology, etc. and want a return to authentic Eastern Tradition. This was a huge struggle in the Byzantine Catholic Church my family and I used to attend (we will be received into the Orthodox faith soon).

ZP
 
Looking over things as I have today, @ziapueblo; I can see that the Church has been a Latin dominated Church that imposed Latinization on the Eastern Catholic Churches until V2.

So, ZP: Do you feel this way?
 
Michael16 said:
I can see that the Church has been a Latin dominated Church that imposed Latinization on the Eastern Catholic Churches until V2.
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I would agree, but many latinizations were also self imposed as well. As people migrated through Western Europe and into the United States they probably felt they had to look “Catholic”, getting rid of the iconostasis, putting up stations of the cross, praying the rosary before liturgy, etc.

The beginnings of getting rid of latinizations start with Pope Leo XIII and his encyclical Orientalium Dignitas. Things have been getting better since VII.

ZP
 
@ziapueblo, you mean the Church has been trying to counter the prior Latinizations?

Since the Holy Father Leo XIII issued that encyclical in 1894, why did the American Church treat the ECs so bad many fled for the EO Churches?
 
Michael16 said:
Since the Holy Father Leo XIII issued that encyclical in 1894, why did the American Church treat the ECs so bad many fled for the EO Churches?
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Fear I’m guessing? Bishops feeling that their “sheep” would be scandalized by a married priest with children, infants receiving the Body and Blood, Catholics that look Orthodox. That’s what I think. I have a friend who says the OCA needs to make Bishop Ireland and St lol!

I would also add a lack of knowledge of the Eastern Catholic Churches.

ZP
 
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@ziapueblo

Hahaha Maybe they should. Still: I think we Latins need to make a serious effort to show ECs and EO that being in communion with us won’t be a surrender or a wipeout of the Eastern Tradition.
 
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