Is there a such thing as "Western rite Orthodox"?

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Prodigal1984

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Just like there are Eastern Catholics, are there Western Orthodox?
Never heard of this but was just curious if there is a such thing.
 
There are some. I’ve seen divided opinion on this from different Orthodox communities, but they’re out there.
 
Yes, they are quite real. They are much more Easternized than Eastern Catholics are Latinized though- they had to conform to most Eastern practices beside exact form of Liturgy or terminology, but they are not allowed “Filioque” nor “per Filio”, they are not allowed usage of Unleavened Bread and Tridentine Mass had to be reworked to include explicit Epiclesis at the time Eastern Liturgy has it. Veneration of Saints is something I would like to know- do they venerate Post-Schism Western Saints same way Eastern Catholics venerate post-schism Eastern Saints?

They have no Bishops as I am aware and they are under Eastern Bishops- therefore they do not function same way Eastern Catholics do, they do not have their own “canon law” nor anything like that- clerical celibacy seems unenforced, but I might be wrong on this one.
 
That’s interesting thank you for this answer.
Would the Orthodox Church in America be considered this? I think they are their own entity as in not part of like the Greek or Russian etc Autocephalies.
 
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Prodigal1984 said:
That’s interesting thank you for this answer.
Would the Orthodox Church in America be considered this? I think they are their own entity as in not part of like the Greek or Russian etc Autocephalies.
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The Orthodox Church of America is the name used since 1970 for Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America. Orthodox Church of America established a Western Rite. Also the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has some Western Rite parishes.
 
One random fact I happen to know about Western Rite Orthodox is that they add the Byzantine Epiclesis to the “Divine Liturgy of St. Gregory” to make sure the Holy Spirit is properly invoked.
 
Here’s a good overview of the history of Western Orthodoxy:


A couple of caveats:

There isn’t a single movement, but several disjointed movements associated with different jurisdictions.

All of these groups are tiny, and even taken together, probably add up to a few thousand individuals worldwide.

Old groups go and new groups come. Mostly the former.
 
AFAIK, the bulk of WRO in the US are in the Antiochan Orthodox Church.

As mentioned above, there are also some in the OCA, and possibly others.

I believe that the largest share are group conversions of Protestants who can’t or won’t deal with Rome, but there are also some former RCC.

All groups that I’ve come across have been overwhelmingly converts, and not cradle Orthodox,.
 
dochawk said:
there are also some in the OCA
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There is only one group of Western Catholics associated with the OCA. Not a parish, but a mission established less than a year ago in Edmonton, Alberta. They do not have a Divine Liturgy, but gather for Evensong (Vespers) once a week at a local OCA parish. The group appears to consist of converts from Protestantism.

It also appears to be quite small, and I am skeptical that the group will evolve into a parish, or that it will ever become sustainable.
 
Western Orthodox are usually Russians who come to the US on a student visa.
 
dopeyMS said:
Western Orthodox are usually Russians who come to the US on a student visa.
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Not sure I understand this. This thread is about people who profess Orthodoxy, yet have a Western liturgy similar to the Traditional Latin Mass, only in English, kind of like the 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer’s Mass liturgy. Are you saying that Russians come to this country and then adopt that particular liturgy? If that is what you are saying, I don’t think that’s right. Western Orthodox tend to be converts from Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, or various strains of Protestant Christianity. Not native born Russians.
 
Do they happen to meet at St Herman’s? I have relatives there. All converts from Protestantism. (I’m a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism).
 
Wow!
Ad orientem, altar railings…
 
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A very evangelism focused parish. All English services. Many converts from Protestantism including the parish priest. They even use the Gregorian Calendar which means occasionally we align… most recently with the feast of Sts P and P this past Saturday. I’ve been there a couple times, including for my aunt’s Chrismation.
 
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twf said:
Many concerts from Protestantism including the parish priest.
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I was friends with the priest of an OCA parish in Indiana. The priest was a convert from Southern Baptist, and the deacon was a convert from Lutheranism. By far most of the parishioners were second and third generation Macedonians, both Greek and Slavic. They used the Julian Calendar and had no Western influences I could detect, except they used an organ to accompany the choir (which, admittedly, did benefit from accompaniment).
 
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