List of Easten Rite curches

[malphono]

To add just a bit, I wouldn’t have conceived it as knocking on Rome’s door. Perhaps that’s part of the problem when this topic is discussed, as it tends to be viewed, I think, by some that way.

Rather, what I would have conceived of it as is that we’re both living in a Duplex. The Latins have a larger part of it, as there’s considerably more of us. There’s a dangerous gang outside one of the doors of the duplex, and you use it more than we do. Maybe it’s time to see about putting in a door between your part of the duplex and ours, where it’d be easier for you to use our door. And we’d just like to see you folks.

Beyond brother dzheremi’s comments, I see another major problem with this so-called “duplex” idea. It seems to me to be more of a “mother-daughter house” than a duplex. The one (the “mother”) part is large, while the other is small and dependent on the “mother” for its very existence. No, thank you. That’s just what we have, and it’s not very palatable. Plus, there is the matter of the dilution of our proper patrimony. It seems to me we’ve had more than enough of that. It’s on-going and never-ending. As I remarked, earlier, while it hasn’t technically been imposed, it results from the “monkey-see, monkey do” frame of mind which tends of express itself when one is dominated from without. Not to repleat myself again, but there are some few of us who actually want to restore what has been lost.

Sorry, but the whole “duplex” idea smacks of the Roman-imposed status-quo.

 

[malphono]

This kind of ties in nicely with my other post about how joining Rome would be a disaster, since no Roman or other Westerner actually knows what the hell is going on in the Middle East.

Which itself ties in nicely to my earlier remark about Western meddling in Middle Eastern affairs. And that includes Rome. To say that it’s been a disaster, especially for the native Christians, is to whitewash the issue.

 

[Peter_J]

Beyond brother dzheremi’s comments, I see another major problem with this so-called “duplex” idea. It seems to me to be more of a “mother-daughter house” than a duplex. The one (the “mother”) part is large, while the other is small and dependent on the “mother” for its very existence. No, thank you. That’s just what we have, and it’s not very palatable. Plus, there is the matter of the dilution of our proper patrimony. It seems to me we’ve had more than enough of that. It’s on-going and never-ending. As I remarked, earlier, while it hasn’t technically been imposed, it results from the “monkey-see, monkey do” frame of mind which tends of express itself when one is dominated from without. Not to repleat myself again, but there are some few of us who actually want to restore what has been lost.

Sorry, but the whole “duplex” idea smacks of the Roman-imposed status-quo.

I kind of liked the “duplex” part, but maybe I just misunderstood what Yeoman meant by it:

To add just a bit, I wouldn’t have conceived it as knocking on Rome’s door. Perhaps that’s part of the problem when this topic is discussed, as it tends to be viewed, I think, by some that way.

Rather, what I would have conceived of it as is that we’re both living in a Duplex. The Latins have a larger part of it, as there’s considerably more of us. There’s a dangerous gang outside one of the doors of the duplex, and you use it more than we do. Maybe it’s time to see about putting in a door between your part of the duplex and ours, where it’d be easier for you to use our door. And we’d just like to see you folks.

I took this ^^ to mean banding together, without entering into a “union” or sacramental sharing. However, it wouldn’t be surprised if I was wrong about that.

 

[Peter_J]

Not to burst any bubbles here, but let me make a comment. Frankly, I subscribe to that theory only insofar as the 1st Millennium reality is concerned. IOW, if “communion” meant the same as it did in those days, then yes. But of course the problem is that the term no longer means that at all. In particular, until such time as the unilateral actions of Rome including, and perhaps especially (as I’ve argued with our now-vanished brother mardukm so many times, Vatican I’s Pastor Aeternus, etc, are formally repudiated (I’ll settle for the Roman legal dance-around equivalent of “clarified”) there’s no chance of restoring that reality. IOW, without that action on Rome’s part, chickens will grow lips before any unity occurs. And, absent the restoration of the 1st Millennium reality, I, personally, am very happy to have the Orthodox, especially the OO & ACoE.

Fair enough … I kinda wondered, when I put the “(like you, me, and Malphono)” if I was asking for trouble.

Having said that, I actually think that what you just said is a better description of my belief than the simplistic “All Christians should be in full communion with the Pope” I put in my last post.

 

[Yeoman]

Yeah, but that’s you and your fears on behalf of people who aren’t you, and who are you anyway? I don’t mean that in a rude way, I mean…if you’re not from the Middle East, or at least in a Middle Eastern church (so that you have constant exposure to the news from people who still go back there regularly, still have family there, etc.), you really have no basis for forming any kind of conclusion like that.

Well, fwiw I do have relatives who came from Syria, but not at all recently and no contacts remain. Having been essentially told to butt out, I will, as to not offer offense. But, fwiw, I’m a lot better informed than perhaps you might suppose, so I’ll worry and pray for everyone anyhow. Perhaps that’s all that’s wanted, and prayers should always be forthcoming in any instance, even perhaps mis-perceived ones.

 

[malphono]

Fair enough … I kinda wondered, when I put the “(like you, me, and Malphono)” if I was asking for trouble.

Well, you know the old line: be careful what you ask for … you might just get it.

Having said that, I actually think that what you just said is a better description of my belief than the simplistic “All Christians should be in full communion with the Pope” I put in my last post.

Thanks.

 

[malphono]

Well, not having checked in for awhile, I see that this has sort of become a type of argument.

My original thought would frankly have been that Christ formed his Church, and we all know that it would be better if there was one Church. My simple thought was, I suppose, the old “if we don’t hang together, we’ll surely all hang separately” Of course, that grossly simplifies the divides that still remain.

Still, it’d be best for all, and for Christians in the Middle East as part of that, if we all closed as much ground as we could. Perhaps it won’t save Christianity in the Middle East, but perhaps it’d help a bit. Right now, outside of Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, I can’t be too optimistic about there being a Church of any type in the Middle East by the end of the decade. It’s gone from a crisis, I fear, to being a terminal crisis. And things are looking increasingly bad in Egypt as well.

I guess I missed this first time around, but if you don’t mind, I’ll add a comment (or two) below.

Well, fwiw I do have relatives who came from Syria, but not at all recently and no contacts remain. Having been essentially told to butt out, I will, as to not offer offense. But, fwiw, I’m a lot better informed than perhaps you might suppose, so I’ll worry and pray for everyone anyhow. Perhaps that’s all that’s wanted, and prayers should always be forthcoming in any instance, even perhaps mis-perceived ones.

Seems to me that brother dzhermei isn’t suggesting you “but out” exactly. It’s more, I think, to the point of the “unity with Rome” stuff. And that I don’t agree with either.

I do agree, that outside of Israel and Lebanon (for the time being, at least) and Egypt (again for the time being and because of sheer numbers) native Christianity (I don’t care one whit about Protestant “missionaries” and their bilge, so I leave them out of the equation) doesn’t seem to have a rosy future. But how in the name of all that is good and holy, will subjugation to Rome ameliorate that? It certainly hasn’t helped those who are already subjugated to Rome. Actually, I think it’s made things worse.

 

[dzheremi]

Malphono’s last paragraph is pretty much the point of all my posts, Yeoman. Apologies if I’ve offended you in any way. I didn’t mean that you should butt out at all, only that the suggestions of those who aren’t actually there (you, me, etc.) are generally counterproductive, especially when they begin to take the form of “don’t you guys want to unite with Rome now? Wouldn’t that help?” The answer is basically no, but sometimes it’s hard to phrase that nicely, and the constant repeating of “poor Middle Eastern Christians; they’re all going to disappear” from well-meaning outsiders is particularly grating when very few actually do anything about it (not that I’m so great, either, but I am not suggesting that anyone come under HH Pope Tawadros II as an answer to their ills, either). From the Christians I know from Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon it seems like what is most needed is infrastructure and security, not a visit from the Roman Pope. Rome is worse than a band aid. I mean, geez, in a region where the enemies cannot even bother to distinguish between different communions (e.g., the bombing of the Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad was supposedly in retaliation for the fake/non-existent “kidnapping” of two Coptic Orthodox women who Islamic extremists said had converted to Islam and were being held against their will by the Coptic Church), what exactly do you think native Christians joining forces in any way with a Roman/European institution would signal to those who are convinced they are locked in some kind of cosmic struggle to the death against “the West” as a metaphysical enemy? A Christian is already at least half a Westerner to most everyday Muslims, to say nothing of those who are specifically out to wipe the religion off the map while the Roman Pope sends his good wishes to dying flocks in the Holy Land or wherever. Bah.

Remember/read up on the East Syrians’ Synod of Dadisho (424 AD). At that time, the Persian’s big enemy was the Byzantine Empire, which was obviously symbolic of Christianity, so it caused a lot of problems for the native East Syrian Christians within the Persian Empire. Their patriarch was repeatedly jailed for being a suspected Byzantine sympathizer or spy. The parallels between this and what has happened in recent years to the translators who worked with the now-departed American troops in Iraq is pretty hard to miss. So if you think that Rome/the Roman Pope will be some kind of umbrella of protection for native Christians, think again. Many who are already under Rome are complicating efforts to protect Christians, as well, so committed they are to “dialogue” with people who want to kill them, and the idea that violence is somehow indiscriminate (despite the fact that Christians still living in Iraq say “If anyone wants to send a message to the USA, he targets Christians or bombs churches”).

Christians in the Middle East have a lot of problems, and Rome is not the answer to any of them.

 

[ronyodish]

Another thread topic derailed…

What started out as a basic listing of Eastern Catholic Churches… has turned into yet another Rome vs. Orthodox thread on this Eastern Catholic sub-forum.

Maybe we should permanently ban both the Romans and the Orthodox from this sub-forum…

Just kidding… carry on

God bless,

Rony

 

[Peter_J]

Malphono’s last paragraph is pretty much the point of all my posts, Yeoman. Apologies if I’ve offended you in any way. I didn’t mean that you should butt out at all, only that the suggestions of those who aren’t actually there (you, me, etc.) are generally counterproductive, especially when they begin to take the form of “don’t you guys want to unite with Rome now? Wouldn’t that help?” The answer is basically no, but sometimes it’s hard to phrase that nicely, and the constant repeating of “poor Middle Eastern Christians; they’re all going to disappear” from well-meaning outsiders is particularly grating when very few actually do anything about it (not that I’m so great, either, but I am not suggesting that anyone come under HH Pope Tawadros II as an answer to their ills, either). From the Christians I know from Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon it seems like what is most needed is infrastructure and security, not a visit from the Roman Pope. Rome is worse than a band aid. I mean, geez, in a region where the enemies cannot even bother to distinguish between different communions (e.g., the bombing of the Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad was supposedly in retaliation for the fake/non-existent “kidnapping” of two Coptic Orthodox women who Islamic extremists said had converted to Islam and were being held against their will by the Coptic Church), what exactly do you think native Christians joining forces in any way with a Roman/European institution would signal to those who are convinced they are locked in some kind of cosmic struggle to the death against “the West” as a metaphysical enemy? A Christian is already at least half a Westerner to most everyday Muslims, to say nothing of those who are specifically out to wipe the religion off the map while the Roman Pope sends his good wishes to dying flocks in the Holy Land or wherever. Bah.

Remember/read up on the East Syrians’ Synod of Dadisho (424 AD). At that time, the Persian’s big enemy was the Byzantine Empire, which was obviously symbolic of Christianity, so it caused a lot of problems for the native East Syrian Christians within the Persian Empire. Their patriarch was repeatedly jailed for being a suspected Byzantine sympathizer or spy. The parallels between this and what has happened in recent years to the translators who worked with the now-departed American troops in Iraq is pretty hard to miss. So if you think that Rome/the Roman Pope will be some kind of umbrella of protection for native Christians, think again. Many who are already under Rome are complicating efforts to protect Christians, as well, so committed they are to “dialogue” with people who want to kill them, and the idea that violence is somehow indiscriminate (despite the fact that Christians still living in Iraq say “If anyone wants to send a message to the USA, he targets Christians or bombs churches”).

Christians in the Middle East have a lot of problems, and Rome is not the answer to any of them.

Good points to think about.

To be honest, some of your earlier posts did in fact sound a little like “you should butt out”, to me – **not **that you should by me, given how much you and I have “butted” heads in that past , I’m just saying I’m glad you clarified.

 

[Yeoman]

Another thread topic derailed…

What started out as a basic listing of Eastern Catholic Churches… has turned into yet another Rome vs. Orthodox thread on this Eastern Catholic sub-forum.

Maybe we should permanently ban both the Romans and the Orthodox from this sub-forum…

Just kidding… carry on

God bless,

Rony

My fault. I asked a question which, in retrospect, wasn’t very well thought out, and didn’t take into consideration how it might be received.

 

[Yeoman]

Good points to think about.

To be honest, some of your earlier posts did in fact sound a little like “you should butt out”, to me – **not **that you should by me, given how much you and I have “butted” heads in that past , I’m just saying I’m glad you clarified.

I think that the topic ended up getting derailed by me.

One thing that’s very easy to forget is that even a perfectly innocent question can take on different dimensions through different eyes. I should have had that in mind when I posted my query here, which wasn’t well thought out, and which further was off topic to this interesting thread.

I know the suggestion that perhaps Orthodox and Latins ought to be banned from this subforum was in jest, but the last couple of days I’ve been thinking that such discussions must be extraordinarily frustrating to Eastern Rite Catholics, as these threads really do tend to digress into debates between Orthodox and Latins, which isn’t the purpose of them. I’m glad our Orthodox brethren are here (I’d hardly ever run into some of them otherwise) but I do feel that the poor Eastern Rite folks must feel like the the second cousin sitting at the table between two feuding siblings. My apologies also to you folks.

 

[Peter_J]

I think that the topic ended up getting derailed by me.

One thing that’s very easy to forget is that even a perfectly innocent question can take on different dimensions through different eyes. I should have had that in mind when I posted my query here, which wasn’t well thought out, and which further was off topic to this interesting thread.

I know the suggestion that perhaps Orthodox and Latins ought to be banned from this subforum was in jest, but the last couple of days I’ve been thinking that such discussions must be extraordinarily frustrating to Eastern Rite Catholics, as these threads really do tend to digress into debates between Orthodox and Latins, which isn’t the purpose of them. I’m glad our Orthodox brethren are here (I’d hardly ever run into some of them otherwise) but I do feel that the poor Eastern Rite folks must feel like the the second cousin sitting at the table between two feuding siblings. My apologies also to you folks.

At the same time, of course, you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself.

But bottom line, I don’t think this thread was a very good place to put your question. (Although at the same time, I can see the point made by you above, and earlier by ronyodish: there are quite a lot of discussions about Orthodoxy on the Eastern Catholicism forum.)

 

[malphono]

Yeoman;10787646:

I think that the topic ended up getting derailed by me.

At the same time, of course, you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself.

Well, guys, let me just say that, in the case of this particular thread, the “derailment” was far more interesting than was the original. I mean, really, how much can one say about a bunch of (questionable) statistics from the Annuario Pontificio? That said, though, I’ll add my :twocents: that the “derailment” might have been better as a thread of its own.

 

[Yeoman]

Attempting to refocus things back on track, after my derailment of the thread, how are the Eastern Rite churches that have expressions in North American doing on vocations. I.e., are they doing well recruiting Priests and other Religious?

 

[Peter_J]

Attempting to refocus things back on track, after my derailment of the thread, how are the Eastern Rite churches that have expressions in North American doing on vocations. I.e., are they doing well recruiting Priests and other Religious?

Just speaking for myself, I think it best if we would not further mix the topics. However, what you just asked would be a fine question for a new thread.

 

[Yeoman]

Just speaking for myself, I think it best if we would not further mix the topics. However, what you just asked would be a fine question for a new thread.

Point well taken. I’ll start a new thread.

 

[ronyodish]

My fault. I asked a question which, in retrospect, wasn’t very well thought out, and didn’t take into consideration how it might be received.

It’s cool brother, just playing with ya

I really do love both our Latin and Orthodox members… well, most of the time

God bless,

Rony