New EC's: ever think "What if I lived 100 years back"?

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Madaglan

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Today at church an older gentleman spoke with me. He is a cradle Eastern Orthodox Christian, and he asked me if I’ve been Orthodox all my life. I said no, and went on to explain my story of becoming Orthodox. He explained how the Orthodox Churches used to be very ethnic, with no outsiders, but now with all the “complications” (as he put it) in the Protestant and Catholic churches, there are more people converting to Orthodoxy.

In any case, this got me wondering not only about converts to Orthodoxy but people in general who move from Western Christianity to Eastern Christianity (either by change of sui iurus church, or by conversion). Do persons in this category ever wonder what their spiritual life would have been like 100 years ago? Would they still have been attracted spiritually to Eastern Christianity? Would they have had the education and knowledge that is available today? Is it right to think in “what if” terms?

I know, for my part, that I attended Tridentine Latin Mass & Byzantine Divine Liturgy back and forth for a while, and although I found the TLM quite beautiful, I felt drawn to the Divine Liturgy and to the Patristic theology I found more promiment in the East. I suppose though I feel that it’s a real change going from West to East, and I try to reconcile my upbringing in Western Christianity with the Eastern Christianity I’ve come to embrace, and wonder if this is a novel phenomenon that did not exist in past centuries. Anyone else have this experience?
 
Given that research on the internet helped me understand Eastern Christianity more, I don’t know if I had the guts to go to an EC parish 100 years ago. It probably wouldn’t even had crossed my mind.
 
I’m canonically Roman but steadily going Byzantine on everyone.
100 years ago I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have anything remotely to do with Byzantine, because I’m an Irish Catholic by heritage and the Irish bishops were far from friendly to the Byzantine Catholics.
 
I doubt that all that many people move long distances just to join Orthodox Churches.
 
hjig22 said:
What do you mean by that?
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I mean that the lack of knowledge about the Eastern Rites would have prevented me from seeking them out. The internet is a good and easy place to research about it. I’m rather shy in social situations where I’m new and I don’t know anyone. I wouldn’t walk into an Eastern parish the way I did had I had no access to information first before going in.
 
valentino said:
I doubt that all that many people move long distances just to join Orthodox Churches.
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Some do. But some who are canonically Eastern just settle going to the nearest RC parish. Depends on those who seek authentic spirituality, or just think that a Catholic Liturgy is the same regardless of form.
 
I don´t know the difference between the two. I´ve never been exposed to any Eastern Church member or Congregation for that matter. God bless:thumbsup:👍👍
 
Madaglan said:
… I suppose though I feel that it’s a real change going from West to East, and I try to reconcile my upbringing in Western Christianity with the Eastern Christianity I’ve come to embrace, and wonder if this is a novel phenomenon that did not exist in past centuries. Anyone else have this experience?
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When I was growing up I wouldn’t have been caught dead in an eastern church. I suspect most of us were the same. If I had grown up in my mother’s time (not quite 100 years ago … I am older but not that old by any means 😉 ), I probably could not have made the journey.

For my area ethnic parishes were Polish and Mexican, well Lithuanian too, all Roman Catholic. I avoided those because I was uncomfortable with the whole ‘ethnic’ thing, it was something I had to outgrow. But eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches were a dark mystery.

I remember having friends in a “changed” neighborhood, and seeing this strange looking Baptist church with onion domes blackened with age and the tired old red brick. I walked around it and thought "this must have been one of those “Russian” churches, an “Orthodox” church. I never realized that it could very well have been a Catholic church. I also didn’t realize just how many of these old abandoned structures I would encounter over the years, it became an object of fascination to me.

I am reminded of what John Newman thought about the ‘Catholics’ when he was young :), I sort of thought that way about the eastern churches.

My first really positive image I can remember of the eastern churches were pictures of the EC bishops in their exotic headgear during Vatican Council II.

Times have changed, I am now very much an admirer of eastern Christianity. This did not happen quickly and had not really started until my children had all finished school and become adults, so they did not have a share in this journey. I am still (of course) influenced by my Roman Catholic upbringing, it was all positive and I don’t regret any of it. This does indeed affect how I see things religiously, how I assess them and absorb them. I still carry the values I learned and the habits I cultivated as a Roman Catholic youth in a Roman Catholic family.
 
Madaglan said:
…He explained how the Orthodox Churches used to be very ethnic, with no outsiders, but now with all the “complications” (as he put it) in the Protestant and Catholic churches, there are more people converting to Orthodoxy.
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Last year at the PSALM workshop at one point Fr. Stephan was talking about something that happened in 1978. He stopped and said “How many of you were Orthodox in 1978?” This was a large group of people and I was the only Catholic, all the rest were Orthodox. I’d say 5 people raised their hands. It was an eye opener to me. I’ve since found most of the OCA Russians around here are converts. Bravo. 👍 The Orthodox don’t seem to be reproducing at any better rate than Catholics in the US so without converts we’d all be closing up, including the Latin Church were it not for the immigrants who are keeping numbers up in the US.
…Do persons in this category ever wonder what their spiritual life would have been like 100 years ago? Would they still have been attracted spiritually to Eastern Christianity?
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It was the Early Church Fathers and the Christians Mystics of the Church who brought me into the Latin Church so I can definitely imagine that I’d have wanted to be a part of an Orthodox Church (I don’t think there were any ECs in No Calif 100 years ago) but unless I’d married a Greek or Russian I doubt I’d have been welcome other than as a visitor, as a spouse maybe a bit more than tolerated.

My family was in SF 100 years ago. Italians and Irish. We were high church Anglicans. Growing up my best friend’s large maternal family was Greek Orthodox, except her mom who became Catholic and raised my friend Catholic. At age 10 I went to Papou’s Greek Orthodox funeral. I was a bit spooked but also I absolutely loved the service. As an Episcopalian, pre the Second Vatican Council etc., I was used to lots of incense and sung services etc, tho very different from the Orthodox in obvious ways. I loved the cave feeling of the dome and loved the iconography and the vestments. In those days of course there were still beautiful vestments in the Episcopal Church as well. It was a very direct hit to my deepest self. Over the many decades since then I’ve returned to that same church many times and still do go there.

I always felt very close to the Greek grandparents. My own grandparents were all dead before I was born so as a child I felt the “ethnic” part of my friend’s family was giving me what I would have had if my own Italian grandparents had been in my life. I loved the food and hearing them all speak Greek (my generation didn’t sadly), and how sweet they were to me as their granddaughter’s, niece’s best friend. I do sometimes wonder if Yiayia and Papou have prayed for me in heaven…
 
100 years ago, my great grandfather was a new immigrant, I suspect of some flavor of Carpetho–Rusyn, adapting his children to a Polish area of Toledo, OH. Might be attending a Polish ethnic Latin parish, or a Ukrainian parish.Would certainly have been doing every bit of scrimping and saving to afford a Catholic School, since the public schools were not free, and the free schools were protestant heretics insisting upon conversion…
 
I know of a few priests where I live, now in their 50’s I think, who were affected by this. One is an Anglican, but he is very interested and theologically influenced in the East and has a doctorate in Byzantine Studies. Another started out Anglican because there was no way as a non-ethnic for him to be an Orthodox priest, but many years later he converted. Both were affected by the way Eastern Christianity was very closed at that time.
 
I’m not technically EC or EO yet, but if I were living a hundred years ago, I may or may not be RC; my maternal great-grandmother was Roman Catholic, but she converted to Lutheranism as a compromise with her unbelieving husband. So I guess I’d either be staunchly Latin Catholic or staunchly Lutheran.
 
If you lived a hundred years ago, the Greek Catholic community was a new immigrant community mostly working at pretty hard jobs and really hadn’t blended much into the rest of American society yet.

Same with many of the Latin rite catholic communities.

Nowadays, most mainstream Americans don’t attend the religious services of current immigrant groups- you probably wouldn’t have attended unless you were a personal friend of some of the immigrants.

Those established Americans back at the top of the 20th Century who were inquiring about latin rite Catholicism probably were more likely to attend a regional parish than an ethnic one for much the same reason.
 
Dear brother Madaglan,
Madaglan said:
Today at church an older gentleman spoke with me. He is a cradle Eastern Orthodox Christian, and he asked me if I’ve been Orthodox all my life. I said no, and went on to explain my story of becoming Orthodox. He explained how the Orthodox Churches used to be very ethnic, with no outsiders, but now with all the “complications” (as he put it) in the Protestant and Catholic churches, there are more people converting to Orthodoxy.

In any case, this got me wondering not only about converts to Orthodoxy but people in general who move from Western Christianity to Eastern Christianity (either by change of sui iurus church, or by conversion). Do persons in this category ever wonder what their spiritual life would have been like 100 years ago? Would they still have been attracted spiritually to Eastern Christianity? Would they have had the education and knowledge that is available today? Is it right to think in “what if” terms?

I know, for my part, that I attended Tridentine Latin Mass & Byzantine Divine Liturgy back and forth for a while, and although I found the TLM quite beautiful, I felt drawn to the Divine Liturgy and to the Patristic theology I found more promiment in the East. I suppose though I feel that it’s a real change going from West to East, and I try to reconcile my upbringing in Western Christianity with the Eastern Christianity I’ve come to embrace, and wonder if this is a novel phenomenon that did not exist in past centuries. Anyone else have this experience?
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From what I know, people were joining Catholicism from Orthodoxy and vice-versa all the time back then. Several of the priests that served the Eastern communities in the U.S. in the early 20th century were in fact converts from EO’xy, and this despite the harangues caused by the celibacy conflict.

People will move from one Church to another for whatever reasons, as the Spirit moves them. 100 years ago, I doubt I would have become Catholic, because the change in the Coptic Orthodox Church which effected my study of Catholicism had not yet occurred.

In general, I think it is change that inspires people in their spiritual journey, and such circumstances occurred back then as they do now.

Blessings,
Marduk
 
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