Orthodox Catholic-Roman Catholic

[Jacob21]

Hello everyone. I was just wondering, waht are the differences between Orthodox Catholic and Roman Catholic? Are Byzantine Catholics the same as Orthodox Catholics? Sorry If this sounds trivial or a strange question. Thank you very much.
Jacob

 

[bpbasilphx]

“Orthodox Catholic” is another name for Orthodox. These things go in vogues. There was a period where this was quite common. Then “Eastern Orthodox” or “Orthodox Christian” were used. Presently, it seems to be just “Orthodox”, but you find other names.

Byzantine Catholics are just that: Byzantine Catholics (sometimes called “Greek Catholics”) in communion with Rome, following the Byzantine liturgical and spiritual traditions.

 

[Woodstock]

To confuse you more, some Eastern Catholics call themselves Orthodox in Communion with Rome, or Orthodox Catholics.

The Eastern Orthodox are different from the Eastern Catholics in which communion of Churches they belong to. They are not in communion with each other. Ideally, there shouldn’t be much more that distinguishes them. In practice, there is a great diversity within the Eastern Orthodox communion and within the Eastern Catholic Communion with the diversity between the two communions depending on which two Churches or parishes are being compared.

 

[Jacob21]

Thank you! Does anyone know the main differences between them? Thank you. God Bless.
Jacob

 

[bpbasilphx]

Thank you! Does anyone know the main differences between them?

Mostly details of liturgical minutiae. Do you use 1, 3, 5, or 7 loaves, for example.

 

[mgy100]

Most of the folks my age use “Orthodox Christian.” Most people where I live know what you mean if you say “Russian Orthodox” or “Greek Orthodox.” I tried telling the hospital I was Orthodox Christian and they put “Greek Orthodox” on my information sheet anyway Not that I am Greek or Russian… but I guess they had a place to check on the computer that said “Greek Orthodox.”
See in the metropolitan area I live near there are three Orthodox parishes. And this is what the populace refers to them as;
Russian Orthodox (OCA parish) church
Greek Orthodox church
The Orthodox Church out on 20th st. (which more often than not I think more people go to than the other two).

Even for Byzantine/Greek Catholics the name goes through periods of vogue, like bpbasil said.
Greek Catholic usually foots the bill around here, even if you are UGCC or Ruthenian. You hear Byzantine Catholic sometimes.
I even hear some people still call Church Slavonic “Greek.”

As in, “My aunt died, she went to St. John the BaptistByzantine Catholic/UGCC, the one on 50th street, not the one down by City hall, and they did the service in Greek.”
Greek meaning Church Slavonic.
Sometimes I still hear Slavonic, Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak still referred to “Slavish.”
Around here there were so many of us Eastern Europeans that immigrated at the same time. They all spoke different languages, but the w.a.s.p. people just called it “slavish” because they didn’t know nor care to tell the difference between Rusyn and say Polish or Slovak.

Greek Catholic was a national identity for many immigrants. It was who they were, and that meant more than who they were in communion with. You would have to have grown up with the old timers that are gone to understand what I mean.
Even the now OCA was the Russian Greek Catholic Orthodox Church in North America.
The American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese full name is
American Carpatho-Russian Greek Catholic Orthodox Diocese.

Why? Because at a particular time and place the people from say the former Austrian Hungarian province of Galacia basically identified themselves as Greek Catholics in the USA, regardless if they were Orthodox or Catholic. It was their rallying point, their ethnic identity (the concept of a defined country in the old world at the time was different than ours).

So everything was held at the Church/church hall. Their civic life and their church life were melded into their say, Ukrainian-ness or Greek Catholic-ness. It is still like that to a point, but not really. You should have seen it when I was a kid. My dad says I should have seen it when he was a kid.
It was just tons of people that were family or darn near family that all would go to Church together and then literally spend all their time together. Someone would get married, it’d be 3 days plus of just celebration. I mean, it was amazing. Food, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc… Where my generation sits at home, their generation all went to the church and church hall and spent lots of time together. It was their Church, and the social hall was their city hall, their place to drink some brews, the place where they all cooked enough food to feed the Canadian Army, basically the Church was the centre of it all.
Now almost all the elders are gone and everyone has basically moved far away.

 

[Jacob21]

Thank you very much!! God Bless you.
Jacob

 

[Woodstock]

Thank you! Does anyone know the main differences between them? Thank you. God Bless.
Jacob

Mostly details of liturgical minutiae. Do you use 1, 3, 5, or 7 loaves, for example.

That liturgical minutiae can became a great chasm when comparing some parishes. A parish where all stand, few receive, non Orthodox are kicked out before Communion, singing is a capella and congregational, the priest is in a cassock at all times, people fast for weeks before receiving, ecumenical efforts are denounced, the Greek patriarch is despised for being friendly to the west, the strictest rendering of every theological point or canon is taught, people don’t receive if they are bleeding, married couples abstain from sex throughout all of Lent, Christmas carols are forbidden for being western, toll houses are taught, rebaptisms are practiced, people don’t kneel on Sunday, non-Orthodox are all heretics who may not lead prayers to their pagan gods, and so on… compared to a parish where all sit, singing is choral and musically accompanied, the priest is in a Roman collar, people fast for an hour or several hours before receiving, ecumenical efforts are accepted, the Greek patriarch is respected as the first among equals, theology and canons are taught through the Church’s lived tradition, people who are ill or menstruating are encouraged to receive, married couples have never heard of abstaining from sex during Lent, Christmas carols are in the printed up pew books for Christmas, toll houses are rejected, rebaptisms is not regular practice, people kneel on Sunday, non-Orthodox may say grace without the world coming to an end…

I didn’t even touch on the theological differences that Orthodoxy has between parishes and Churches, which I don’t want to get into. The minimization of the differences between Orthodox Churches to insignificant liturgical minutiae such as how many loaves of bread to use is not an accurate picture of the East. They are constantly fighting over who is in communion with whom, and they aren’t fighting over loaves of bread.

The difference between Holy Resurrection Romanian Catholic Monastery and your average Byzantine Catholic monastery is also huge on the Eastern Catholic side.

If you compared apples to apples between an Orthodox and Eastern Catholic parish, the main difference between them would be the role of the papacy in the universal church and the need for communion with Rome. Outside of that, the myriad of differences fall into the “minutiae” you can find examples of in Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism across the board.

 

[Alexios]

On top of that confusion, I’m a Roman Catholic but consider myself an Orthodox Catholic. I mean, we Catholics are Orthodox.

Basically, because both the Communion of Churches in communion with Constantinople and the Communion of Churches in communion with Rome BOTH claim to be Catholic and Orthodox in their own right, the terminology is bound to get confusing.