Priestly Society of St. Josaphat

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Unfortunately, the UGCC in America is much more Latinized than the Ruthenians - one UGCC church (which I think has since closed down) I went to ran through a spoken Liturgy in under 45 minutes and had no iconostas, while the other one has an iconostas you can see through, confessionals (the priest declined to hear my confession at the iconostas, and used the Roman ritual), and a Rosary before Liturgy. The Epistle there is read (not sung) by an altar boy facing the congregation, Novus Ordo-style.
Well, it would depend on the parish - there is no liturgical uniformity in the UGCC. We have parished like St Elias in Brampton and St Nicholas in Toronto (my parish) that are very Eastern. Others, usually run by our Westernized religious Orders, are very Latinized, to be sure.

I’ve also heard about Ruthenian parishes that have the public Rosary before the DL too!

Alex
 
There was a claim online that Angelus Press had translated “Persecuted Tradition” by Father Basil Kovpak into English and were planning to publish it, but I’ve contacted them and they know nothing about it.
 
If I might point out something in defense of the SSJK - without wishing to justify disobedience, schism, or Latinizations, but just to give a silver lining - their intentions are to preserve the Catholic faith in the face of schism (despite their mistaken identity of Orthodox tradition with schism) and the modernist apostasy. That’s good of them, and I can’t complain about their attachment to the Rosary as well (though I never did understand the Sacred Heart and all the other silly Latin devotions - I speak light-heartedly without any intended disrespect to my Latin brethren here). They simply need to be taught that the genuine Orthodox tradition is implied by rather than compromised by union with Rome, and that the differences between us and the “canonical” Orthodox are not because we are Catholic and they are Orthodox, but rather because we have been uncanonically and inappropriately Latinized against the will of the holy Church of Rome, whereas the schismatics have not. And their tenacious adherence to Slavonic is not a Latinization - the Old Believers certainly don’t think so, at any rate.
 
When I read claims attributed to Father Kovpak (can’t read Ukrainian myself) and assuming they’re true, I just have to wonder where the whole de-Latinization process will end. Will Eastern churches with names like Immaculate Conception, Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Fatima eventually have to change there names ? Will we see the removal of statues or confessionals from churches in cases where they have been there well over a hundred years ? Will St Josaphat eventually be phased out because the Orthodox don’t like him. I’ve already seen disparaging comments about him from Eastern Catholics online (why is it always converts ?)
 
Dear Seamus,

You raise important points!

Eastern Catholics do have an obligation, mandated by Rome itself, to rediscover their legitimate Eastern heritage and return to it.

That doesn’t mean it will be easy. Sacred Heart and Immaculate Conception devotions, however, tend to be private ones among Eastern Catholics, unless their parish has the First Friday devotion etc. However, I know of Latin parishes who have likewise phased out the First Friday and other devotions that I grew up with.

In my old parish, we had an influx of Eastern Catholics from Poland who insist on kneeling five times during the Divine Liturgy, and do hold First Friday, First Saturday devotions etc.

Conversely, it is possible to Easternize these devotions and I know parishes and priests who have attempted to do so, with varying degrees of success.

Statues are prevalent only in THE most Latinized parishes and I’ve yet to see any in my neck of the woods. The reason why statues are kept, as well as why other Latin devotions are also maintained, is not a good one from any point of view. If the reason is that only by means of such we, as Eastern Catholics, can “prove” ourselves to be truly “Catholic” - then that is just a bad reason to hang onto them. It exemplifies the EC inferiority complex. I myself used to love statues - but when I began to study icons, I saw that the icon had much more indepth theological meaning than statues. I just “didn’t know any better.”

As for St Josaphat, the old liturgical services to him were replete with every kind of nasty invective directed at the Orthodox. The Ukrainian Studite Fathers have published a separate volume of his service after having pulled the nastiness. St Josaphat himself was never “nasty” toward the Orthodox, he was always very pro-Eastern and absolutely against the introduction of any Latinisms whatsoever in the Eastern Church. Alex
 
When I read claims attributed to Father Kovpak (can’t read Ukrainian myself) and assuming they’re true, I just have to wonder where the whole de-Latinization process will end. Will Eastern churches with names like Immaculate Conception, Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Fatima eventually have to change there names ? Will we see the removal of statues or confessionals from churches in cases where they have been there well over a hundred years ? Will St Josaphat eventually be phased out because the Orthodox don’t like him. I’ve already seen disparaging comments about him from Eastern Catholics online (why is it always converts ?)
It will end as soon as the Latinizations are removed and the integrity of our Faith is restored. If, God forbid there are any churches left with names like “Immaculate Conception” or “Sacred Heart”, they should be changed immediately. “Immaculate Conception” is not a term native to our tradition, and is no more appropriate than for a Roman Catholic church to be named “Protection of the Theotokos” or “Holy Panagia”. I don’t mind “Our Lady of Fatima” only because of her prophecy concerning Russia - otherwise we have plenty enough Marian titles to name our churches after without adopting an alien spirituality. Statues and confessionals should be thrown out; they are forbidden in our churches. We do confessional in front of the iconostas facing Christ, with the priest’s stole on our shouldiers; there is no way for us to canonically receive the sacrament in a confessional.

You are speaking under the assumption that your faith is “Catholicism” and that ours is somehow not. We have NEVER imposed our rite on you - why do you insist on imposing yours on us? Maybe we should start complaining about the Latins always “de-Byzantinising” their churches, tearing down their iconostases, putting pews in so the congregation can be comfortable instead of standing at prayer, throwing out all the Greek and Russian saints from their calendar, speaking or whispering the Liturgy, doing Confession in an anonymous, impersonal basis rather than in front of the iconostas, shortening the Liturgy down to an hour, skipping Orthros, replacing your molebens with Benediction or Eucharistic Adoration, saying the Rosary instead of the akathist, and in general just not being good Greek or Russian Orthodox. Sounds silly, doesn’t it?

Sounds just as silly when you insist that we be good Roman Catholics. To be Catholic is not to be Roman unless you happen to be of the Roman Rite.
 
There most certainly are still Eastern Catholic churches named for the Immaculate Conception and the Sacred Heart. The Eparchy of St Nicholas was in fact consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by none other than Andrey Septytsky.
Code:
                                              Your problem, if you'll look deeper isn't actually with powerless Roman Catholic lay persons like myself, but rather with the Eastern Catholic faithful who in many cases chose to embrace these devotions of their own free will.

                                               Quite frankly when I hear comments like your's I can't help but see the hypocrisy and double standards applied to things like Papal Infallibility. How quickly it can go from "We are not under the Pope, my patriarch is in communion with him" to "Rome has commanded-ordered us to de-latinize" And then of course there's the  claims about the greater respect shown to Bishops in the Eastern Rites, than that shown by Traditional RC's, until of course one decides that an Eastern bishop or priest, is in there opinion, of a Latin mindset. Think I'm exaggerating, just check various forums for what get's said about some of the Ruthenian bishops past or present.
 
There most certainly are still Eastern Catholic churches named for the Immaculate Conception and the Sacred Heart. The Eparchy of St Nicholas was in fact consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by none other than Andrey Septytsky.
Code:
                                              Your problem, if you'll look deeper isn't actually with powerless Roman Catholic lay persons like myself, but rather with the Eastern Catholic faithful who in many cases chose to embrace these devotions of their own free will.

                                               Quite frankly when I hear comments like your's I can't help but see the hypocrisy and double standards applied to things like Papal Infallibility. How quickly it can go from "We are not under the Pope, my patriarch is in communion with him" to "Rome has commanded-ordered us to de-latinize" And then of course there's the  claims about the greater respect shown to Bishops in the Eastern Rites, than that shown by Traditional RC's, until of course one decides that an Eastern bishop or priest, is in there opinion, of a Latin mindset. Think I'm exaggerating, just check various forums for what get's said about some of the Ruthenian bishops past or present.
I can’t speak for anyone else, only myself. I am under the Pope - under his fatherly care - and I am not aware of having ever shown disrespect to any Eastern bishop (even though I may not happen to agree, for example, with the way in which the bishop handled the SSJK, or with the translation of the Divine Liturgy we have to use). I personally am probably more ultramontane than most Roman Catholics; I know that’s not typical for Byzantine Catholics and some will even tell me I think like a Roman but that’s me; and I would agree that it could appear like a double-standard when people strongly emphasize their Eastern identity and their Orthodoxy against schismatic Orthodox complaints of subjugation to Rome and “Uniatism” but then appeal to the Pope when he is combatting the problems and errors in our Church. What we should be doing is not giving in to the schismatic rhetoric but coming to a theological understanding - we are “under” the Pope not in the sense of being subjugated to him but rather being under his paternal care; if we practice more autocephaly than the Roman Rite it is because the Pope does not intervene when we are already doing things right, and he is not our local primate (he is the Patriarch of the West), and our obedience to him is only in his capacity as universal pontiff.

I also don’t complain about Traditional RC’s; if I practiced in the Roman Rite then I would be one. What’s right for the Roman Rite is right for them, and what’s right for us is right for us, and mixing the two rites is just bad. The committee that crafted the Novus Ordo was trying to imitate the Byzantine Rite (or so some Dominicans once tried to tell me), a comparison which the Byzantines find frankly insulting. Tearing down iconostases, having spoken Liturgies, and putting pews and kneelers in churches (all Latinizations) are less reverent and less orthodox in the Byzantine rite, while standing during Communion, throwing out statues, and having the Words of Institution done out loud (all false implementations of Byzantine practice - or maybe just Protestantizations) are less reverent and less orthodox in the Roman Rite. Each rite has its own integrity, and the body language (kneeling, standing) means different things. In the Roman Rite standing doesn’t have the significance as a form of reverence as it does in the East, while in the East kneeling is solely a penitential practice and is therefore FORBIDDEN - by the canons of the Council in Trullo, which are still authoritative in the East - on Sunday when we celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart is alien to the Eastern expression of the Faith. The heart or “nous” is more like the ground or essence of one’s being in the East, and it’s not compatible with - or means something different from - the heart as expressed in the Latin devotion (which is more the source of sentimental feelings than is the “eye of the heart” which was discussed by St. Basil). It also feels bizarre for us to worship just a part of the body, especially after we went to so much effort to crystallize our Christology to avoid all the heresies which tried to separate Our Lord into different human and divine persons (Nestorianism), or a human body without a human soul (Apollinarianism), or a divine nature without a human nature (Eutychianism), or any number of other false divorces and dichotomies introduced into Our Lord’s nature.

Roman Catholic traditionalism and “Orthodoxy in communion with Rome” are the same movements using the same principles applied to different rites of the Church. Sorry for my bluntness and lack of tact, but there are few things I have seen sillier and more self-contradictory than Roman Catholic traditionalists who want to Latinize the Byzantines and Byzantines infatuated with the Novus Ordo Mass. Both want to preserve the integrity of their own rite; one ought to devote a little bit of understanding to the other rite before rushing to approve the deformed versions.
 
Also, consecrating an Eparchy to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is quite a bit different than having a Sacred Heart of Jesus statue in a Byzantine church. I’m not actually sure that I mind consecrating an Eparchy to the Sacred Heart if that’s what the people want if they have naturally and organically adopted that particular devotion due to their proximity to the Poles (there are lots of places where natural cross-fertilization happened, such as Southern Italy where the frescoes preserved a strong iconographic feel to them, and Poland where they use icons, the Middle East where even the Orthodox like having statues privately, Lebanon where the Maronite Rite developed out of the intersection between Latin and Syriac Christianity, and Croatia where the Tridentine Mass used to be said in Slavonic). Personally, it wouldn’t be my choice. But it’s not as bad because consecrating an Eparchy to the Sacred Heart has no liturgical implications. Consecrating a temple to the Sacred Heart does, though (because it would be expected to have an icon of the patron of the temple in the iconostas, and the patron mentioned at the close of the Liturgy, and the patron’s feast celebrated in a special way), and it would be very, very inappropriate to celebrate the Sacred Heart liturgically. It’s simply an alien manner of expressing the same Faith. For us to celebrate the Sacred Heart is as weird as for you to celebrate the Protection of the Theotokos; nothing wrong with either except their setting.
 
When I read claims attributed to Father Kovpak (can’t read Ukrainian myself) and assuming they’re true, I just have to wonder where the whole de-Latinization process will end. Will Eastern churches with names like Immaculate Conception, Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Fatima eventually have to change there names ? Will we see the removal of statues or confessionals from churches in cases where they have been there well over a hundred years ? Will St Josaphat eventually be phased out because the Orthodox don’t like him. I’ve already seen disparaging comments about him from Eastern Catholics online (why is it always converts ?)
Um, what exactly is wrong with names like Immaculate Conception or Our Lady of Fatima. The Immaculate Conception is dogma for all Catholics regardless of rite and Our Lady of Fatima obviously refers to the Marian apparation which calls for a conversion to Catholicism again rite is not mentioned. I admit that I’m not so familar with the traditions of my Eastern brethren, do you have Eastern Catholic terms for Immaculate Conception?
 
Um, what exactly is wrong with names like Immaculate Conception or Our Lady of Fatima. The Immaculate Conception is dogma for all Catholics regardless of rite and Our Lady of Fatima obviously refers to the Marian apparation which calls for a conversion to Catholicism again rite is not mentioned. I admit that I’m not so familar with the traditions of my Eastern brethren, do you have Eastern Catholic terms for Immaculate Conception?
There’s nothing “wrong” with names like Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Fatima. However, both the teaching of the Immaculate Conception and Marian apparitions come out of the Western tradition of the Church (nothing wrong with that either), and many of us Eastern Christians believe that it is preferable for our parishes to have names that come out of our tradition.
 
Um, what exactly is wrong with names like Immaculate Conception or Our Lady of Fatima. The Immaculate Conception is dogma for all Catholics regardless of rite and Our Lady of Fatima obviously refers to the Marian apparation which calls for a conversion to Catholicism again rite is not mentioned. I admit that I’m not so familar with the traditions of my Eastern brethren, do you have Eastern Catholic terms for Immaculate Conception?
In the Eastern Church the feast is called the Maternity of St. Anne, which is the name it has been known for centuries before the dogma was formally defined. The Immaculate Conception itself is promulgated at every Divine Liturgy in one of our prayers, so there isn’t as much need to change the name of the feast, and we don’t like changing things anyway :).

(The prayer I’m referring to says: “It is truly proper to glorify you, who have borne God, the ever-blessed, immaculate, and the Mother of our God. More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without spot gave birth to God the Word, truly the Theotokos we magnify.” It is one that every Orthodox and Eastern Catholic knows by heart.)

One of the principle titles we give to the Theotokos is “Panagia” or “All-Holy”, which comes pretty close to “Immaculate Conception”. I think there are churches named specifically in honor of the Panagia.
 
Um, what exactly is wrong with names like Immaculate Conception or Our Lady of Fatima. The Immaculate Conception is dogma for all Catholics regardless of rite and Our Lady of Fatima obviously refers to the Marian apparation which calls for a conversion to Catholicism again rite is not mentioned. I admit that I’m not so familar with the traditions of my Eastern brethren, do you have Eastern Catholic terms for Immaculate Conception?
I believe there is a Russian church in California named after Our Lady of Fatima, and given her calls for Russia’s conversion (part of which would entail healing the sin of schism, though I certainly wouldn’t view as a call for conversion from “Orthodoxy” to “Catholicism” but rather from sin to holiness) I can’t argue that it’s inappropriate for a Russian parish to name itself after her.
 
There most certainly are still Eastern Catholic churches named for the Immaculate Conception and the Sacred Heart. The Eparchy of St Nicholas was in fact consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by none other than Andrey Septytsky.
Code:
                                              Your problem, if you'll look deeper isn't actually with powerless Roman Catholic lay persons like myself, but rather with the Eastern Catholic faithful who in many cases chose to embrace these devotions of their own free will.

                                               Quite frankly when I hear comments like your's I can't help but see the hypocrisy and double standards applied to things like Papal Infallibility. How quickly it can go from "We are not under the Pope, my patriarch is in communion with him" to "Rome has commanded-ordered us to de-latinize" And then of course there's the  claims about the greater respect shown to Bishops in the Eastern Rites, than that shown by Traditional RC's, until of course one decides that an Eastern bishop or priest, is in there opinion, of a Latin mindset. Think I'm exaggerating, just check various forums for what get's said about some of the Ruthenian bishops past or present.
I think no good purpose is served by using terms like “hypocrisy” et alia in this connection. In what sense “hypocrisy?” This is a discussion about the Eastern Catholic Churches and their traditions. That Latinization has occurred in many of them - no one denies that, least of all Rome. If you don’t believe that Rome has asked Eastern Catholics to return to their original, authentic traditions - just have a look at the decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches.

I don’t know why you are particularly picking on the idea of being under the Pope. Apart from the issue of Eastern Catholic Churches governing themselves in communion with the Pope, Eastern Catholics, in general, are much better at following traditional Catholic teaching than many Roman Catholic laity and priests that I’ve come across.

Even Roman Catholic bishops have been noted to affirm their local authority regardless of what “Rome says.” That, I think, is true hypocrisy.

Eastern Catholic faithful do indeed have devotion to the Sacred Hearts etc. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is ultimately the responsibility of the EC pastors to catechize the EC faithful in their authentic liturgical traditions, leaving aside whatever private devotions we may practice. We are a work in progress and it is a witness to the strength of the Catholic Church that such Ritual diversity can be maintained with all that it implies.

So please just calm down.

Alex
 
I believe there is a Russian church in California named after Our Lady of Fatima, and given her calls for Russia’s conversion (part of which would entail healing the sin of schism, though I certainly wouldn’t view as a call for conversion from “Orthodoxy” to “Catholicism” but rather from sin to holiness) I can’t argue that it’s inappropriate for a Russian parish to name itself after her.
Very well said! Our Lady of Fatima spoke about the destruction of communism and the triumph of Christ in Russia. And this has already occurred, to be sure. The union of the Churches is something that will occur in God’s good time and the fact of the separation of the Churches takes nothing away from the holiness of both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, their Apostolic background, valid sacraments etc.

I received an email from a Fatimist group saying that there was so much work to be done in Russia since only a small percentage of Russians were “Roman Catholic.”

I wrote back telling them never to send me another such email again!

The Fatima devotion is actually very easily adapted to Eastern Christian spirituality. The scapular, for example, is the “askeem” as it is called in the Coptic tradition and it represents, in the context of Fatima, the protective mantle of our Lady or “Pokrova” which is so highly honoured in the East. The recitation of the Rule or Rosary is, according to St Seraphim of Sarov, a practice that goes back to the 8th century in the Thebaid in northern Africa.

The Fatima devotion is more “Eastern” in this way than it is Roman Catholic.

Alex
 
I believe there is a Russian church in California named after Our Lady of Fatima, and given her calls for Russia’s conversion (part of which would entail healing the sin of schism, though I certainly wouldn’t view as a call for conversion from “Orthodoxy” to “Catholicism” but rather from sin to holiness) I can’t argue that it’s inappropriate for a Russian parish to name itself after her.
Given that the Russian church has no hierarchy, I am pretty sure that name is a result of a decision by the Latin bishop they are under, or perhaps by the original Jesuits who opened the mission.

I don’t think this was done in the spirit of Solovyev.
 
Actually, the Russian Orthodox of Paris fostered veneration for Our Lady of La Salette, Lourdes et al. and also honoured St Francis of Assisi and St Therese of Lisieux privately. They came under harsh criticism from other jurisdictions for so doing.

I know the Chapel of Our Lady of Fatima and Russian Catholics did choose that name in connection with prayer for the defeat of Soviet Communism. There is absolutely nothing Latin about that chapel which has the Orthodox icon of All Saints of Russia and in every way adheres to Russian Byzantine tradition.

Their icon of the White Mother of God, or “Our Lady of Fatima” that they have is said to have appeared in Russia itself around 1917 here and there. I don’t know much else about this tradition.

Could it be possible? I believe it could be possible. At Laus, France, the Virgin Mary appeared daily to a 15 year old girl, Benoite Rencurel… The church authorities, bishops and the like, gathered there to question her and to get her to admit that her “visions” are false. When Benoite appeared before the commission, she told them that “the Lady in white asked her to relate the following to you: You priests and bishops of the Church offer My Son every morning in the Mass. But I do what I please, when I please and where I please etc.”

So it is entirely possible! 🙂

Alex
 
Eastern Catholic faithful do indeed have devotion to the Sacred Hearts etc. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is ultimately the responsibility of the EC pastors to catechize the EC faithful in their authentic liturgical traditions, leaving aside whatever private devotions we may practice. We are a work in progress and it is a witness to the strength of the Catholic Church that such Ritual diversity can be maintained with all that it implies.
The problem never has been private devotions, Alex. It’s the public devotions that are regulated by the Bishops.

Private devotions, however, are still a problem when they focus, like certain Roman ones, on elements of theologumenia alien to the East. They’re outside the bishop’s purview, but not one’s pastor nor spiritual father.
 
The problem never has been private devotions, Alex. It’s the public devotions that are regulated by the Bishops.

Private devotions, however, are still a problem when they focus, like certain Roman ones, on elements of theologumenia alien to the East. They’re outside the bishop’s purview, but not one’s pastor nor spiritual father.
This must be where the conflict is, the CCEO canons show the obligation and rights with regard to the liturgy and private devotions, but the common good is most important, and to preserve one’s own rite.

CCEO Canon 12:
  1. The Christian faithful are bound by an obligation in their own patterns of activity always to maintain communion with the Church.
  2. They are to fulfill with great diligence the duties which they owe to the universal Church and to their own Church sui iuris.
CCEO Canon 17:
The Christian faithful have the right to worship God according to the prescriptions of their own Church sui iuris, and to follow their own form of spiritual life consonant with the teaching of the Church.

CCEO Canon 18
The Christian faithful are free to found and to govern associations for charitable and religious purposes or for the promotion of the Christian vocation in the world; they are free to hold meetings to pursue these purposes in common.

CCEO Canon 26
  1. In exercising their rights the Christian faithful, both as individuals and when gathered in associations, must take account of the common good of the Church and of the rights of others as well as their own obligations toward others.
  2. In the interest of the common good, ecclesiastical authority has competence to regulate the exercise of the rights which belong to the Christian faithful.
CCEO Canon 40
3. Other Christian faithful are also to foster an understanding and appreciation of their own rite, and are held to observe it everywhere unless something is excused by the law.

CCEO Canon 403
  1. With due regard for the right and obligation to preserve everywhere their own rite, lay persons have the right to participate actively in the liturgical celebrations of any Church sui iuris whatsoever, according to the norms of the liturgical books.
 
Couple of real paradoxes involving the SSJ. According to one report I read, Father Basil Kovpak first came into conflict with Cardinal Husar, not over introducing Latinizations, but rather for refusing to say the Divine Liturgy in Ukrainian (the society only uses Church Slavonic). And, Fr Kovpak’s former parishoners who remained loyal to Cardinal Husar, have had to celebrate liturgy in a Latin Rite church.
 
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