Ruthenian/Byzantine Catholic Church in America

[5Loaves]

The Something I’m disturbed about on EC forum has got me back thinking about something I avoid thinking about… how annoyed I feel that the Ruthenian Church in America calls itself the “Byzantine Catholic Church in America”. I do not want to dis our Ruthenian sister Church. But when I say I’m a Byzantine Catholic or we talk about Byzantine Catholics we are not talking about the Byzantine Catholic Church in America, although they are Byzantine/Greek Catholics. I’ve never seen anything about why they chose to make this name for the Ruthenians here in the US. It seems to muddy the waters for anyone trying to understand the Easter Catholic Churches. Has there ever been any other concern expressed about this? Again, I don’t want to be disrespecting this Church.

 

[ConstantineTG]

The Something I’m disturbed about on EC forum has got me back thinking about something I avoid thinking about… how annoyed I feel that the Ruthenian Church in America calls itself the “Byzantine Catholic Church in America”. I do not want to dis our Ruthenian sister Church. But when I say I’m a Byzantine Catholic or we talk about Byzantine Catholics we are not talking about the Byzantine Catholic Church in America, although they are Byzantine/Greek Catholics. I’ve never seen anything about why they chose to make this name for the Ruthenians here in the US. It seems to muddy the waters for anyone trying to understand the Easter Catholic Churches. Has there ever been any other concern expressed about this? Again, I don’t want to be disrespecting this Church.

All I can say is that its a wonderful “marketing” tactic. Most people will never dream of walking into a Russian or Ukrainian or Hungarian parish, because its not their ethnicity. I still get strange looks from other Filipinos when I tell them I go to a Ukrainian parish (“you’re not Ukrainian,” “hey, you’re not Roman either” ). By stripping the ethnic identity off the name, more converts could be won because they don’t feel its a place they do not belong.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

All I can say is that its a wonderful “marketing” tactic. Most people will never dream of walking into a Russian or Ukrainian or Hungarian parish, because its not their ethnicity. I still get strange looks from other Filipinos when I tell them I go to a Ukrainian parish (“you’re not Ukrainian,” “hey, you’re not Roman either” ). By stripping the ethnic identity off the name, more converts could be won because they don’t feel its a place they do not belong.

I’ve heard that this is actually one of the reasons they chose to identify themselves as the “Byzantine Catholic Church in America” instead of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church. I agree that it is a good marketing tactic. The designation “Melkite” works much the same way (although we Melkites use it for completely different reasons: i.e. it was originally a derogatory name given us by our Muslim rulers. When the split in our Patriarchate occurred in 1724 the Eastern Catholics kept the title “Melkite” whereas the Orthodox kept the name “Antiochian”).

The designation “Byzantine Catholic Church in America” has always bothered me for much the same reasons mentioned above. It wouldn’t bother me so much if all Byzantine Catholics in America were united under one Metropolitan or, dare I say, Patriarch, and shared a common liturgical recension and translation. But such is not the case and probably never will be. In my opinion too this division greatly hinders our effectiveness in evangelization. But ultimately my little opinion is worth only about as much as the cyber space it takes up.

 

[malphono]

Not that I much care, but it seem to me to be reminiscent of the idea behind OCA.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I’ve heard that this is actually one of the reasons they chose to identify themselves as the “Byzantine Catholic Church in America” instead of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church. I agree that it is a good marketing tactic. The designation “Melkite” works much the same way (although we Melkites use it for completely different reasons: i.e. it was originally a derogatory name given us by our Muslim rulers. When the split in our Patriarchate occurred in 1724 the Eastern Catholics kept the title “Melkite” whereas the Orthodox kept the name “Antiochian”).

The designation “Byzantine Catholic Church in America” has always bothered me for much the same reasons mentioned above. It wouldn’t bother me so much if all Byzantine Catholics in America were united under one Metropolitan or, dare I say, Patriarch, and shared a common liturgical recension and translation. But such is not the case and probably never will be. In my opinion too this division greatly hinders our effectiveness in evangelization. But ultimately my little opinion is worth only about as much as the cyber space it takes up.

Well, Ruthenian and Melkite aren’t easily identifiable ethnicities today anyway. Perhaps that is why they are the most successful Eastern Catholic Churches in the diaspora in terms of converts from different ethnic backgrounds. Whereas the Ukrainian Church does have large numbers, but a great number of it are ethnic Ukrainians.

I’m not sure I’m in favor of a North American Byzantine Church. The concept is great, but given that this place is a land of liberal ideas we may end up with priests who may bring the Church down. One thing I like especially in our Eparchy is that we do have priests who come from Ukraine and thus bring authentic spirituality there where the faith is much stronger than it is here.

 

[dvdjs]

I am not sure what you would suggest, 5loaves.

In the old country and during the years of immigration, we were “Greek Catholics” - our Mother, Orthodox church was Constantinople, with episcopal appointments coming from Constantiople. “Ruthenian” as a descriptor was not used; at least I had never heard it used until fairly recently. In the US, the use of “Greek” led to confusion with, well, Greeks. The substitution of Byzantine for Greek was made, and this usage was already common during the1950’s - maybe even earlier.

I have asked, but have never gotten an answer, as to whether there was annoyance at the time from other Eastern Catholic churches - who at that time used identifiers of their own, independent choice - eg Russian Catholic. (IIRC your own parish replaced “Russian Catholic” by “Byzantine Catholic” eg on its website, failry recently.) My guess is that the development of “annoyance” is a recent development that accompanies churches in the US developing a post-ethnic outlook.

I have not heard any comment, official or unofficial, that “Byzantine Catholics” are annoyed by the recent change of Russian, or Romanina, or even Ukrainian, to Byzantine in some usages. (Has anyone expressed annoyance at your parishes use of the “byzantine”) Why anyone should be annoyed with our usage is a mystery?

 

[dvdjs]

I’ve heard that this is actually one of the reasons they chose to identify themselves as the “Byzantine Catholic Church in America” instead of the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church. I agree that it is a good marketing tactic.

This is probably not true, though I don’t doubt that you have heard it. Our post-ethnicity - especially in the earlier times - was far less related to marketing to non-nash, and far more connected to the emerging post-ethnicity of the nash, themselves. We lived as a repressed minority for a millenium; my guess is that, for better or worse, our leaders and our people didn’t want us ghettoized in the US.

The designation “Byzantine Catholic Church in America” has always bothered me for much the same reasons mentioned above.

Frankly, it bothers me that you are bothered by it. And it annoys me that people are annoyed by it.

 

[Aramis]

I think it’s somewhat misleading, but it doesn’t really bother me, per se; I just avoid using the term whenever practical as it engenders confusion about other Byzantine Catholic Jurisdictions… most especially Melkite, Romanian, and Ukrainian.

 

[Little_Boy_Lost]

We should all adopt the name. We are the Byzantine Catholic Church in the United states. Though it is made up of different jurisdictions because of historical precident. Much like the Orthodox Church in America is made up of different jurisdictions. And I think the OCA gets way too much fanfare for having that title.

 

[Hesychios]

The Something I’m disturbed about on EC forum has got me back thinking about something I avoid thinking about… how annoyed I feel that the Ruthenian Church in America calls itself the “Byzantine Catholic Church in America”.

I don’t know about this definitely, but I remember reading that at one time three of the Byzantine rite churches in the USA (or maybe four, I forget) had agreed to start using the term, but for some reason only the Ruthenian Metropolia of Pittsburgh actually embraced it with a vengeance while the others did not. It is still not the official name as far as I know.

FWIW, I can remember a Romanian Catholic parish in Aurora Illinois (there were two within a few blocks of each other, I don’t remember which one) with a sign out in front “BYZANTINE CATHOLIC”. That old agreement could be the reason why.

And there is nothing wrong with that, anyone who fits the description can use the term without apologies.

Anyway, Byzantine is really not a good term to use. The Byzantines (east Romans) themselves did not use the term, and it was really stuck on our memory of them by western writers in the last few centuries.

The term ‘Greek Catholic’ probably has more legitimacy but is not much older. I think Greek Catholic is the term they were trying to get away from when someone suggested Byzantine, perhaps because almost none of the Greek Catholics were actually Greek.

I have also seen it referred to in literature as the “Methodian Rite” after Saint Methodius, but that’s not well known today or popular, and people today would probably confuse it with some form of Wesleyan.

 

[dvdjs]

… the Ruthenian Metropolia of Pittsburgh actually embraced it with a vengeance …

 

[Volodymyr]

Ruthenian sister Church. Ruthenians here in the US. .

Probablem may be that Zakarpatie - land of Rusins - returned to Holy ORthodoxy by thousands in 1903-1919 through Apostle of Rusins - St Aleksiy Каbalyuk -/ He is source now of Rusin national movement and why are so many members Orthodoxy in Zakarpatie even now after fall Soviet Union.

Rusins have left Greko Catolic church by large numbers. Maybe decide this is not a good name - not successful attempt at Greko Catolicism.

Преподобный Алексий (Кабалюк), Карпаторусский исповедник.

 

[dvdjs]

Probablem may be that Zakarpatie - land of Rusins - returned to Holy ORthodoxy by thousands in 1903-1919 through Apostle of Rusins - St Aleksiy Каbalyuk… He is source now of Rusin national movement and why are so many members Orthodoxy in Zakarpatie even now after fall Soviet Union…

There was indeed a Orthodox movement in those years, tightly coupled to the spasmodic waning of the Hungarian empire, and pan-Slavic politics. However, on April 24, 1931 Bishop Gebey was able to announce the end of that movement and the return to the Greek Catholic Church of the last parish involved, in Iza. So that movement, while it may have reverberations now, was hardly likely to be a factor in what 5loaves is talking about - an identification that started well over fifty years ago.

Moreover, The BBC has always included daughters of Uzzhorod from not only Zakarpatskaya but from others areas that are now in Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and, what was Yugoslavia. Even in the earliest days in there were different sensibilities about cultural identity. Ruthenian identitty was strong among some people and very weak if non-existent among others. Interestingly, it may be stronger now among the solidly American than it was in the 2nd generation people who focused on being American.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I have heard and some have stated it here, is that we made the change because we are no longer have an identifiable ethnic component.

Unlike the Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Melkite Greek Catholic Churches.

It is also true that we are the only sui iruis Catholic Church in the United States.