Saints Who Are Eastern Catholic Only?

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Originally Posted by 5Loaves
We commemorate him on his Feast Day in our parish.
It’s a sorry history with people hurt all around. Many of us are very close to the OCA.
I wouldn’t exactly say that you’re the very first person I’ve met who held this view (that Alexis Toth is to Catholics what Josaphat is to Orthodox); but still it’s far from a consensus, wouldn’t you say?
 
I wouldn’t exactly say that you’re the very first person I’ve met who held this view (that Alexis Toth is to Catholics what Josaphat is to Orthodox); but still it’s far from a consensus, wouldn’t you say?
Forgive me, Peter; but, no, I wouldn’t! Well, lemme take that back. I wouldn’t say many people are conscious of pairing them. But I would* say this: were a Byzantine Catholic – say, Ruthenian [yours excluded!] – parish were told before-hand St. Alexis’ story or, similarly, an Orthodox St. Josephat’s, I think there definitely would be, at the very least, palpable shock at the celebration of their respective feastday! The bottom line is: we’re just not there** yet!*
 
Opinion noted, and respected. Nevertheless, I would say it’s far from a consensus that Alexis Toth is to Catholics what Josaphat is to Orthodox.

As a matter of fact, I would also say that many Catholics (myself included) have mixed feelings about Josaphat.
Oh, for sure! I was only speaking in terms of the appropriateness of Catholics celebrating Alexis vis-a-vis Orthodox celebrating Josephat. I just don’t see we’re at that point. As a matter of fact, I cannot help wondering how similar the attitudes of both Churches were in advancing these two men to canonization [glorification]. Neither Church is innocent of a poke-in-the-eye of the other.
 
The calendar of the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church has, for quite a few years, reincorporated the names of Photios the Great and Gregorios Palamas with full Offices in the daily Menaion and, in Palamas’ case, the Triodion as well. In addition, it has incorporated Sts. Seraphim of Sarov and Sergius of Radonezh. As regards Palamas, I have an unstudied theory. While Palamas was suspect among Catholics for what was taken – in my opinion, not really correctly – to be an anti-Scholastic theological bent, the Melkite Church excised him from the calendar and the Triodion. [The Second Sunday of Great Lent is traditionally devoted to his memory.] It replaced him with “The Sunday of the Relics” and, in the manner of the icons on the Sunday of Orthodoxy and the Cross on the Sunday of the Cross, the relics of saints and martyrs are processed three times around the church.

Why “the Sunday of the Relics” and a procession with them? I learned not long ago that, for centuries now, in Salonika [biblical Thessalonika], Greece, where Palamas was archbishop, his relics are processed around the city on the 2nd Sunday of Great Lent!

This cannot be a coincidence! My suspicion is that the Melkite Church, while acceding to Roman opinion about Palamas by excising his name from the 2nd Sunday of Great Lent, nonetheless continued to commemorate him – albeit surreptitiously – by incorporating on this day the procession with the relics! As I say, my unstudied theory.
 
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