So an Eastern bishop came to my parish

  • Thread starter Thread starter OnlyAmbrose
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
O

OnlyAmbrose

Guest
Hi everyone,

I’m a Roman Catholic, I had an interesting experience tonight. I went to Mass at a small parish I volunteer at, and it was a Confirmation Mass. My bishop, Todd Brown, apparently couldn’t make it, so he asked his friend, an Eastern Orthodox bishop, to say Mass and administer the sacrament of Confirmation.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this Confirmation was valid. The Mass was said in the typical Roman way, and Confirmation went like normal, but… the bishop wasn’t Roman Catholic!

I was just curious if this is ok. The bishop was certainly a smart man and had a good sense of humor. My only real complaint is that he was giving confirmation to Roman Catholics even though he overtly stated that he disagreed with the practice of doing Confirmation separate from baptism. I think the phrase he used was “In the eastern Church, we don’t believe that you can give God in pieces, so we do Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist all at the same time.”
 
You 100% certain he was Eastern Orthodox and not Eastern Catholic? Eastern Catholics too tend to confirm (and give communion to) infants at the same time as baptism. I don’t think there’d be a problem with an Eastern Catholic bishop doing the confirmation, they are just as much in communion with Rome as you or I.

Otherwise I know priests under certain circumstances are permitted to administer the sacrament of Confirmation. I don’t understand why your bishop wouldn’t have got one of the priests to stand in for him as opposed to an Orthodox bishop (if he was Orthodox). 🤷

Having said all of this - if I understand correctly Catholics do believe in the validity of Orthodox sacraments, and I don’t think if an Orthodox converted to Catholicism they’d be required to be confirmed again if they’d been chrismated according to the Orthodox rite. So it may be a valid if not licit confirmation even with an Orthodox bishop.

Take all the above with a slight grain of salt, though, I think you’d want to get in touch with someone like CAF’s resident Canon lawyer, Deacon Cameron (aka cameron_lansing)
 
OnlyAmbrose said:
Hi everyone,

I’m a Roman Catholic, I had an interesting experience tonight. I went to Mass at a small parish I volunteer at, and it was a Confirmation Mass. My bishop, Todd Brown, apparently couldn’t make it, so he asked his friend, an Eastern Orthodox bishop, to say Mass and administer the sacrament of Confirmation.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this Confirmation was valid. The Mass was said in the typical Roman way, and Confirmation went like normal, but… the bishop wasn’t Roman Catholic!

I was just curious if this is ok. The bishop was certainly a smart man and had a good sense of humor. My only real complaint is that he was giving confirmation to Roman Catholics even though he overtly stated that he disagreed with the practice of doing Confirmation separate from baptism. I think the phrase he used was “In the eastern Church, we don’t believe that you can give God in pieces, so we do Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist all at the same time.”
Click to expand...
Are you sure he was Orthodox and not Eastern Catholic? What bishop?
 
Hmmmm he may have been Eastern Catholic. I remember the term he used was “eastern.” He wore a crown instead of a miter and had bells on his vestments, if that helps. And he mentioned that his tradition came from the Church of Antioch. I also noticed that he had our parish priest say the part of the Mass: “Lord, remember your church, etc… together with John Paul our Pope…” which indicated to me that maybe he wasn;t willing to say it? Maybe i was just being over scrupulous.

So what’s the difference between an Eastern Catholic and a Roman Catholic? It didn’t come across like he answered to Rome.

I can’t remember his name, sorry. I think it might have been Nicholas…
 
OnlyAmbrose said:
Hmmmm he may have been Eastern Catholic. I remember the term he used was “eastern.” He wore a crown instead of a miter and had bells on his vestments, if that helps. And he mentioned that his tradition came from the Church of Antioch. I also noticed that he had our parish priest say the part of the Mass: “Lord, remember your church, etc… together with John Paul our Pope…”

So what’s the difference between an Eastern Catholic and a Roman Catholic? It didn’t come across like he answered to Rome.

I can’t remember his name, sorry. I think it might have been Nicholas…
Click to expand...
You don’t remember his surname? It may be in the bulletin or something.

Plenty of Catholic as well as Orthodox bishops of the Eastern persuasion wear crowns and not miters, so it doesn’t help much. And Eastern Catholics are quite rightly proud of their unique traditions and, although definitely in communion with the Pope of Rome, don’t always have the easiest of relations with the Latin church.

The Orthodox, on the other hand, are emphatically NOT in communion with Rome - it was only in the 1970s that Catholic and Orthodox churches removed their mutual anathemas that they’d placed upon each other a thousand years ago!

Did your parish priest say any other parts of the Mass? I seem to remember something about special permission being needed for clergy of one Rite to celebrate Mass/Liturgy in the church of another.
 
LilyM said:
You don’t remember his name?

Plenty of Catholic as well as Orthodox bishops of the Eastern persuasion wear crowns and not miters, so it doesn’t help much.

Did your parish priest say any other parts of the Mass? I seem to remember something about special permission being needed for clergy of one Rite to celebrate Mass/Liturgy in the church of another.
Click to expand...
I did some reading on this forum and it’s starting to seem like he’s Eastern Catholic. He said that they celebrated Mass differently, but apparently Eastern Catholics do celebrate the Mass differently than Roman Catholics.

No, that was the only part of the Mass that the priest said. The rest of it the bishop read out of the book, it was apparent that he wasn’t totally familiar with Roman Mass.

I’ll see if I can find out what his name was.
 
I agree with the posters above… this is almost certainly an Eastern Catholic bishop.

The Catholic Church is actually comprised of 23 individual Catholic Churches, all with their own traditions, liturgies, and regulations, and all in complete union with Rome. The Latin branch is so overwhelmingly large, however, that even most Catholics don’t know that these other branches exist. They include:

The Western (Latin) Liturgical Tradition:
  1. The Latin Catholic Church
    **
    The Alexandrian Liturgical Tradition:**
  2. The Coptic Catholic Church (patriarchate) - Egypt (1741)
  3. The Ethiopian Catholic Church (metropolia) - Ethiopia, Eritrea (1846)
    **
    The Antiochian (Antiochene or West-Syrian) Liturgical Tradition:**
  4. Maronite Church (patriarchate) - Lebanon, Cyprus, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Argentina, Brazil, United States, Australia, Canada, Mexico (never separated, union re-affirmed 1182)
  5. Syriac Catholic Church (patriarchate) - Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, United States and Canada, Venezuela (1781)
  6. Syro-Malankara Catholic Church (major archiepiscopate) - India, United States (1930)
The Armenian Liturgical Tradition:
7) Armenian Catholic Church (patriarchate) - Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Palestine, Ukraine, France, Greece, Latin America, Argentina, Romania, United States, Canada, Eastern Europe (1742)

The Chaldean or East Syrian liturgical tradition:
8) Chaldean Catholic Church (patriarchate) - Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, United States (1692)
9) Syro-Malabar Church (major archiepiscopate) - India, United **States (at latest, 1599)

The Byzantine (Constantinopolitan) liturgical tradition:**
10) Albanian Byzantine Catholic Church (apostolic administration - Albania (1628)
11) Belarusian Greek Catholic Church (no established hierarchy at present) - Belarus (1596)
12) Bulgarian Greek Catholic Church (apostolic exarchate) - Bulgaria (1861)
13) Byzantine Church of the Eparchy of Križevci (an eparchy and an apostolic exarchate) - Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro (1611)
14) Greek Byzantine Catholic Church (two apostolic exarchates) - Greece, Turkey (1829)
15) Hungarian Greek Catholic Church (an eparchy and an apostolic exarchate) - Hungary (1646)
16) Italo-Albanian Catholic Church (two eparchies and a territorial abbacy) - Italy (Never separated)
17) Macedonian Greek Catholic Church (an apostolic exarchate) - Republic of Macedonia (1918)
18) Melkite Greek Catholic Church (patriarchate) - Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Jerusalem, Brazil, United States, Canada, Mexico, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan, Kuwait, Australia, Venezuela, Argentina (1726)
19) Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic (major archiepiscopate) - Romania, United States (1697)
20) Russian Byzantine Catholic Church: (two apostolic exarchates, at present with no published hierarchs) - Russia, China (1905); currently about 20 parishes and communities scattered around the world, including five in Russia itself, answering to bishops of other jurisdictions
21) Ruthenian Catholic Church (a sui juris metropolia, an eparchy, and an apostolic exarchate) - United States, Ukraine, Czech Republic (1646)
22) Slovak Greek Catholic Church (metropolia): Slovak Republic, Canada (1646)
23) Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (major archiepiscopate) - Ukraine, Poland, United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Germany and Scandinavia, France, Brazil, Argentina (1595)

Virtually all of the “Eastern” Catholic Churches are groups from the various Orthodox Churches which have since reunified (with the exception of the Maronites and the Italo-Albanians, which have always been in union).
 
Alrighty then, thanks for the information 🙂 You’re right, I wasn’t even aware that Eastern Catholics existed, I thought it was synonymous with Eastern Orthodox, and I certainly knew that they aren’t in total communion with Rome.
 
You learn something new every day round here 🙂

So question being, since Eastern Catholics indisputably have valid sacraments, is it licit as well as valid for a Latin Rite Catholic to be confirmed by an Eastern bishop?
 
It would certainly be valid, but I’m not sure if it would be licit or not. I certainly do not think it’s appropriate for an Eastern bishop to use a Latin mass altar as a soap box to proclaim his disapproval of Latin customs! How would Eastern Catholics react if a Latin bishop showed up in their parish and, half-way through the liturgy, suddenly said “You guys are inferior Catholics because you lack statues.”
 
twf said:
It would certainly be valid, but I’m not sure if it would be licit or not. I certainly do not think it’s appropriate for an Eastern bishop to use a Latin mass altar as a soap box to proclaim his disapproval of Latin customs! How would Eastern Catholics react if a Latin bishop showed up in their parish and, half-way through the liturgy, suddenly said “You guys are inferior Catholics because you lack statues.”
Click to expand...
Couldn’t say that in a Maronite church - least not the one I’ve been to, it has statues (and a crucifix if I remember rightly)
 
twf said:
It would certainly be valid, but I’m not sure if it would be licit or not. I certainly do not think it’s appropriate for an Eastern bishop to use a Latin mass altar as a soap box to proclaim his disapproval of Latin customs! How would Eastern Catholics react if a Latin bishop showed up in their parish and, half-way through the liturgy, suddenly said “You guys are inferior Catholics because you lack statues.”
Click to expand...
To be fair, from what the original poster said, it seems that the Eastern bishop was simply pointing out differences in custom, NOT criticizing the Latin practice.
 
LilyM said:
Couldn’t say that in a Maronite church - least not the one I’ve been to, it has statues (and a crucifix if I remember rightly)
Click to expand...
This is true of the Maronite parish that I’ve been to as well, but Latinizations are slowly trying to be eliminated in the Eastern Churches. There was a time when the Latin Church tried to force it’s customs upon all the other branches, as if their customs were inferior. That did a lot of damage to their traditions, and it scared many Orthodox groups off of reunification. So, the Eastern Churches are being encouraged to rediscover their original traditions and root out some of the Latinizations. For example, the Stations of the Cross are a Latin tradition, so they shouldn’t really be displayed in a proper Eastern Catholic Church (although they are not necessarily offensive to most). Instead, an emphasis on iconography should be encouraged.
 
Rolltide said:
This is true of the Maronite parish that I’ve been to as well, but Latinizations are slowly trying to be eliminated in the Eastern Churches. There was a time when the Latin Church tried to force it’s customs upon all the other branches, as if their customs were inferior. That did a lot of damage to their traditions, and it scared many Orthodox groups off of reunification. So, the Eastern Churches are being encouraged to rediscover their original traditions and root out some of the Latinizations. For example, the Stations of the Cross are a Latin tradition, so they shouldn’t really be displayed in a proper Eastern Catholic Church (although they are not necessarily offensive to most). Instead, an emphasis on iconography should be encouraged.
Click to expand...
Indeed, I love the tradition of icon-writing and would hate to see statues replace icons (not that I don’t love some statues as well)
 
His Grace Nicholas Samra is a retired Bishop of the Church of Antioch, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

I have been privileged to meet His Grace Bishop Nicholas, a dynamic and approchable hierarach, and I’m quite sorry that he’s past retirement age. The church as a whole needs at least 1000 bishops like him!
 
It would not have been an orthodox bishop at all, because no Orthodox bishop would have vested to participate in your church’s liturgical rites.

That said, YES. The confirmations would have been valid anyway.

Orthodox Chrismations are automatically valid per the Vatican. [BTW, according to Orthodox understanding there is only valid and not-valid. No such idea as valid but illicit.]

There is no way a visiting Catholic bishop, of any rite, will be doing this illicitly in any other Catholic diocese, if he has the permission of the local bishop. It is the same as a visiting latin bishop, which is very very common. It is always licit. The fact that people are confused about it or even consider the possibility of that speaks volumes on more than one level.

Michael
 
OnlyAmbrose said:
Hi everyone,

I’m a Roman Catholic, I had an interesting experience tonight. I went to Mass at a small parish I volunteer at, and it was a Confirmation Mass. My bishop, Todd Brown, apparently couldn’t make it, so he asked his friend, an Eastern Orthodox bishop, to say Mass and administer the sacrament of Confirmation.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this Confirmation was valid. The Mass was said in the typical Roman way, and Confirmation went like normal, but… the bishop wasn’t Roman Catholic!

I was just curious if this is ok. The bishop was certainly a smart man and had a good sense of humor. My only real complaint is that he was giving confirmation to Roman Catholics even though he overtly stated that he disagreed with the practice of doing Confirmation separate from baptism. I think the phrase he used was “In the eastern Church, we don’t believe that you can give God in pieces, so we do Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist all at the same time.”
Click to expand...
Hmmm…Would this have been St. Mary by the Sea? If so, the bishop was, indeed, an Eastern Catholic (Melkite) bishop. Bishop Nicholas Samra is helping Bishop Brown with confirmations since Bishop Jamie Soto is no longer available to help.

Bishop Nicholas was at my Latin Rite parish (St. Joseph, Placentia) earlier in the day to do confirmations. Since he is one of my Melkite bishops (I’m a bi-ritual deacon) I know Bishop Nicholas fairly well and can assure you that he is Catholic.

Deacon Ed
 
Hesychios said:
The fact that people are confused about it or even consider the possibility of that speaks volumes on more than one level.

Michael
Click to expand...
What volumes would those be? The OP is a high school student Michael.
 
OnlyAmbrose said:
I also noticed that he had our parish priest say the part of the Mass: “Lord, remember your church, etc… together with John Paul our Pope…” which indicated to me that maybe he wasn;t willing to say it? Maybe i was just being over scrupulous.
Click to expand...
Hello OnlyAmbrose,

I can only hope that this experience moves you to learn more about the Eastern Catholic Churches! If there are any parishes in your area, you and your family should go to a liturgy.

In response to this part of your post. First, it is not unusual for priests concelebrating Mass in the Latin Rite to split up the parts. I have seen it several times. Second, in the Divine Liturgy (i.e. what is called Mass in the Latin rite) the Pope is prayed for just as he is in the Latin rite when you pray for your local bishop(s). So there was no reluctance on the part of the the Bishop you saw. Don’t worry about seeming overly scrupulous, I think that the experience was just so new to you, that you were only trying to make sense of it.

Michael took the words right out of my mouth so to speak. There is absolutely no way that and Eastern Orthodox bishop would be doing the confirmation - unless of course everyone was converting. 😉

Many priests are in fact bi-ritual. That is that they have the faculties (I think that is the right word) to say both the Novus Ordo and the Liturgy of St, John Chrysostom, for example. It does not therefore seem entirely strange to me that a Latin Bishop could ask an Eastern Bishop to do the confimations in his diocese. This is the first I have heard of it.

As for the Bishops comment on the difference in traditions. I don’t think that many Latin Catholics are aware of the Eastern Rites, and this was a perfect opportunity for him to talk about these rites - plus I think he wanted to explain who he was. I grew up in the Latin Rite in North East Pennsylvania - a place chock full of Eastern Catholic Parishes - but had no idea of who they were until I was a senior in college! I had even been past a parish hundreds of times - that I new to be Catholic from the signs, but did not know what “Byzantine” entailed. I vaguely remember asking my Dad once. and He said that they were Catholic, but different. If there was anymore to what he said, I do not remember. He went with me to liturgy there many years later. Since I have moved home from graduate school, it is where I go for liturgy. (BTW, I am one of the Catholics you will see in this forum who translated Rites/sui iuris Churches.)

Okay, so I wondered off on this post.

God Bless,
Rosemary
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top