State of Vocations of the Eastern Rite Churches in North America

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How are the Eastern Rite churches that have expressions in North American doing on vocations. I.e., are they doing well recruiting Priests and other Religious?
 
Yeoman,

Our Eparchy in San Diego, for Chaldean and Assyrian Catholics, is doing quite well on vocations.

For men, we have the Seminary of Mar Abba the Great, and for women, we have the Workers of the Vineyard. Here is a link to some info:

kaldu.org/joomla/index.php/news/496

God bless,

Rony
 
I know some of the seminarians from the college seminary in Chicago and two of them (actually the two I know the best) are members of the Syro-Malabar Church.
 
The UGCC runs the Metropolitan Sheptytsky Institute in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is attached to a seminary. Their intention is to make it into a par excellance Seminary/Institute (so its not only for would-be clergy but also for lay people wanting to study theology) for Eastern Catholicism in North America. They also work closely with notable Orthodox theologians and invite them as speakers. A few notables are Fr. John Behr (Dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in NY), Fr. Thomas Hopko (Dean-emeritus of the same seminary), Frederica Matthews Greene (notable female contemporary Orthodox theologian/writer).
 
We have four fourth year seminarians in the Ruthenian Church (USA), we just graduated for (all are awaiting ordination). We have five incoming in the fall at this point - but I think three of those are Melkite?

We have some 200 parishes. In my Eparchy (Phoenix) we have 19 parishes. All the graduates this year were from our Eparchy. I guess we’re doing okay put here - back East we have 70, 80 year old priests serving multiple parishes.

I visited the seminary in March and stayed there for a weekend - quite a great bunch of guys.
 
WetCatechumen said:
We have four fourth year seminarians in the Ruthenian Church (USA), we just graduated for (all are awaiting ordination). We have five incoming in the fall at this point - but I think three of those are Melkite?

We have some 200 parishes. In my Eparchy (Phoenix) we have 19 parishes. All the graduates this year were from our Eparchy. I guess we’re doing okay put here - back East we have 70, 80 year old priests serving multiple parishes.

I visited the seminary in March and stayed there for a weekend - quite a great bunch of guys.
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In addition, we get some additional loaner priests from the Old Countries. EG: Rev. Fr. Milan Kasperek. (Whom we’re borrowing for a month while Fr. James is in Rome. His wife didn’t come with, as far as I can tell.)

(We also may be getting a deacon from the Melkites - he moved to Anchorage. Fr. Deacon Joseph.)

(I’m in a parish of the Eparchy of Phoenix as well.)
 
Aramis said:
In addition, we get some additional loaner priests from the Old Countries. EG: Rev. Fr. Milan Kasperek. (Whom we’re borrowing for a month while Fr. James is in Rome. His wife didn’t come with, as far as I can tell.)

(We also may be getting a deacon from the Melkites - he moved to Anchorage. Fr. Deacon Joseph.)

(I’m in a parish of the Eparchy of Phoenix as well.)
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I had presumed you were at Father James’ parish because you’re from Alaska. I met him at the clergy conference last June. Father Francis from Sacramento is from Slovakia - he has five daughters, I think he said. He was the only permanent loaner priest I’d met. We have a Roman Franciscan with bi-ritual faculties while we find someone to replace Father Kurt (who is now the rector of SS. Cyril and Methodius). We’re hoping it’s our permanent deacon, Father Deacon Brian, but the word on fhe street is that Rome told Metropolitan William that they’re unhappy about us ordaining more married men, so his ordination and Father Deacon Michael’s are up in the air.

Actually, sorry, one of the graduates is from Passaic. We still have a fourth year from St. John Chrysostom in Seattle.
 
Aramis said:
In addition, we get some additional loaner priests from the Old Countries. EG: Rev. Fr. Milan Kasperek. (Whom we’re borrowing for a month while Fr. James is in Rome. His wife didn’t come with, as far as I can tell.)

(We also may be getting a deacon from the Melkites - he moved to Anchorage. Fr. Deacon Joseph.)

(I’m in a parish of the Eparchy of Phoenix as well.)
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Excuse my ignorance, but I’m surprsed, when I probably shouldn’t be, about a deacon from one branch of the Eastern Rites being provided to another. In terms of their duties, is that only a minor problem, if any sort of problem at all?
 
WetCatechumen said:
I had presumed you were at Father James’ parish because you’re from Alaska. I met him at the clergy conference last June. Father Francis from Sacramento is from Slovakia - he has five daughters, I think he said. He was the only permanent loaner priest I’d met. We have a Roman Franciscan with bi-ritual faculties while we find someone to replace Father Kurt (who is now the rector of SS. Cyril and Methodius). We’re hoping it’s our permanent deacon, Father Deacon Brian, but the word on fhe street is that Rome told Metropolitan William that they’re unhappy about us ordaining more married men, so his ordination and Father Deacon Michael’s are up in the air.

Actually, sorry, one of the graduates is from Passaic. We still have a fourth year from St. John Chrysostom in Seattle.
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Are your permanent Deacons from within the parish, or are they assigned as we’d expect with Priests?
 
Yeoman said:
Excuse my ignorance, but I’m surprsed, when I probably shouldn’t be, about a deacon from one branch of the Eastern Rites being provided to another. In terms of their duties, is that only a minor problem, if any sort of problem at all?
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Well, Father Deacon Joseph has not yet served as deacon here. He’s been here a couple weeks; we don’t know if he will be serving, or is retired. Or, possibly both. He moved up to be near his children… He has a little learning to do if he does, because there are some minor (and not quite so minor) differences between Melkite and Ruthenian rubrics for the DL. Plus we shorten one of the litanies to one versicle, the response, and then the priest’s prayer. But Fr. Deacon Stephen is spending a good bit of time chatting with him.

With Rev. Fr. James on educational sabbatical for a month, we’ve Rev. Father Milan for the duration. He’s from Slovakia - a different church sui iuris of the same recension. Being the same recension, but a different linguistic use, the differences are FAR fewer. Still, minor differences.
 
Yeoman said:
How are the Eastern Rite churches that have expressions in North American doing on vocations. I.e., are they doing well recruiting Priests and other Religious?
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depends on the Church/jurisdiction in question

Romanians are doing pretty good, Ukrainians are too but a lot are imported from Ukraine where there are a ton of vocations (and in spite of that there is still a shortage in Ukraine, many priests there have 2 or 3 parishes to take care of, the Ukrainian priest by me came here because he could no longer handle the schedule of having 3 parishes and a family to take care of on top of that)

Byzantines (aka the Ruthenians) from my understanding are having a harder time
 
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