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flameburns623
Guest
Has anyone ever heard of this organization? Is it Eastern Orthodox? Or even validly Catholic?
mishqana.org/en/index.php
Thanks!
mishqana.org/en/index.php
Thanks!
- Status
M
Marie
Guest
From what I can tell by googling,no, it is not Catholic.
St Thomas Christian Church History
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Friar_David_O.Carm
Guest
Well I did a sort search of the site you have linked in your post and found a link on the Clergy Online Resource Center part of the site.
The document is titled Relationship with the Vatican and the Phanar.
mishqana.org/en/clergyresources/article_vaticanandphanar.php
If you go there and read it you will see that they are not in communion with either Rome or the Orthodox.
They are what the Orthodox call a vagante or non-canonical group.
The document is titled Relationship with the Vatican and the Phanar.
mishqana.org/en/clergyresources/article_vaticanandphanar.php
If you go there and read it you will see that they are not in communion with either Rome or the Orthodox.
They are what the Orthodox call a vagante or non-canonical group.
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Hesychios
Guest
Well.
One can’t argue with their website development, it’s pretty good!
That should teach us a lesson, the internet has a way of leveling the playing field, the local dollar store can look as prestigious and sophisticated as Sears if they put enough effort into their website.
This group might have only one or two people behind it, but it looks like a large sophisticated organization, compared to the sites of some legitimate Catholic and Orthodox churches I have seen.
One can’t argue with their website development, it’s pretty good!
That should teach us a lesson, the internet has a way of leveling the playing field, the local dollar store can look as prestigious and sophisticated as Sears if they put enough effort into their website.
This group might have only one or two people behind it, but it looks like a large sophisticated organization, compared to the sites of some legitimate Catholic and Orthodox churches I have seen.
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flameburns623
Guest
Thanks for all of the replies.
My impression was that they were a schism or splinter of the Eastern Orthodox, with perhaps a few thousands of members worldwide. I could find nothing about them apart from their own website, which is why I took the time to post the question here. One gets the impression from parts of their website that they would be better known in other parts of the world–specifically the Middle East–than they are in the West. I doubted they were Eastern Rite Catholics, but still hoped someone would know more about them than I could deduce from a once-over of their websites.
Are ‘Vagante’ Orthodox deemed schismatic or outright heretical? This group lays heavy emphasis upon having a ‘valid succession’. Could someone define ‘Vagante’ Orthodox more fully? Thanks!
My impression was that they were a schism or splinter of the Eastern Orthodox, with perhaps a few thousands of members worldwide. I could find nothing about them apart from their own website, which is why I took the time to post the question here. One gets the impression from parts of their website that they would be better known in other parts of the world–specifically the Middle East–than they are in the West. I doubted they were Eastern Rite Catholics, but still hoped someone would know more about them than I could deduce from a once-over of their websites.
Are ‘Vagante’ Orthodox deemed schismatic or outright heretical? This group lays heavy emphasis upon having a ‘valid succession’. Could someone define ‘Vagante’ Orthodox more fully? Thanks!
H
Hesychios
Guest
Yes, the phenomena is known in the Orthodox east as well as the west, but I feel it is an western problem mostly. There are definately some notorious examples of eastern bishops going vagante, with westerners eagerly buying orders from them.
But Orthodox churches (as far as I know) don’t put the same emphasis on the “lines” of Apostolic succession that Westerners would. That kind of certification has less meaning without a flock. The need to bring the succession to our attention for legitimacy hints at a western origin for this group.
I am sure you know most of what follows, but I will repeat it for some of the curious readers who might not have encountered this before. We need to remember that there have always been vagante bishops in history due to the politics of Christian countries form the earliest days, in the East and the West.
Kings and princes would interfere with local churches and forcibly remove bishops, especially from newly conquered cities where the bishops were somehow connected with the “old” regime.
One would hope that they would just retire quietly to some monastery somewhere, unfortunately that didn’t always happen. Some were murdered, some fled for refuge to a friendly court and hoped to get reappointed elsewhere. This happened a lot in the East as well as the West.
In more modern times most of the vagantes are a result of the Old Catholic movement. Anglo-Catholics have also been attracted to the Old Catholic orders in the past.
Some Old Catholic bishops tried to set up parallel church structures by ordaining laypersons to become priests, and consecrating some legitimately ordained priests (Roman or Anglican) to become bishops. The efforts to spirit away large numbers of laypeople into their new church organizations were largely unsuccessful. One somewhat successful Old Catholic effort was the Polish National Catholic church, but that group started from the parish level first, with discontented laypeople/parishioners who were ready for a new bishop anyway, and supplied their own candidates. The PNC therefore represents a genuine Old Catholic schism.
The vagante bishops would always get a stipend for performing the consecration, but they would have very little control over what these individuals would do next. In contrast to a bishop with a regular diocese who could assign a new priest to a real parish full of real parishioners and retain control of the property. The stipend might be the only income these vagante bishops and priests could look forward to, and could explain why there were so many bishops eventually.
These guys were selling franchises. The vagantes just did not have any “livings” to dispense, so the new priests and bishops would be more like missionaries, and be responsible for gathering their own flock. Some of these individuals became very creative building a following by tolerating all manner of unorthodox behavior and belief, and some went for “exotic” ritual, like incorporating Eastern liturgical practices and vestments.
I think that might be what we are seeing here, people can buy an ordination into a tradition they were not born into and claim to be a continuation of that church, only independant, while they are just inventing their new church as they go. This group doesn’t represent any unique schism that I am aware of.
There are many vagantes that will claim to have Orthodox orders, or an even more exotic Oriental Orthodox tradition, but they are not any more likely to have been raised in the tradition than any one of us on this message board.
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GrzeszDeL
Guest
Actually, I gather from their statement about ecumenical councils that they are in communion with the Assyrian Church of the East, not the Eastern Orthodox. That said, I suspect that Hesychios is right when he looks for their roots in some western church. If nothing else, look at the way that they are dressed (yes, you too can be a bishop if you just know the right tailor…).
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flameburns623
Guest
Actually I had never heard of ‘vagante Orthodox’ except when it was mentioned in this thread.
Nor had I heard of the Latin term for whatever the banned topic is for these forums until I’d come to these forums. Since that topic couldn’t be discussed here I had to ‘google’ it to figure out what it was.
Thanks for the reply, however. At least I have a better idea of what the word means.
Nor had I heard of the Latin term for whatever the banned topic is for these forums until I’d come to these forums. Since that topic couldn’t be discussed here I had to ‘google’ it to figure out what it was.
Thanks for the reply, however. At least I have a better idea of what the word means.
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flameburns623
Guest
What is the signficance of accepting only two Ecumenical Councils? And how is the Assyrian Church of the East distinguished from either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox? Thanks!
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Irish_Melkite
Guest
I don’t know where to begin with these folks.
The Nasrani Patriarchate of Jerusalem has been around for a while, although it has gone through name changes from time to time. If one has the patience to search out its constituent and subsidiary “jurisdictions”, one can see its “diversity” of belief systems. I’ll try and come back to that.
Their website (and most of the other websites associated with them), as someone observed, is very professionally done and I note that they have become ever more sophisticated. For someone like myself, who does further searches based on names, titles, text, etc that appear on a site, a common time-saving practice (and one that lessens the likelihood of transcription errors) is to copy text and immediately paste it into the box on the search engine that I always have at the ready. These folks have copy-protected their sites, so that one cannot copy and paste from them - something most frequently encountered on proprietary sites; nothing wrong with doing it, but it makes it difficult (time consuming) to further research them. Not that one would find much since they are referenced nowhere on the web except on their own and related sites.
The increased sophistication extends also to content; in an earlier edition of the website, there was more biographical info on HH Catholicos Patriarch Mar Isagelos Michai (Yaza). Now, it reads
This Church is beyond the realm of what are sometimes termed “Non-canonical Churches” (or “Churches of Irregular Status”) by the Eastern Orthodox, styling that is ordinarily applied on the basis of a Church neither being being recognized as autocephalous or autonomous by competent Orthodox authority nor under the omophor of the Ecumenical Patriarch. The common factor to all the Churches ordinarily described as such is that they are essentially mainstream denominations (although they span a continuum that runs the gamut from Old Believers through Old Calendarists to ROCOR and Macedonian Orthodox) and espouse defined beliefs that are consistent with historical Orthodoxy.
This group also has neither any affiliation with or relationship to any of the Oriental Orthodox nor to the Ancient (Assyrian) Church of the East, its separated counterpart, the Catholicosate of the East (Malankara Orthodox Church), or its Catholic counterpart, the Chaldean Catholic Church sui iuris, despite its claim of apostolic succession from the Assyrians. The absence of any connection is readily verifiable by checking the websites of any of those Churches.
(continued)
The Nasrani Patriarchate of Jerusalem has been around for a while, although it has gone through name changes from time to time. If one has the patience to search out its constituent and subsidiary “jurisdictions”, one can see its “diversity” of belief systems. I’ll try and come back to that.
Their website (and most of the other websites associated with them), as someone observed, is very professionally done and I note that they have become ever more sophisticated. For someone like myself, who does further searches based on names, titles, text, etc that appear on a site, a common time-saving practice (and one that lessens the likelihood of transcription errors) is to copy text and immediately paste it into the box on the search engine that I always have at the ready. These folks have copy-protected their sites, so that one cannot copy and paste from them - something most frequently encountered on proprietary sites; nothing wrong with doing it, but it makes it difficult (time consuming) to further research them. Not that one would find much since they are referenced nowhere on the web except on their own and related sites.
The increased sophistication extends also to content; in an earlier edition of the website, there was more biographical info on HH Catholicos Patriarch Mar Isagelos Michai (Yaza). Now, it reads
As you may deduce from the opening sentence, HH appears to not yet have been a presbyter when consecrated as Catholicos Patriarch. As I recollect, this and his then-age in 1991 (26) was much more apparent in the earlier version of his bio. Admittedly, elevation to such an office at a young age is not unheard of - Mar Shimun XXIII of blessed memory, Catholicos & Patriarch of the Ancient Church of the East, was only 12 when elected to office (it was hereditary in his family) and was advanced through the various orders of the presbyterate and episcopacy to permit his consecration in 1920. However, these days it is more likely to raise eyebrows and reduce credibility.
This Church is beyond the realm of what are sometimes termed “Non-canonical Churches” (or “Churches of Irregular Status”) by the Eastern Orthodox, styling that is ordinarily applied on the basis of a Church neither being being recognized as autocephalous or autonomous by competent Orthodox authority nor under the omophor of the Ecumenical Patriarch. The common factor to all the Churches ordinarily described as such is that they are essentially mainstream denominations (although they span a continuum that runs the gamut from Old Believers through Old Calendarists to ROCOR and Macedonian Orthodox) and espouse defined beliefs that are consistent with historical Orthodoxy.
This group also has neither any affiliation with or relationship to any of the Oriental Orthodox nor to the Ancient (Assyrian) Church of the East, its separated counterpart, the Catholicosate of the East (Malankara Orthodox Church), or its Catholic counterpart, the Chaldean Catholic Church sui iuris, despite its claim of apostolic succession from the Assyrians. The absence of any connection is readily verifiable by checking the websites of any of those Churches.
(continued)
I
Irish_Melkite
Guest
It is, as David and Michael have suggested, a vagante church, albeit more elaborate than most such. While vagantebishops were historically a Catholic-oriented phenomenon, sometime in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the East and the Orient beckoned and there was a rush, led by folks like Father (later “Bishop” and then “Patriarch”) Joseph Renee Vilatte, to seek episcopal orders through disaffected actual hierarchs (and a few self-styled hierarchs) from those traditions. This, combined with some renegade Easterners on these shores, notably Abdullah Aftimios Ofiesh (of the Syrian Orthodox) and Antoine Joseph Aneed (of the Melkite Catholics), assured that the East could and would have its own vagante episcopi. Whether it was the Eastern/Oriental mystery, mysticism, ceremony, titles, vesture, or what, that brought about this interest, we’ll never know. On the other side, I suspect that actually being given recognition as important by someone and the opportunity to export their Churches to the West played parts in the willingness of consecrating hierarchs to lay hands on those who went East seeking episcopal ordination.
The site references a Portuguese-Indian Rite. In truth, the influence of the Latin Catholic Portuguese missioners on the various Indian Rites (Malabarese and Malankarese), which invariably resulted in the introduction of latinizations, were hostilely received and it was certainly never undertaken to create a Rite that would perpetuate these in a named liturgical form.
The next historical event appears to be the relocation to Portugal and the creation of the Iberian Orthodox Church, at which point they make reference to continuing correspondence with Mar Simon XXIII, whose legitimate successor and the current Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church is Mar Dinkus IV.
(continued)
The site references a Portuguese-Indian Rite. In truth, the influence of the Latin Catholic Portuguese missioners on the various Indian Rites (Malabarese and Malankarese), which invariably resulted in the introduction of latinizations, were hostilely received and it was certainly never undertaken to create a Rite that would perpetuate these in a named liturgical form.
The next historical event appears to be the relocation to Portugal and the creation of the Iberian Orthodox Church, at which point they make reference to continuing correspondence with Mar Simon XXIII, whose legitimate successor and the current Catholicos-Patriarch of the Assyrian Church is Mar Dinkus IV.
(continued)
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Irish_Melkite
Guest
I have been trying to figure out their apostolic succession, which is a bit more arcane than many of the vagante and finally located, on one of their subsidiary sites, a succession which includes reference to Joseph René Vilatte, which I had suspected I might find. According to it, Mar Dalin III was elevated to the episcopacy on 9/25/1921 by Vilatte; yet, most sources indicate that Vilatte retired in 1920 and performed only a single episcopal function after that date, on 9/21/1921, when he ordained (later Archbishop) Wallace David de Ortega Maxey.
Whether their apostolic succession has any validity is a question which has 2 answers - Orthodox and Catholic. Under the Orthodox view, there is unquestionably no true apostolic succession, since the Orthodox rely very much on the canonically legal status of the hierarchs conferring the orders.
Yet, it can only be answered from a Catholic viewpoint with in-depth research of primary source documents, since Catholics rely much more on the validity of the orders of hierarch and the form of the sacramental conferral. This represents a total reversal of the usual Orthodox and Catholic ways of looking at things, since legalistic thinking is ordinarily much more a hallmark of the Western Church than her Eastern Sister.
The Orthodox do not make the distinction between validity and licity that Catholics do. A bishop with valid orders cannot validly ordain a woman under the precepts of either Church. That he did so would not invalidate his subsequent ordination of a man, according to proper form, in the view of the Catholic Church; although such would be illicit, since the bishop would then be in a state of excommunication. In the Orthodox Communion, the subsequent ordination would be invalid, since the bishop’s excommunicated, incurred by the earlier act, would preclude him validly performing any episcopal function.
The schismatic Jacobite Church which accorded episcopal orders to Vilatte, among others, would not pass muster in an Orthodox review of the validity of orders accorded by it. The same certainty cannot be pronounced with regard to the Catholic stance, which would require an in-depth review of primary source documents. In fact, there have been suggestions that the Church has, at least unofficially, acknowledged the validity of Vilatte’s presbyteral and episcopal orders, potentially according validity to some of his episcopal actions.
Like the Church of Antioch-Malabar Rite, this entity, which used to call itself the Patriarchate of Jerusalem has essentially tried to wrap itself in a traditions that aren’t its own, whether because those who adhere to it actually believe that they are fulfilling a genuine spiritual purpose or to mislead folks, we’ll likely never know. None of the entities with which they are in communion are mainstream Catholic or Orthodox Churches. On one of their sites, there are photos of the Pope, the Patriarchs of both the Ancient Church of the East and its counterpart Chaldean Catholic Church, as well as Catholicos-Patriarch Michai, clearly suggesting ties that aren’t there. I take that as a bad sign with regard to their intentions.
Many years,
Neil
Whether their apostolic succession has any validity is a question which has 2 answers - Orthodox and Catholic. Under the Orthodox view, there is unquestionably no true apostolic succession, since the Orthodox rely very much on the canonically legal status of the hierarchs conferring the orders.
Yet, it can only be answered from a Catholic viewpoint with in-depth research of primary source documents, since Catholics rely much more on the validity of the orders of hierarch and the form of the sacramental conferral. This represents a total reversal of the usual Orthodox and Catholic ways of looking at things, since legalistic thinking is ordinarily much more a hallmark of the Western Church than her Eastern Sister.
The Orthodox do not make the distinction between validity and licity that Catholics do. A bishop with valid orders cannot validly ordain a woman under the precepts of either Church. That he did so would not invalidate his subsequent ordination of a man, according to proper form, in the view of the Catholic Church; although such would be illicit, since the bishop would then be in a state of excommunication. In the Orthodox Communion, the subsequent ordination would be invalid, since the bishop’s excommunicated, incurred by the earlier act, would preclude him validly performing any episcopal function.
The schismatic Jacobite Church which accorded episcopal orders to Vilatte, among others, would not pass muster in an Orthodox review of the validity of orders accorded by it. The same certainty cannot be pronounced with regard to the Catholic stance, which would require an in-depth review of primary source documents. In fact, there have been suggestions that the Church has, at least unofficially, acknowledged the validity of Vilatte’s presbyteral and episcopal orders, potentially according validity to some of his episcopal actions.
Like the Church of Antioch-Malabar Rite, this entity, which used to call itself the Patriarchate of Jerusalem has essentially tried to wrap itself in a traditions that aren’t its own, whether because those who adhere to it actually believe that they are fulfilling a genuine spiritual purpose or to mislead folks, we’ll likely never know. None of the entities with which they are in communion are mainstream Catholic or Orthodox Churches. On one of their sites, there are photos of the Pope, the Patriarchs of both the Ancient Church of the East and its counterpart Chaldean Catholic Church, as well as Catholicos-Patriarch Michai, clearly suggesting ties that aren’t there. I take that as a bad sign with regard to their intentions.
Many years,
Neil
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flameburns623
Guest
Thanks IrishMelkite. A very thorough reply. Highly appreciated.
J
Joe_Monahan
Guest
bump
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